- It's trauma, I'm Donna Richards, and I'm from Australian Childhood Foundation. And today it's really just an exploration, and an introduction to why do we have, and why do we need trauma-responsive practice in early childhood and about building a framework for effective practice with children and families. But also for their network of relationships and why relationships are really important. And I'm just a senior, I'm a senior advisor with Australian Childhood Foundation, and I'm passionate about trauma-informed practice, so that's my introduction to me. I would like to start the morning by acknowledging the Traditional, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Custodians of this land and the waters, and where each one of us sits to meet today. And I'd like to pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and to their children who are the leaders of tomorrow. I would also like to acknowledge their history, living culture, and the many thousands of years in which they have raised their children to be safe and strong. So today, we will be exploring childhood trauma. And we know from the neuroscience that around about 30% of the adult population do not have memory, which tells us that a very high proportion of adults have experienced childhood trauma. So sometimes the content, when we start exploring and looking at trauma, can evoke really strong emotions and may trigger personal experiences of trauma. So please be mindful of your wellbeing throughout the webinar. And if you need support, just take a moment for yourself or find something that makes you feel comforted in that moment. And I'm always happy for you to email me at the end of the session if you like. Just to start the morning though, I'd like you to really think about a child that you work with. And just take a moment to think about the children that you work with, but bring to mind one child that you bring your relationship in your work to and what that child needs. This is the model that Australian Childhood Trauma uses in terms of creating an example of what the child needs. And so the child always sits at the centre and that heart means that this child needs love and needs special connection, but they need connection to their culture, regardless of what culture means and where you sit. So each community may have a different culture, or you may come from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background, or you may have been a refugee or an immigrant, but the culture that sits around you and your family and community is what a child needs connection to. As well they need to make meaning of their story and of their world. They need safe, attuned relationships and we will explore relationships in lots of different ways today, looking at the importance because when trauma occurs in relationships, we know that the healing occurs in relationships as well. We need, children need, a really protective and child-friendly community. And often that's what early childhood centres provide is a sense of community and a belonging, both with families and with the children as well. We also need trauma-informed and -integrative systems, the collaboration between systems and what does each child need to reach their full development potential as well. We also know that culture impacts, and think about culture from a point of safety, relationships, making meaning of their story as well. So how does culture influence each of those experiences? So what I want you to take a moment, just take a moment and with your pen and paper, or if you've got some nice colours, just draw a symbol of that child that you bring to mind, and keep that at the centre as we go through the webinar today. So just take a moment just to draw a symbol or draw the child and just draw a little stick figure, or if you're Picasso you can draw a beautiful image of the child or just a little symbol such as the one that's on the screen about that child that you work with. Just so you keep the child in mind as we work through this and keeping the child at the centre of our work. And so it just reminds us, no matter what we are doing, we're keeping the child at the centre. So just take that moment. If you've got questions about the child, pop some of those questions around the child. If you have any concerns, put some, write down some of those concerns for the child. Or if you can think about what are some of the child's strengths as well, what are some of the things that the child, that shows you that this child has resilience or some strength in the face of trauma? So think about that child and bring them to mind. And hopefully that symbol, you can keep that throughout the day and bring it to mind as we move through the webinar today. So to start with, we're going to understand neuro sequential brain development, and then what the impact of trauma is on that. And so the key thing to remember is that the brain develops sequentially from the bottom to the top, from the back to the front. And we use an analogy like a house, that this, we build the brain as a house, with the foundations of the floor and then the walls and all the furniture inside. And then the roof on top, which is our cognitive brain. Some of you might know Dan Siegel's hand model, which is a similar picture of how the brain works. So we know that the brain develops through a mixture of both genetics and environmental factors, but key to all brain development in children and infants is relationships. And we know that the relationship is the most important part of brain development and the most essential thing. So thinking about culture and about that connection to culture, what we know is the importance of culture, that culture actually, the brain starts developing culture even before our brain understands what culture is. Our relationships are influenced by culture and our culture influences what we bring to relationships. So we also know that the sensory data that's interpreted by infants and small children is felt and experienced long before our ability to even think about or understand culture. And if you think about, when we talk about villages bringing up the child, or if we think about what was the culture in my family that made me feel safe or what were the things in my family that I have taken to work that come from my culture and from my family. So culture influences the experience of brain development as well. And it's really important in that sense of safety, meaning making the story of the child as well. But also we know that culture can be a protective factor. We also know that over centuries of colonisation and dominant cultures it changes for an example, the aspect of Aboriginal people's lives. So don't just think about the tip of identity of culture. Think about the really meaningful things around food, dress, music, language, relationships. How