Understanding trauma based behaviours in adolescence

Person in a brightly light phone booth listening to a bright green telephone at night time.

Adolescence is a dynamic developmental phase. It is made more challenging when the adolescent has experienced trauma and adversity.

Engaging and intervening with an adolescent who has been hurt, rejected, shamed and humiliated can hold particular challenges for practitioners. The presenting “problem” behaviours often become the focus – unsafe sexual behaviours, substance use, self-harming, high risk activities, offending and other anti-social behaviours.

This session supports practitioners working with adolescents to understand typical adolescent development, as well as how the young person’s experiences of trauma can impact on their day-to-day functioning.

Behaviours of concern will be explored through the lens of identity, reward neurobiology, relational experiences and development. Participants will consider how punitive and behaviour-management responses to trauma-based presentations can further alienate the young person and exacerbate their already distressed and dysgregulated state.

Participants in this session will come away with enhanced capacity to understand the underlying meanings of behaviour, and use this to inform engagement and intervention with young people.

Target Audience: Supervisors, practitioners and people in care giving roles for children who have experienced trauma
Duration: Full or half day
Location: on-line or in-person