One registration, two webinars!
Part one: Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Part two: Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Part one: Trauma-informed care: Shifting the conversation from “what’s wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?”
Trauma is broadly defined as an experience that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope and threatens their well-being. Trauma conjures up images of natural disasters or motor vehicle accidents, but trauma is far more common, arising from a variety of events such as: childhood abuse or neglect, daily microaggressions based on race/gender/ability, or living in poverty. Apart from these experiences, patients and families navigating the healthcare system may experience medical trauma. Receiving a new diagnosis, painful procedures and the high degree of uncertainty can impact patients, caregivers and their siblings in multiple domains.
Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a strengths-based approach that recognizes the neurological, biological and psychological impact trauma can have on individuals, offering providers a set of principles to help guide interactions.
Healthcare professionals who attend this free webinar will be able to:
- Appreciate the prevalence of trauma in patients, caregivers and staff
- Describe the theoretical underpinnings and core principles of TIC
- Integrate TIC strategies into clinical practice
Sharon Lorber, MSW, RSW
Sharon is an Interprofessional Education Specialist with the Mental Health Portfolio at SickKids and an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.
Sharon has nearly 20 years of experience working at SickKids within the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Department of Gynecology. She is currently part of a team developing a curriculum to enhance the mental health literacy of hospital staff. Her passion lies in building awareness in the healthcare sector about the prevalence of trauma in patients, caregivers and staff, and advocating for a trauma-informed approach to navigating healthcare interactions.
In 2018 she was awarded the Dr. Beverly J. Antle Legacy of Hope Award in recognition of her contribution to outstanding clinical practice, teaching and research, and in 2021 she was part of the team that received SickKids’ President’s award for work related to the prevention and management of escalating situations in medical settings.
Part two: Trauma-informed care for us: Tending to practitioner well-being
The growing awareness of trauma as a common human response to overwhelming conditions is moving into healthcare settings and the ways we serve children and families. An essential aspect of this evolution is the additional recognition of healthcare professionals’ trauma burden, both from the impacts of the work we do, as well as our own life histories. Healthcare professionals are facing intense challenges and the invitation to acknowledge and care for our own suffering is keenly needed.
In this presentation we will acknowledge both the prevalence and ubiquity of various forms of suffering and trauma as well as the challenges within healthcare systems and society in turning toward those experiences within ourselves. Together we will consider what it means to accept our own natural human woundedness with kindness and what a mindful and compassionate approach to tending to those wounds might offer to our search for wholeness and sustainability in our work.
Healthcare professionals who attend this free webinar will be able to:
- Recognize trauma as a common human response to overwhelming adversity in our life and in our work;
- Explore the challenges of recognizing and tending to our own individual suffering in contemporary society and in healthcare; and
- Distinguish empathy and compassion and explore self-compassion as a tool to rebalance and restore vital resources.
Lysa Toye, MSW, RSW, ExAT
Lysa Toye (she/her) is a social worker and psychotherapist in private practice in the downtown east end of Toronto, Ontario. Having worked for over a decade in the pediatric community and hospital mental/health sectors, she now specializes in working with trauma, complex trauma, grief and dissociative disorders with adults and youth. Lysa works from a relational, mindful, neurobiologically-informed and embodied perspective in the service of reclaiming and restoring our integrated aliveness and deepening our relationship to the wisdom within.