a community sees the child. How the community brings up the child. And I want you to take a moment to think about what is the culture of your early childhood centre? What does your culture look like? Does it create that sense? And we'll explore sense of safety a little bit more. What are the relationships like within the centre between the children, between the carers and children, between the educators and children, between the centre and families? Which is really important around how do we bring that importance of culture to our work as well? So think about that as we go through. So just in terms of the new newborn brain, this is just understanding the developing brain. It is around about approximately somewhere between 200 to 400 grams depending on the child. Then the average weight at the age of three is around about 1.2 kilograms, so about 1200 grams. And then at adult, it's only about 1400 grams. So essentially between newborn and three, the brain grows, puts on about a whole kilo if you're thinking in cooking terms. A kilo of brain mass neurons, synaptic pathways. And so the importance of early childhood in this space is really essential in thinking about this is a really key part of brain development. In those first three years of life is where most of our brain mass is acquired. So think about how important that is. And think about what are the things that we are doing, what are the things that we know? So an adult brain has about 100 billion neurons. So in actual fact, by the time a child is three their brain is not much less than an adult brain. So we have to think about what are the brain's building blocks. We know that neurons grow in relationships is the key thing. And we know that one of the connecting things around connecting brains is eye contact. But the child's brain, the job of the child's brain, infant and child if you're really thinking of a very small infant as well, is to lay down as many neuronal connections as possible. And often we're really thinking about physical development, but not about the brain's job around laying down all those beautiful pathways and connectedness that develops in those first three years of life. So the only other time the brain change is in adolescence where it prunes and builds some new ones as well. But most of the work is done in those early years. So there's this whole proliferation and that's part of what your role is, it's a really exciting time. Also, what we know about the brain has changed completely in the last five years, we have so much more information now. So if you've not been looking at the brain and looking at neuroscience, do start looking at some of the neuroscience that's happening, that's occurring and some of the new areas that are arising around how do we develop great brains. We also know that when we are doing things in relationships it builds stronger, faster neurons and synaptic pathways. We know that when we do activities in relationships, is much you know, actually builds a much better brain than things that are done as an individual child or infant. We also know that imaginative play builds beautiful... So when you're thinking about your play, when you're thinking about how do we build these amazing brains for these children, because we're thinking about development, really think about what are the structures that the child needs to make decisions. What are the things that we're doing to problem solve? What are we doing together? So most of the work that happens for children is around doing it together as well. So this is what it looks like. And I think this is a really important one because by two years, all of the neuronal and synaptic pathways and all the neurons have been built. From two to six years, they're just strengthened. So the brains are built from both the bottom to the top and back. But as it's constructed, that process begins at birth and continues into adulthood. But simpler neuronal pathways, you can see it at three months, are formed first and then after that they're built on, but mostly from two years they're just strengthened and embellished, is how I use it as well. It's about, you know, they're laid down beautifully in the first two years in a whole range of ways. So it's the most active time, most active period for establishing connections and really creating new connections on a day-to-day basis because it's a dynamic process that really never stops, but it's also importantly the connections that form early provide either strong or weak foundation for connections that form later. The other thing that we know is within that first 12 months, our template, our schemers for relationships are laid down as well. So we also know that we carry those through into adulthood. So interaction between genes and experience shapes that developing brain. And it's a beautiful part of work that you are doing. If you're thinking about the brain architecture, you're almost like the architect of this child's brain. So in the absence of really connected relationships or responsiveness, then the brain doesn't develop those really high dynamic processes that's required. And that's when you will have and lead to disparities in learning and behaviour. We also know that really attuned attachment is at the core of regulation and that is set up in that first six months. We know that who children have beautiful attuned, attached parenting or caregiver in that first six months, we know that they actually have much better regulation and have better construct of brain architecture. So this is a sequential brain development and it's a bit like building blocks or Lego blocks if you want to think about that, is that the foundations, that the more stable the foundations of the brain are in that first two years, then the higher areas of the brain become much stronger as well. So the first part of the brain is the survival brain, which develops pre-birth. And so we know that stress, family violence, trauma in utero has an impact on the brain stem, on the survival brain pre-birth as well, but it's mostly mature at birth, and then finally is mature at around about eight months. And then the movement brain is between birth and two years. And then emotions and memory brain is developing and is mostly mature at about age four. Some people have earlier memories, but we know that most, and we still don't know why, neuroscience in 2022 does not know why we do not have earlier memories. They haven't uncoded that bit yet, most of the memories we have pre-four are really implicit memories. And then the thinking brain is really developing between three and five when all those other areas have completely developed. So this is what it looks like. The brain stem is the core survival part of the brain. It develops in babies in utero, it's the first part of our brain to