Designing Trauma Informed Services for Children and Families

WJS Canada is pleased to be bringing
Dr. Bruce Perry, of the ChildTrauma Academy
to Burnaby, BC to present this workshop.
Workshop Description:
The development of a young child is profoundly influenced by experience.  Experiences – good and bad - shape the organization of the brain. The ultimate effect is to impact emotional, social, cognitive and physiological functioning.  Insights into this process come from understanding brain development.
Both trauma and neglect, the absence of essential… Show more developmental experiences required to express a fundamental potential of a child, are pervasive problems in our culture. Various forms of neglect are possible and include splinter neglect, total global neglect and emotional or relational neglect. Chaos, threat and abnormal patterns of emotional, social, cognitive and physical interactions with young children lead to an array of brain-related problems.
This presentation will review clinical work and research that can help us better understand developmen tal trauma, neglect and the relational problems that arise from neglect and threat. Â An overview will be provided that suggests new directions for clinical practice, program development and policy.
Â
Workshop Objectives:
To understand the effects of trauma and neglect from a neurodevelopmental perspective
To Identify signs and symptoms of trauma and neglect in young children.Â
To Learn new strategies for care, program development, and policy as related to developmental trauma.
For more information, contact the WJS Training Division at 604-465-5515 x 116 or by email to wjstraining@wjscanada.com
Â
Dr. Perry is the Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, a not-for-profit organization based in Houston, TX (www.ChildTrauma.org), and adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. He serves as the inaugural Senior Fellow of the Berry Street Childhood Institute, an Australian based center of excellence focusing on the translation of theory into practice to improve the lives of children (www.berrystreet.org.au).
Dr. Perry is the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Over the last thirty years, Dr. Perry has been an active teacher, clinician and researcher in children's mental health and the neurosciences holding a variety of academic positions.
Dr. Perry was on the faculty of the Departments of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago School of Medicine from 1988 - 1991. From 1992 - 2001, Dr. Perry served as the Trammell Research Professor of Child Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. During this time, Dr. Perry Also was Chief of Psychiatry for Texas Children's Hospital and Vice-Chairman for Research within the Department of Psychiatry. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Perry served as the Medical Director for Provincial Programs in Children's Mental health for the Alberta Mental health Board. he continues to consult with the government of Alberta on children's issues and serves as a founding member of the Premier's Council of Alberta's Promise.
Dr Perry has conducted both basic neuroscience and clinical research. His neuroscience research has examined the effects of prenatal drug exposure on brain development, the neurobiology of human neuropsychiatric disorders, the neurophysiology of traumatic life events and basic mechanisms related to the development of neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. His clinical research and practice has focused on high-risk children. This work has examined the cognitive, behavioural, emotional, social and physiological effects of neglect and trauma in children, adolescents and adults. This work has been instrumental in describing how childhood experiences, including neglect and traumatic stress, change the biology of the brain – and, thereby, the health of the child.
His clinical research over the last 10 years has been focused on integrating emerging principles of developmental neuroscience int clinical practise. This work has resulted in the development of innovative clinical practises and programs working with maltreated and traumatized children, most prominently the Neurosequential Model©, a developmentally sensitive neorobiology-informed approach to clinical work (NMT), education (NME) and caregiving (NMC). This clinical approach to problem solving has been integrated into the programs at dozens of large public and nonprofit organizations serving at-risk children and their families.
His experience as a clinician and a researcher with traumatized children has led to many community and governmental agencies to consult Dr. Perry following high-profile incidents involving traumatized children such as the Branch Davidian siege in Waco (1993), the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Columbine school shootings (1999), the September 11 th terrorist attacks (2001), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the FLDS polygamist sect (2008), the earthquake in Haiti (2010) and the tsunami in Tohoku Japan (2011).
Dr. Perry is the author of over 400 journal articles, book chapters and scientific proceeding sand is the recipient of numerous professional awards and honours, including the T. Berry Brazelton Infant Mental Health Advocacy Award, the Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare and the Alberta Centennial Medal.
He has presented about child maltreatment, children's mental health, neorodevelopment and youth violence in a variety of venues including policymaking bodies such as the White House Summit on Violence, the California Assembly and U.S. House Committee on Education. Dr. Perry has been featured in a wide range of media including National Public Radio, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Nightline, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS News and the Oprah Winfrey Show. His work has been featured in documentaries produced by Dateline NBC, 20/20, the BBC, Nightline, CBC, PBS, as well as dozen international documentaries. Many print media have highlighted the clinical and research activities of Dr. Perry including a Pulizer Prize winning series in the Chicago Tribune, US News and World Report, Time, Newsweek, Forbes ASAP, Washington Post, the New York Times and Rolling Stone.
Dr. Perry, a native of Bismark, North Dakota, was an undergraduate at Stanford University and Amherst College. He attended medical and graduate school at Northwestern University, receiving both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Perry completed a residency in general psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of Chicago.

Show less