Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the effects of the pandemic and the restrictions put in place to control the spread of COVID-19 on children. A lot of concerns are raised about the impact of increasing child poverty, lack of access to education, and reduced opportunities for socialising. Fears are expressed for the long-term effects on children’s health, development, educational achievements, mental health and lifelong potential. As one policymaker recently put it: this generation will forever be known as the COVID-generation.
Continue reading “It Is Not Just the ‘COVID-generation’”Tag: #ACEs
Dealing with Traumatised Teenagers
As mentioned in the previous blog (HERE) last month, I attended the online conference: Trauma Informed Practice Using Biopsychosocial Models to Promote Recovery organised by ICTC and IRCT. In this blog, I want to mention the presentation given by Jane Herd, who shared her experiences working with ‘troubled’ teenagers. I feel what she said was very important because particularly when it comes to teenagers there is a tendency to blame all ‘misbehaviour’ to their age and ‘unwillingness’ to control themselves. Pointing out the ways in which traumatised teenagers are quite simply unable to self-regulate, will hopefully lead to more understanding.
Continue reading “Dealing with Traumatised Teenagers”Diverse Outcomes After Trauma
Last month, I attended the online conference: Trauma Informed Practice Using Biopsychosocial Models to Promote Recovery organised by ICTC and IRCT. It was, once again, a very interesting and useful event, that provided much food for thought. In this blog, I want to address some of the points brought up by Matt Woolgar, one of the speakers, and next week I will write about Jane Herd’s contribution.
Continue reading “Diverse Outcomes After Trauma”Life Expectancy of Institutionalised Children
During one of the reflective sessions at the DI conference, in Sofia last month, one of the participants mentioned that we need to give more thought to preparing young people who are leaving care. Because, he said, it is all well and good that we take care of them for up to 18 years, but then they still have 50-60 years left to live. While I agree completely with him that more needs to be done in the area of after care for young adults who have grown up in institutions or in other forms of care, I was much more struck by another element of what he said.
Continue reading “Life Expectancy of Institutionalised Children”Understanding ACEs
Recently, I had the opportunity to watch the documentary ‘Resilience: the biology of stress and the science of hope.’, made in 2016. It was a very powerful experience. And it had a message that needs to be spread, so I will share some of it in this blog.
Continue reading “Understanding ACEs”Be Aware of Your Language
When Sylvia Duncan presented her story of a partnership that had an 83% success rate with helping children who were considered ‘impossible to place’, after a series of placement breakdowns, develop to a point where they were able to put into a longterm family placement, she brought up an important point. She mentioned that they made a point of not promising the children that they would be able to stay with a family longterm after the programme or that they would get a ‘forever family’ (as adoption families are often referred to). They only made them a promise that they knew was within their ability to keep: that there would be no more sudden placement changes without preparation.
Continue reading “Be Aware of Your Language”