develop. And it's like the foundation of our house. It's laying down beautiful foundations of our house. We also know it's the first part of the brain that develops and matures first. It also is responsible for those core things like heartbeat, breathing, sucking, temperature control, blood pressure. So, it's a really, it controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body. It also controls basic function, such as breathing, swallowing, heartbeat, all those things that are on the slide and consciousness, whether you are awake or sleepy, and it consists of different parts of the brain. It is also the really core survival for you, thinking about triune brain, the brain stem is our survival brain. We also know that for children who have impact in utero and what the impact in utero is mum's high cortisol levels across the placenta, is often, they have a whole sense of dysregulation when they're born, difficult to settle often come with this long term dysregulation that starts from very early age. So there's a part of the brain stem that's, and I always share this because I just love it, that is called the periaqueductal gray, which is like a little cockroach sitting on your brain stem. And that's a part of your brain. And I sort of always imagine it sitting like, "Nah, hello, am I safe?" Like, even when you're coming into a Zoom, your brain is actually saying, "Am I safe?" It also is a part of the brain that really is, it's wired, hard wired with millions of years of evolution to actually keep it safe as well. When we understand brain stem and the impact of early, impact of trauma, family violence, neglect, poverty, transience, all those things that impact on a child, what we recognise from this one is that children who have very poor body temperature control, they are the kids who are in the middle of winter, are running around feel the cold, or in summer have got layers of clothes on. So sometimes that's an indicator that they've had very early impact on the brain stem. But if you think about the brain stem, so these are some of our really, I've just popped in some of our primary developmental goals that sit alongside the brain, because one of those key things with the brain development are those primary developmental goals as well. The state of regulation, we now know that, we used to have a theory of attachment. We now call it the theory of regulation because we know that in the regulation state is attached to my ability to attach and be attuned and have really attuned caregivers. It's our primary attachment, that is really important for my brain development and for me to learn emotional regulation. It's also around flexible stress response and resilience. We know that attachment and attunement build resilience. So we also know that along the way in early childhood, between one and three, we have sensory integration, motor control starts to develop, relational flexibility, 'How do I negotiate my way through the world?', attunement. And when we are talking attunement, I want you to really think about relationships because relationships that are meaningful actually change the child's life, they resource them. If your relationship with a child, and every child needs a relationship that resource them to build the best development they can. It also tells their story and a relationship between a worker and a child can actually make meaning to the child where no one else is listening to them. And also it needs a whole community that's compassionate to them, that integrates. So this is around fine motor control as well. And we know that we need really beautiful fine motor control to read and write once we go to school. Also, it's about emotional states and social language, this is where we build empathy and emotional regulation, but also around tolerance as well. So children at this very early age, it's the relationship that helps us build those really key areas around attunement and attachment, and then around regulation and empathy and tolerance. The cerebellum is the second part of the brain. It is around about 10% in volume, but it holds about 40% of the new neurons of our brain. So it usually develops throughout the first two years of life, post-birth. So when a child is up and running and not falling over is usually when the cerebellum is very beautifully developed. It's a core part of development around the push and yield of arms and then floor time, building the core muscles in the body, and then starting to crawl and roll over. We now know that crawling, the research is showing that sitting, crawling are really key parts of the cerebellum development. We also know that this is where children learn coordination, learn how to skip, catch a ball, ride a bicycle, cut, draw, and eat with a knife and fork and spoon. It's really about posture and balance and spatial awareness. What does this look like? These are the children, if I have poor cerebellum development in that, or very poor floor time, or very poor crawling time, if I've been in a relationship with my caregivers where my needs aren't met and I'm left in a cot and I'm not stimulated to roll over, crawl, and I'm not picked up then often I'm clumsy, I'm klutzy, I run into things, I'm always knocking myself and I don't have an awareness of where other children are in terms of my spatial awareness. And for some adults, you know, when we're training there's some adults that say, "Oh, that's me." And often children who are hospitalised or children who have lots of illness, often the cerebellum, but remembering that no matter what we are doing, part of our work is looking at each part of these brains. Even at my age, I do things that build, I do lots of balance exercise, 'cause it builds your cerebellum. Our brain is a bit like our body we need to be building it and looking at the different parts of it and what are the activities for it. So we know with the brain stem, it's rocking, soothing, rhythm, dance, movement. We know with the cerebellum it's things like marching, crossing the midline, crawling, activities of balance, balance boards, balance bikes are things that actually build the cerebellum. And so when we know that the brain has huge plasticity up to about nine, we know that we can change the impact, in actual fact, of what has been happening if there's poor development from family as an example, or caregivers. So this is really the development around babies, gaining head control, sitting, and then really it's responsible for movement and really develops in that first two years of life. And it has its own two connective pathways between the two parts of the brain as well. Then, now diencephalon, and this is the one that's really important that we are doing that there's lots of current exploration and looking at from the child development perspective, 'cause it actually sorts