Greetings from the Ontario Regional Online Community (ROC). Our group, the first ROC within the ISSTD, has been together since 2020 and currently has 30 members across the very large province of Ontario, Canada. Our mission is to increase the presence of ISSTD in Ontario, in order to further the dialogue, knowledge, research, and training on the etiology, evaluation, and effective treatment of trauma and dissociation.
Since its inception, this group has held monthly online meetings, sharing resources, news, research, professional learning activities, occasionally reading articles or books together, supporting regional conferences (our second one is coming up in September!) and offering a supportive space for discussion sand peer support. This has continued to be the case over the last year, with a small but mighty group of committed participants attending meetings monthly. In addition to our monthly meetings, members participate in the ways that they are able, according to need, interest and availability, on our community listserv.
Our Executive Committee had its first turnover in the beginning of 2023, with new members stepping up or returning Exec members recommitting their support, as our founding Chair (Jill Hosey) stepped down. We took the opportunity to conduct an assessment of community needs and interests for the group and slightly adjusted the format of our monthly meetings to give more space and centrality to peer support and content specific discussions. The Executive has also been involved, alongside the leadership of the Conference Committee and ISSTD staff, in shaping content and speakers for the upcoming ISSTD Regional Conference, taking place in Toronto on Sept 21-22, 2023. The conference theme is Contemporary issues and Interventions in the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, and we have what we feel is an exciting line up of speakers on integrative therapy approaches, decolonizing trauma practice, and online group trauma therapy. On September 21, D. Michael Coy will offer a full day presentation on clinical work with dissociative populations that integrates theory and aspects of Ego State Therapy, Mirror Neurons, EMDR, and Hypnosis. On September 22, we will have presentation by Alana Tappin (decolonizing trauma therapy, 90mins), Michael Yellow Bird (Neurodecolonization, 90mins), Sonia Meerai (History and context as critical and central to accessible trauma healing, 90mins) and Cassandra Harmsen, Kristina Cordeiro, Marlee Salisbury, George Radosavljevic, & Rebecca Tzalazidis (Online group trauma therapy, 90mins). We hope to see some of you there! Moreover, as our ROC was birthed at the start of the pandemic and members span a large geographic area, we have never met as a group in person. We are excited for the prospect of our first ever in person meeting at the Toronto conference.
We continue to invite and welcome new members to our ROC community. If you are in the province of Ontario, Canada and looking for a local ISSTD clinical community, please reach out to Susie Shafer, Ontario ROC Secretary, at susie.schafer.therapy@gmail.com.