With April being Child Abuse Prevention Month and the ISSTD’s Child and Youth Month, what better time than to provide an update on the ISSTD’s Child & Adolescent Special Interest Group (C&A SIG)! With growth in membership over the last year, the C&A SIG is currently 46 members strong, all who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience about working with traumatized children and adolescents, using many different trauma-specific modalities and in different clinical settings.
Over the course of 2022, the C&A SIG continued to meet for quarterly meetings to network and get to know one another, build a container and community to support SIG members, share resources and emerging research, and plan for the continued growth of child and adolescent focused content and resources for both society members and the public. In 2021, the C&A SIG formed a working group to begin developing new Child and Adolescent dissociation fact sheets, which will serve as a resource for caregivers, educators, and healthcare professionals. Over the course of 2022, this working group completed 4 new Fact Sheets for: Caregivers, Teachers and School Staff, Healthcare Providers, and Child Protection/Legal Systems. These fact sheets will be available on the ISSTD website in May 2022 as an added support and resource that clinicians can print off or send as forms of education and advocacy to those in non-clinical or research roles.
During 2022, we also saw conference and webinar presentations from Niki Gomez-Perales, Eva Young, Shekar Shesadri, Ana Gomez, and Billie Jo Bennett & Jill Hosey. ISSTD also has put together a child and adolescent webinar bundle, which can be explored and accessed at
https://cfas.isst-d.org/content/child-adolescent-package#group-tabs-node-course-default3.
The C&A SIG will continue meeting every other month over the course of 2023 to continue learning and growing together, and plan for increased educational opportunities!
Kid’s Korner Articles
The Child & Adolescent SIG also welcomes any ISSTD members who enjoy writing, to engage and participate through article writing for Kid’s Korner in ISSTD News. Kid’s Korner runs quarterly and focuses specifically on child and adolescent news and issues. Kid’s Korner articles may reflect on specific treatment issues in working with children and adolescents, upcoming training events, useful books and resources, new research and proposals, or reflections on practice. Though the focus is on working with children & youth, our readers may also discover how relevant these articles are in working with persons across the lifespan.
If you are a writer, we would love to hear your ideas about working with children and youth who have experienced complex trauma and dissociation. You do not need to be a SIG member to contribute to Kid’s Korner, but the SIG leadership is assisting ISSTD News by coordinating contributions for this column. Please get in touch with Jill Hosey to discuss your idea prior to submitting the article, at jillhoseymsw@gmail.com.
In closing, we want to thank you for taking the time to read this update on the ISSTD’s Child & Adolescent SIG. We would love to hear from you with any feedback or ideas, or even to join the SIG! For anyone interested in joining us, please reach out to the SIG Secretary, Billie Jo Bennett, at billie@healingwingstherapy.ca