out the messages coming into the brain. And it's part of the limbic system, the emotional brain. So we've gone from the brain stem, which is our really survival brain into our cerebellum which is movement, spatial aware, and now we're starting to move into what is our emotional brain, and this part of the brain develops mainly after birth. It's also the part of the brain that develops beautifully in terms of being my needs being met, so if I'm hungry, I'm fed. If I'm lonely, someone picks me up and talks to me. It's also about if I'm not feeling okay, someone comforts me. So this is how the messages, the hormones, the neurotransmitters of our body tells us what we need, food, water, love. And I need my needs to be met as an infant and a small child for this to develop beautifully. So that the hormones, the messaging around food and water and love don't become, perhaps not normative development that they may get mixed up so that children often think, don't understand if they're full or if they're hungry. And so one of the areas, if you think about the sensors introception, which is our number eight sense, which is around core body functions, people say that introcept, and we'll explore introception a bit later. introception is at the heart of regulation. So I know that people have really beautiful diencephalon when their needs are fully met. And this is about that children's needs are met at the time that they need them. So when we think about trauma, we know that children aren't fed, or they're not picked up, or they're not nurtured, or they're just not given that space and time to fully develop these messaging in a normative way. And then the limbic system is our emotional part of our brain, and it helps us attach an emotion to an experience or a memory. So if I asked you what do cut lawns remind you of? Most people will think about, you know, nice spring days, playing outside, having fun. And sometimes if you know, I know if I ask people, what does coffee, the smell of coffee, remind you of? We know that it reminds us of like nice fun times with friends or going out and having coffee and catching up and having those really nice things. So we know that the limbic system attaches an emotion to an experience or a memory. It stores and helps interpret it, our emotional state. So if I'm in a constant, under threat or my life, my needs haven't been met, then my limbic system is not able to provide me with experiences of being calmed or being nurtured or being held or feeling safe. And for some children, the limbic system developed in a state of being aware of being unsafe all the time. And often that's a really unconscious implicit memory as well. So the limbic system is also the emotional centre of the brain, and we know that it rules the life of young children up to around about four years. So if you really think about the emotional brain, this is a key part of the work that you do. So we know that during toddler years, like from two to four, that the limbic system goes through really rapid development. So this explains the two-year-old, sometimes the behaviours that occur, the tantrums, because their brains are really getting into this emotional development. And so we need them to help manage their strong feelings in a really safe, connected, relational way. Young children feel before they act, they don't think then act, that comes much later. And this is due to that emotional part, the limbic system of their brain developing before the cortex, which is a higher functioning part, or the thinking part of the brain. So really they just are viewing the world through an emotional lens after birth up 'til about four when their cognitive brain starts to come on board. It's a beautiful time, but if we think about this as really, it's the emotional brain that's actually developing, then it's fantastic. And a really important part of the brain, especially when we are thinking about children from trauma, who perhaps don't have the input and the nurturing and the comforting that allows them to actually explore the world in a beautiful way and use those emotions in positive ways. And then amygdala and the hippocampus, which are really core in our work around trauma, are part of that limbic system, and they form part of the limbic system as well. So the amygdala is often, and there's two amygdala and they're like little almonds or lima beans in either hemisphere, left and right hemisphere. So the right hemisphere amygdala is responsible for negative emotions. And the left amygdala is responsible for positive emotions. The amygdala is really active at birth and is really highly responsive and sensitive to sensory input, particularly those from other humans. So when it senses danger, it quickly recruits other parts of the brain and the body to respond. So it recruits the brain stem, it recruits the adrenal glands to distribute adrenaline and cortisol levels. So it's very controlling, the amygdala. The other thing about amygdala is that it holds the sensory information around trauma. So for children who come from family violence or experienced huge trauma. And when we think about the things like bushfires, floods, the trauma of that is held in the amygdala. And so anything will trigger that. Smells, signs, faces, voices that are linked to that experience will quickly trigger the amygdala and trigger the body into that sense of feeling unsafe or a fight-flight stress response, either a hyper response or a hypo response. And then the hippocampus is involved in the formation of memory and of explicit narrative memory. So it's really about the brain filing system. The hippocampus is able to file that information so that you can pull that out and have the story. It really plays a key role in ensuring that experiences are stored with contextual information about time and space, and the hippocampus matures around about two or three years of age. Hence we don't have narrative or explicit memory until about four. And for some people that's older, but we know that people have beautiful attunement and attachment often have earlier memories as well. We also know when the amygdala fires, when the amygdala says I'm unsafe, we know that the hippocampus goes offline. We know that we don't have memory, that often children don't have memory around what occurs to them when they're in really heightened states. We also know that when they're in that heightened state, that the information is not laid down for them to recall. We also know that children who have high levels of dysregulation, constant threat, fear, and we see this in children often in out-of-home care or children where there's been lots of family transience, poverty, homelessness, family violence. Often they're just in a state and they do not have access to their hippocampus at all. So some of the really preschool, some