April is Child Abuse Prevention Month in the United States and ISSTD Child and Youth Month, so the ISSTD Child & Adolescent (C&A) Special Interest Group (SIG) would like to update everyone on our activities over the last year.
The C&A SIG currently has 45 members, which has been stable for the last couple of years. Our SIG members bring a wealth of knowledge and experience about working with traumatized children and adolescents, using diverse trauma-specific modalities and different clinical settings.
During 2024, the SIG undertook a herculean effort to redevelop the C&A course for the ISSTD Professional Training Program (PTP). This was led by Jillian Hosey, with many SIG members contributing. That PTP curriculum was completed by the end of 2024, and the first class is occurring now, led by Jill Hosey, and the next will begin in the fall, led by Alexis Arbuthnott.
Though technically not a SIG activity, another important accomplishment that occupied much of the time of many SIG members was writing chapters for The Handbook of Complex Trauma and Dissociation in Children (edited by Ana M. Gomez and Jillian Hosey). This was published in 2025 and was recently released. The handbook is available from the publisher here.
Another highlight of 2024 was the C&A webinar day featuring four webinars:
- Public Child Mental Health Approaches to Childhood Trauma
Presenter: Shekhar Seshadri, MD - Invisible Attachment Trauma: A Novel Perspective on the Early Parent–Child Relationship
Presenter: Doris D’Hooghe, BA - Boots on the Ground: Lightly Treading the Trenches of Complex Trauma & Dissociation with Body Code™ and Play
Presenter: Michele M. Yarberry, LPC, NCC, RPT, CBCP - Adventure and Complex Trauma in Adolescents
Presenter: Graham Pringle, MA, PhD
The recordings of these webinars are available in the ISSTD Center For Advanced Studies, and there is a full day discount here.
For most of 2024, regular SIG meetings were superseded by the PTP C&A course development meetings. In 2025, with a new leadership team, we are returning to normal SIG meetings with a fireside chat with Joy Silberg, a watch party from the webinar list, and a discussion of ethical considerations planned.
We met on February 24 and decided to keep the times for SIG meetings at 3:00 PM US Eastern Time and to vary the day to give as many people a chance to attend as possible. The in-person meeting at the Annual Conference was held on March 16 and included discussion of an asynchronous book club looking at interesting articles or chapters. Other online meetings will be May 27, August 29, and October 9.
Thank you for taking the time to read this update on the ISSTD C&A SIG. We would love to hear from you with any feedback. For anyone interested in joining us, please reach out to the SIG Secretary Chris Rensch chris@chrisrensch.com. We’d love to see you at our SIG meetings!