Supporting Children Who Have Been Traumatised through Exposure to Domestic Abuse

Delivered by

Christina Enright

Biography

Format options

In Person | Online

Duration options

3 hrs | 4 hrs | 6 hrs (1 day)

Variations

This training can be adapted to a diverse range of contexts, and further bespoke elements can be added on request.

Exposure to domestic abuse has been shown through research to have a significant detrimental effect on the psychological and emotional development and wellbeing of children.

If carers and professionals are supported to understand how witnessing domestic abuse and indeed for a child who has been exposed to coercive control, they will be better placed to support the child.

This training will present the research base for the impact of domestic abuse on children as well as practical strategies to support carers and professionals to help children to move towards recovery in order to build a sense of safety and resilience from this highly traumatising experience.

Learning Outcomes

As a result of completing this training participants can learn about:

What the research into the impact of exposure to domestic violence says about its impact on a child/adolescent’s cognitive, psychological, emotional development
The trauma of witnessing a parent and siblings being abused
How abuse and coercive control can also be the child’s experience of the abusing parent and how it negatively affects the child’s development and emotions
How exposure to domestic violence may affect a child/adolescents’ behaviour
How children and adolescents can carry self-blame for not protecting the victim parent
How to have conversations with children about their experiences of exposure to domestic abuse and for children who are in foster care, how their experience of domestic abuse has influenced decisions to receive them into state care
How carers and professionals can support children who have been exposed to domestic abuse psychologically and emotionally, and to build resilience
How to support a child’s parent who is a survivor of domestic abuse talk to the child about their experience

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Bespoke Training

Training delivered by

Christina Enright

RN, BSc Psychology, Dip in Family Therapy, MA Child Psychotherapy, Dip Clinical Supervision.

Over the past 17 years, Christina has worked as a psychotherapist with children, adolescents, birth parents, foster carers and adoptive parents. This followed on from 20 years working as a nurse in the NHS. Her experience includes the development of a multidisciplinary clinical service for families experiencing trauma and attachment problems who were reluctant to engage with main-stream social care and mental health services. From 2015-2017 Christina provided trauma consultancy to the clinical team developing a children’s service within the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in the UK.

She also delivers training on child development, trauma and attachment both within the NHS and other education and social care systems across the UK and Ireland. Her special interest is in early childhood development and the impact of trauma on a child’s developing capacities, functioning and behaviour. From her experience working with children who have endured developmental trauma characterised by neglect and abuse, she has found it necessary to use a comprehensive integrated approach in order to address the multiple complexities which such children present with.

Christina returned to live in Ireland in 2016 and currently works as a Developmental Trauma and Attachment specialist providing training, assessment and clinical interventions on behalf of Tusla Child and Family Agency and in independent practice with birth and adoptive families.