of the primary developmental goals are starting to think about abstract reasoning, creativity. I'm starting to think about social, emotional integration. This is where we start building those social skills. We know that if I'm in a state of heightened awareness or in a fight-flight response, whether it's a hyper or a disassociated submit collapse state, we know that we often don't build that social emotional integration, because I'm in such a fear state that I'm unable to allow people to come into my space to respond to. Yet social emotional integration is one of the key things that children need moving into school. Also it's around where moral and spiritual foundations are laid down. So this is a really essential part of development for the child alongside that limbic system as well. And then our complex thinking brain is our really high functioning cortical thinking. It's the largest part of our brain, and it's responsible, and most people think of this as the brain. In actual fact, with children from trauma, they are usually driven from their limbic system. We also know that when we have constant impact around family violence or trauma in the community, we know that often children cannot access their cerebral cortex, so it's really conscious processing. It stalls the really explicit memories of events and the narratives and people and experience. It provides a basis for self-reflection or the capacity to think, it has the capacity to think about thinking. If we didn't have our cerebral cortex online, if we're just operating from the limbic system, we can't think about what thinking is. We're just operating from a purely emotional, that sounded a bit blah, blah, blah. I hope that made sense. So really the normative development for the cerebral cortex and the complex thinking part, and remembering that this is sort of the last part, this is the roof, and we want the roof to develop beautifully. So we need all those other layers to develop accordingly. So this develops, starts developing between the ages three and six, and it's the last part of the brain to start developing. And then the prefrontal cortex doesn't mature until you are in your late twenties, early thirties, but they're interconnected. The prefrontal cortex is really CEO of the brain, but for children, we are really looking at this complex thinking, the largest part of the brain. It enables humans to think before they act. And this is where children start being able to think before they act. Before this they're actually acting from the emotional brain. So as children grow and develop, if they're able to have a really calm, safe environment, the cortex is usually then able to help them pause, when you think about when we're flooded with emotions. So this allows us to feel, think, then act. For children from trauma, often it's just acting from that emotional brain they're not able, and this part of the brain doesn't develop in the same way. And often it's offline. If you think about the roof of the house, when the emotional centre is activated by the amygdala and the hippocampus is offline, then the higher cognitive brain, the roof just goes off the house, and children are just operating that purely and feeling unsafe or feeling distressed or feeling not connected. So unlike the brain stem, the limbic system and the cor... Unlike the brain stem and the limbic system, the cortex is really susceptible to change due to experience and to the environment of where the child is and operates throughout any environment that they... So it can be home, it can be early learning centre, kindergarten. So we can actually have a huge impact in terms of the cerebral cortex and the development of this, if we can keep that emotional brain feeling safe. But it's really highly susceptible to change, which means we have this huge opportunity to create real change for children. Often we don't think about that, we tend to be responding to the emotional brain rather than thinking about how do we get the cerebral cortex online and then changing it, because we know that if I can get the roof onto the house, it can actually control and change the emotional brain. So I want you just to think about, and you can, I'm happy to go back, but I want you to, I'm just gonna flip back through this just for a minute. I want you to think about the child that you drew this morning. And I want you to think about where you think the child, where the development has occurred, and what are some of the impacts that you are seeing. So in terms of, is it brain stem? Is it cerebellum movements, spatial awareness, coordination, fine motor skills, gross motor skills. What are you seeing with this child and what do you think? This is their ability to know when they're hungry, when they need love, when they need water? What are their body signals telling you about the child and the impact in terms of their normative development around the limbic system. And the amygdala and hippocampus, what is their memory like? What's their attention like? Are they in this constant fight-flight response or disassociated? Are they hiding? Pleasing? Which when the amygdala fires, we also know that that disassociated, submit, collapse, flop, some people call it flop, hide response, we know that those children have experienced the most trauma. We tend to focus on the child who's in a hyper-dysregulated state rather than the hypo and think that's outside their window of tolerance as well, often get missed in that they're very quiet. Or is it around complex thinking for this child, if they're an older child? Where is the child at? So we'll just take a few minutes. I just want you to start thinking about coming up and thinking about different parts of the brain for this child. What does it look like? And you can Google this if you want to, you can have a Google and think about the impact. Just take a moment to actually reflect on the child that you work with and what does this look like. And think about the children who have beautiful coordination, think about the children who have really normative development as well. What has that brain development from the bottom to the top and from the back to the front. Brain stem, cerebellum, limbic system, amygdala, hippocampus, and then the higher cognitive brain. I need some nice music, but I'm sure if I tried to put some music on it, I'd just lose the screen. And the entire webinar would just go, and then my amygdala would be firing. I'd probably in a state of complete collapse maybe. Think about the children in your centre who are pleasing or who fall asleep. How do they respond? 