Na'ama Yehuda, Committee Co-Chair

The ISSTD Child & Adolescent Committee (C&A Committee) is co-chaired by Fran Waters and Na’ama Yehuda, and includes members from around the world: Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the US, and the UK.

The C&A Committee’s mission is to improve awareness, knowledge, training, and information about child and adolescent trauma and dissociation; and to work to increase the number of child professionals who specialize in research, education and treatment of developmental trauma and dissociative disorders, internationally. Over the years, the Committee developed the FAQs for parents and for teachers; helped produce award winning DVD series on childhood trauma and dissociation; wrote the treatment guidelines for child and adolescent trauma and dissociation (an update and revision are in the works); collated and published a case-study book [Wieland, S. (Ed.) (2015), 2nd Edition, Dissociation in Traumatized Children and Adolescents: Theory and clinical interventions, Psychological Stress Series, Routledge Publishers.]; was instrumental in adding child and adolescent trauma issues to the ISSTD’s strategic plan; introduced ways to identify child and adolescent related presentations on the annual conference program; and developed child and adolescent courses for the ISSTD professional development track in person as well as in online formats, in both English and Spanish. Many of the C&A Committee members have published books and chapters in the field over recent years, with several of these books winning recognition and awards for contribution to the field of childhood trauma and dissociation. Last year, the Committee helped organize a full day webinar, held during April, as part of last year’s US National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Several members of the C&A Committee presented in a succession of 90 minute webinars, with contents relating to clinical presentation, etiology, diagnosis, treatment, and clinical issues in child and adolescent trauma and dissociation. It was a fascinating day of learning and the webinars are available for purchase through ISSTD’s webinar library. Discounted prices are available for members in the webinar library on the member resources page in ISSTDWorld. Stay tuned for more child and adolescent webinars in the future. Upcoming Projects The C&A Committee recently met for its annual Committee Dinner during the ISSTD’s Annual Conference in NYC, where committee members and invited guests discussed plans for creating, revising, populating, and detailing a section of the new ISSTD website platform with information relevant to child and adolescent trauma and dissociation. The goal is to have information and resources about child and adolescent trauma and dissociation made available to both professionals and the public, and to include overviews about trauma and neurobiology; notes about differential-diagnosis issues and co-morbidity; fact-sheets on psychopharmacology issues in childhood trauma, developmental issues, and high-risk populations. The development of the C&A website section, along with revising the child and adolescent treatment guidelines, is a priority for the C&A Committee for this coming year. Other projects include:

• continued contributions and ongoing editorial capacity on the ISSTD’s clinical e-journal, Frontiers in the Psychotherapy of Trauma & Dissociation,
• quarterly articles in the ISSTD News, and
• collaborating on new screening methods for childhood dissociation.

As part of its ongoing goals, the committee’s international representation works to identify and address misperceptions and misrepresentations regarding childhood trauma and dissociation. The committee also hopes to improve international representation is through collaboration with the C&A SIG – a special interest group which is open to all ISSTD members who are interested in child and adolescent trauma and dissociation. For more information about the Child and Adolescent Committee, and for volunteer queries and interests, feel free to contact Fran Waters at: franwatersusa@gmail.com or Na’ama Yehuda at: naamayehuda@aol.com For more information about joining the SIG please contact Na’ama Yehuda at naamayehuda@aol.com