With April being Child Abuse Prevention Month in the United States 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)! The C&A SIG is currently 44 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 2023, the C&A SIG continued to meet virtually, and in-person at the annual conference, for bi-monthly meetings to network and get to know one another, build a container and community to support SIG members, share child and adolescent specific resources and emerging research, and plan for the continued growth of child and adolescent focused content and resources for both ISSTD members and the public. Additionally, 2023 brought together members of the Child and Adolescent SIG to start the re-development of the ISSTD Professional Training Program (PTP) Child and Adolescent course, which should be finished and ready for launch by the winter of 2025!
At the recent ISSTD conference, child and adolescent specific preconference presentations were given by Eva Young and Patti van Eys on the upcoming revised Child and Adolescent Treatment Guidelines, and by Ana Gomez on working with defenses and a child’s trauma-related protective systems. C&A SIG members also presented a full day child and adolescent specific webinar on April 26. This full day webinar featured presentations by: Shekhar Seshadri on Public Child Mental Health Approaches to Childhood Trauma; Doris D’Hooghe on Unseen Attachment Trauma and the Early Parent–Child Relationship; Michele Yarberry on Lightly Treading the Trenches of Complex Trauma & Dissociation with Body Code™ and Play; and Graham Pringle on Adventure and Complex Trauma in Adolescents. If you missed attending the webinar live, the recordings will be available for purchase in the Center for Advanced Studies in late May to early June.
The C&A SIG will continue meeting every other month over the course of 2024 to continue learning and growing together, and to plan for increased educational opportunities!
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