'Cause falling asleep is a disassociated response sometimes as well, or the children who hide, who aren't seen. So there are really good reasons why these things start to happen and we're starting to see behaviour from a different lens is one of the things that starts to happen. Remembering often that the brain stem is a really survival, so will set off the emotional brain really rapidly, that fight-flight. Often the child will orientate, there's something about orientating to the predator as well that they'll come in really close to the adult. That's part of feeling safe. And for some children in the hypoaroused state, the sympathetic response, they shut down completely. So just write some notes around that child. Okay, there's a couple of questions. I'm happy to answer those. So the first one is, we have just enrolled a child three years from the Ukraine with little spoken English. So non-verbal language and connection will be important. Hoping to find some ideas of how educators will develop our relationship with him. I do have an email address at the end, I'm happy to, if you have particular things or information that you're looking for. So one of the things is there are some beautiful, if you're thinking about beautiful, for non-verbal, for children who don't have English, there are some beautiful non-verbal tools that are available and using lots of pictures. But also really around getting down to the child's level, but also really having lots of eye contact and those things that tell someone that we are really attuned to them. The other thing that is really important in that state where we don't have words, and I think this is really important for all children from trauma, 'cause often children from trauma sit in their right hemisphere. So they don't have access to language anyway. So whatever you are doing for this child is anything that we would do in a trauma-informed space. So it's really lots of eye contact, taking delight in the child, but also really showing and expressing to the child that I'm seeing them and I'm hearing what they're seeing and what they're actually doing at the moment. But also lots of, one of the things we know that makes the child feel safe, which brings their cognitive functioning online is things like real predictability, not having bowels, doing beautiful cues around... And some people play some nice regular music. Having routines that are really predictable for the children so that they feel safe when they come to the centre, but also about making parents feel safe. How do we make parents feel safe when they come to the centre as well? 'Cause often if you are working in communities where there's lots of trauma and lots of intergenerational trauma, or lots of natural disasters, also people will be affected, families will be affected. And definitely the brain stem can be affected by alcohol and drugs through pregnancy. We know that FASD has a huge range, you know, it's a disorder that's on a spectrum. There's beautiful research out of South Africa that says, one glass of wine at a particular times, at any time impact. We also know that often with young people, they're binge drinking when they get pregnant. So lots of information. If you're looking for really fabulous, there are some really fabulous resources around FASD. There's actually a website, I have to find that one. I'm sorry, I don't have it at my fingertips at the moment, but I think it's Australian FASD Association or something like that. But I'm happy to find that for you, if you are interested. Can TV time affect its growth? Yes, cerebellum is all about activity. Cerebellum is all about balance, you know, those little balance bikes that children have, I always say they should be on them at nine months. Walkers are really a no-go. What we know from the current research that is available that came out last year, the evidence shows that the longer a child crawls, the stronger the cerebellum. So we know that the cerebellum links to every other part of the brain as well. So it's a very core, important, but we know getting kids to do like, come out, crawling across the carpet, crawling, we know that marching universally develops a cerebellum. But anything, if you're looking for balance boards, stepping stones, there's a whole range of just activities. We know there's lots of activities that early childhood do that in actual fact, build the cerebellum, anything that's around balancing across, walking across boards or stepping stones, or walking on stilts. But yes, certainly too much TV time without that activity... If the child has got lots of things to engage them, rolling over, if it's an infant rolling over, getting children to move is a really big thing around the cerebellum, early infancy getting and things like push and yield. So tug wars using those rubber straps, let me just find one. I'm sure I just had one here. Can't see it. But just those rubber straps, getting kids to push and pull is very much about developing the cerebellum. Where do you think giving eye contact sits at? So we know that eye contact is a really key part of developing the brain. We know that only about seven years ago, Marco Iacoboni is a profession, is a professor in Italy who discovered mirror neurons. We know that mirror neurons light up when the baby and the mum have eye contact. We also know from the research from, there was a piece of research in the late 19th century, no 18th century, there was a piece of research at a Romanian orphanage in the 1980s that showed that when children aren't, don't, they can be kept warm and fed... We know that eye contact, and there's beautiful research from the Center for Child Development out of Harvard University, Cambridge University, that eye contact is the essential brain development, like a really early infancy newborn baby has eye contact. And sometimes it's not about constant eye contact, but it is about if you actually meet a child's gaze and then look away and look back, they'll be having eye contact with you. We also know from the research that mirror neurons are implicated in autism. The academic argument that's going on at the moment is do faulty mirror neurons cause autism, or a faulty mirror neuron is a result of autism? So I hope I've answered that to some degree. It's a really fascinating subject. Start Googling, start looking at the evidence and research. Body language plays. The role body language plays. Our body language plays a huge role because remembering that 80% of our communication is non-verbal. So about having joy and delight, we know as adult having joy and delight in other people engages our brain. We also know that when we fully engage and we have hand, you know, you can see my hands. We know that when we are doing those things that we are actually saying to someone, and when we are nodding and we are really enjoying, and enjoying with a child, we know that they know that I'm seeing them and hearing them and connecting to them. And sometimes for children it's difficult because they're not used to that. So you have to find really