Highland Shores Children’s Aid and The Children’s Foundation present “Using Relationships to Heal Trauma, Monday, September 25, 2017, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (registration will open at 8:15 a.m.), Best Western Hotel PLUS and Conference Centre, Cobourg, Ontario.

Speaker: Dr. Sian Phillips, Adjunct Professor, Queens University and Certified DDP therapist, consultant and trainer.

This one day workshop looks at how trauma and negative attachment experiences change the trajectory of the developing brain away from mental health and towards cognitive, emotional and behavioural strategies that are self-protective.  Such self-protective strategies then make it difficult to form healthy relationships.

Participants will learn:

- How to recognize mental health

- The impact of trauma on the developing brain

- Emotional and behavioural patterns associated with insecure and disorganized attachment

- About Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and the use of Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy (P.A.C.E.)

- How relationships can be used to co-regulate children who have experienced trauma through the use of P.A.C.E. and the importance of co-regulation before expecting children to self-regulate

- Strategies that will help children make sense of their experiences in a less shame-based way

- How to help children in school settings