This 1.5-hour workshop brings members of the Therapeutic Life Story Work (TLSW) Australia community of practice together to explore and enhance the evidence-based TLSW tiered model (Rose, 2012) with a focus on therapeutic applications.

The core idea of "Transforming Trauma: Connection and Healing" is pivotal in the context of TLSW as a guiding process that enables children to reconstruct their stories in a relational way that encourages meaning-making, curiosity, connection, and healing.

This approach can be adapted to different environments, ensuring that the child's perspective is respected, and their experiences are acknowledged. It acknowledges the varied practices of different practitioners and also emphasises the uniqueness of each child and families narrative. This inclusive approach is practiced throughout the out of home care, multicultural services, adoption, disability, early intervention and youth justice systems. It ensures that every child and story is valued, and individuals are listened to, supported and lead the way in shaping their narratives and imagining their future.

With all of this in mind, the participants will delve into the knowledge, skills, stories and practices integral to TLSW, gaining hands-on experience with tools and resources designed to support individuals across the lifespan.

To the participants, at the end of this collaborative and practitioner-led workshop, you will leave feeling equipped to implement these therapeutic strategies in your professional settings. You will leave feeling connected to the TLSW Australia community of practice. And we imagine and hope that you will have deeper understanding, confidence and ability to effectively apply 'Life Story Work done Therapeutically' in your ongoing and future endeavours.

I have found as a childhood sexual abuse survivor that connection and having a sense of belonging critical as a foundation for children and those experiencing trauma. It is my belief that connection and a sense of belonging is vital if we want our children or adult survivors to thrive. Strong research and evidence support that consistent and positive connections are related to positive mental health and well-being, especially in times of trauma. 

Cultivating a sense of belonging is a powerful protective factor for children and adult survivors. All trauma victims need to feel protected and always cared for, to develop their confidence and resilience. This provides them the ability and capacity to manage their emotions, to communicate and share any concerns or worries they may have about anything.

I believe that trauma survivors spell ‘love’ a different way, another four-letter word T-I-M-E. They say time is money, however, I want to create a new phrase, ‘TIME IS LOVE‘. Spending time and being present in the moment with our children and adult survivors is one of the best protective factors we can create, making them to feel safe, happy, and mentally healthy. I understand time is precious and with our life commitments it can be very hard, when there is a choice, the investment in spending time with children and adult survivors is an important one. 

For me, the best antidote has been feeling connected. Creating, and having a sense of belonging with family, friends, and sporting groups. 

I want to give people hope and remind them that the greatest gift they can give themselves is time and attention. Building your village to strengthen your connectedness and a sense of belonging has been my antidote to finding a pathway to healing.

From 2020 to 2023 Emerging Minds National Workforce Center for Children’s Mental Health worked intensively with sixteen practitioners across Australia to better understand their therapeutic practices with children who experience trauma and their strategies for supporting mental health. These practitioners worked in both specialist trauma and generalist services and described the multiple presenting issues affecting the children who visited them and competing imperatives for their work. This presentation describes the trauma informed practices and policies that have been designed by these therapists to effectively meet the needs of children and families.

As part of work with the sixteen practitioners, key themes and strategies emerged. These themes included practitioner efforts to understand the context of children’s stories, helping them to connect with their resilience in the wake of trauma, and helping them to create meaning of the actions they took in keeping themselves or others safe. Rather than only diagnosing and correcting the effects of trauma on the child’s body and brain, the therapists described their work in helping children to describe their responses to experiences of trauma. This led to new understandings and reinterpretations of past experiences for many of the children and young people in their services.

This presentation examines therapy that recruits children as co-researchers in the meaning-making of their life’s experiences, including both the effects and their responses to experiences of trauma. In this way, therapists are accountable to a fascination with what is not yet known, rather than to the reproduction of dominant discourses of correction. It provides specific and practical therapeutic examples from different services and professionals across in Australia in accordance with the practice themes that we identified. The presentation will provide case examples and practices gleaned from practitioners as part of an Emerging Minds paper published in The Journal of Systemic Therapies.