unique ways of engaging them. If a child had an experience of trauma, may he or she copy the cruel, sick situation to other children? What we know from some of the evidence is that's not always the case. There are two ways of looking this, that sometimes children will take an example, and if you look at the Bobo doll research from the 60s, what they found was the children would extend the violence without seeing it. We also know that children from trauma don't have empathy, so they don't understand the role of what they're doing, how it impacts on the other person. So the things that we know that children from trauma really require and need are relationships. Attuned, connected relationship that says, I see you, and I'm gonna start making meaning of your world with you. That you aren't bad, that you don't . I wanna join with you and I wanna make your world better. Empathy can be taught even to adults. We know that children and adults who've come from trauma have very poor empathy, so teaching empathy. And there's lots of tools around teaching. I'm not even gonna give you some of those, 'cause they're online, you can just Google tools. The other one is impulse control when they're a little older. So in that sort of three to five, lots of impulse games and activities. So again, there are a lot, naturally they're some of the games that we do, Simple Simon Says. Freeze. They're all impulse control, teaching impulse control. But do they copy? So the information is, they may see a behaviour, but they may also extend that behaviour. So if I am pulling the hair of a child, doesn't necessarily mean that someone has pulled my hair. It may have meant that my mum might have been combing my hair and I felt that, and so I've then gone to the next level. So often they extend that as well. I hope I answered that. It's really hard when I don't see people. Since COVID we have seen trauma in an adjusted light, how can we go be responsive to this? And do you find it differently to behaviour issues. Yeah, so that's a really fantastic one because as I go around training and especially, I've recently been back face-to-face in Melbourne, and one of the things that schools are seeing is that children coming into prep have very poor cerebellum development. So that loss in two years of exercising and those really key things about being outdoors and doing all those fun things that would normally be continuing, they've got very poor coordination, very poor. And the other thing is that what they're seeing is children coming into kindergarten and school and not understanding friendship roles and treating friends as siblings. So definitely we will see children... The only other thing that really gives me some joy and delight is that connectedness for infants was enhanced in some, some families saw that as an opportunity and some people decided not to return to work in the way they were because they found that connection to family. We know that connection, that relationship, that togetherness is what really helps children in terms of regulation and resilience. So yeah, so your difficulties in behaviour, toileting and eating issues are really connected to that development of the limbic system as well. And I'll talk a little bit more later about introception, which is really connected. And introception is very much about body awareness and it is connected of course, when children don't have that beautiful sequential brain development. So think about going back and thinking about the rocking, soothing. So rocking can be things like hammocks, rocking chairs. Things like, you know, the floss dance. Anything that's rhythmic. Dance, drumming. Anything that builds the brain stem. And then of course the cerebellum, I think I've said this a million times I cannot tell you how important the cerebellum is. So the other thing that we know and have known, having done research into mental health, we know that childhood trauma is linked to mental health issues in adulthood. So the more work we do in the early childhood space, around reconnecting and building the brain and having beautiful brain plasticity, of course, and before the age of nine, we can do lots of great things. Ahh, of course, crossing the midline is fantastic. It's also integrating two hemisphere. So painting in circular motions, getting children ... Don't have walkers in your early childhood centres, let children crawl and don't encourage children to walk. The research and evidence is saying, that children should be encouraged to crawl longer, but painting and crossing over the midline is beautiful. If you look at Brendan O'Hara's work in the 1980s brain gym was all about circular motions, elephant ears, just things like crossing the midline and just getting kids to hold their left ear or their right ear. Marco Iacoboni, so it's, if I remember correctly, I-C-O-B-A-N-I. I would focus, if you think about the sequential brain development, really think like every day we can do activities that are brain stem, every day we can do cerebellum. So really think about, but when you are starting that, if you do it in a sequential way, you will probably have a much better impact 'cause that's how the brain develops or divide up your curriculum. So that this week we are really focusing on brain stem, next week we're really focusing on cerebellum. So what we know is when we are doing emotional activities around children learning emotional regulation, we also know all the children benefit. We know that all the children will benefit from this. Even children who have normative development. For an example, Melbourne University released a piece of research looking at children in COVID in February 2021, sorry looked at 12 months, found that children where teachers in schools had taught regulation those children did much better throughout COVID. Can stuttering, I don't know a lot about stuttering, but one of the things I do know is that stuttering is associated with and can be just a one-off event, like a mum going into hospital. But it's usually around about the age of two. There seems to be a connection. I don't know a lot about it, happy to explore it. Jessica just email me and I'll see what I can find. That's what I know is that it's usually associated around about two years old with a traumatic event. If you think about things like the fires and floods, those things would be sort of one-off events. Or my understanding is it's often about the caregiver. Stuttering is really linked to the caregiver. Oh gosh. I think this is about safety. I would explore when he does this, from a trauma perspective, and I'm not sure if this is a mental health or it's probably a trauma experience, I would explore the antecedents and I would map the antecedents before he says this. What has happened? Is he feeling unsafe with you at that time? Or have you raised your voice and he's hearing that voice, because it's a trauma response. I would have some concerns for this child, I think he needs a referral. I would be using your collaborative systems around the child, but I would also map for a 10-year-old, I would be mapping what is happening. Is it in mid-afternoon when he's tired, or is it when other children are doing things to him. If you're looking for some good mapping tools for a 10-year-old, have a look at the Victoria and New South I'm not sure about New South Wales. I'm happy for someone from New South Wales to jump in on this one. But the Department of Education Victoria have something called ABC scatter plots, which is on their website, which allows you to map so you start understanding that this is when the child is feeling hungry or tired or something and map what has happened around them when this is happening for them. Hope I've answered that one. Okay, yes sure. Look, we know that the brain has huge plasticity, even in adulthood. We know that we can change our brain. We know that the brain up until nine has huge plasticity. So my emphasis in early childhood and early primary school is really do the work in those years now, and really focus on these children so that we can build and change for the child how they see themselves. Also, we know for adults who do trauma training, they suddenly say, "Oh my gosh, I thought I was just this really bad, terrible child, but it was trauma, it was my dad being really violent." We know that it's in the relationship with workers that heals trauma. We also know that a single childcare worker, a single teacher, we know that the canteen person or the receptionists, who takes an interest in me, changes my life. It's when someone sees and connects and actually says you are okay. We know that that's what changes for the child. I'm just aware of time, but that's okay, we've got time for a few more, yep, okay. I think I've just add that one around positive neuronal. Certainly, when we know that, when we work and we think about the brain from brain stem forward, that we can change the brain. We also know that when children, we also know that the children who are socially disconnected, are recognisable in kindergarten and in reception we know, I'm not sure. So in that four- to six-year-old, we know that we're already identifying with children. So think about social skills, think about empathy. And there're things that you naturally do, that teachers and early childhood educators are doing this all the time. Also, the thing that if you are working in primary school, have a look at early childhood planning for children because their plans, early childhood do this much better than any other sector. It gets a little bit lost once children go to school. So think about what does this child really need and start looking at that lens. So all the research now is not letting babies cry themselves out. Sorry, for those of us who went through that state. We also don't do sleep clinics now until they're 18 months old. So it's really about building that, and also that core attachment and attunement in centres, childcare centres around really creating a more, one or two people who connect to the child, not lots of people interacting with a child. So crawling longer is about building the cerebellum, which is a really core part of the brain development and circular motions. I'm hopefully I'll explain that a little bit later. It's around hemispheric development, around integrating left and right hemisphere, children from trauma tend to sit in their right hemisphere. We know that the corpus callosum, which links left and right hemisphere is developed usually around, really core development is between the ages of four and six. We know that children who have music lessons before the ages six have highly developed corpus callosum as do people have highly integrated left and right hemisphere. So anything that crosses the midline, starts to integrate left and right hemisphere. Children who have trauma often get stuck in the right hemisphere. So don't have access to language. Language is not a great tool for children from trauma or for children pre that cognitive development. So walking on, yeah, tippy-toes is two different things. On tippy-toes it is a developmental indicator, but for some children, it feels good, but definitely linked to development as well. You should have an OT referral for a child on tippy-toes just to check it out. But some children like walking on tippy-toes. So be aware that sometimes it's an enjoyable thing, but it's a very clear indicator often around a developmental stage or poor attunement and attachment as well. OTs would answer that question much better than me. Are children who say they're hungry all the time ... No, often it's about that diencephalon, about their messaging, about their hormones, their neurotransmitters, around what is my messaging in my body. And if my needs haven't been met often that, and this is really common across the board in trauma from zero to adolescents. Children have very white diets in trauma, what we call white, when I say white diets, it's a bit of a phenomenon that everyone names that children will eat white bread, chicken and chips, and that's about it. Texture is not good. We also know that eating crunchy foods is a normal part, impacts on brain development. We also know eating crunchy foods impacts on attention and learning. So there's lots of different connections that we are starting to see and evidence is starting to come out as well. How am I doing? I'm up to 11 o'clock. So there seems to be multitude. I'm just going to leave questions at the moment and then come back to them so that we just move through the webinar. Is that okay? How am I doing, Kate?

- Can you hear me? No, yeah.

- All right, so what you're doing is you're starting to think about the child's brain. What is really beautiful about your questions, and is that you are really starting to think about the child, not from a behaviour perspective, but from a brain development perspective. And I'm really excited about that, because that is absolutely beautiful. And we don't want people just thinking about the child, because often when we think about behaviour, it's about how we then connect with the child. When we start seeing the child through this lens of what does this child need and how do I connect, and how do I use my relationship to really change things and have this child create the best development. There's a sort of a bit of a movement, and I have some papers in regard to this one, is about, we don't talk about parenting anymore. That, you know, parenting is fairly value laden and it can be quite critical. But when we talk to parents about what your child needs, and about full development in terms of brain and cognitive function, we start changing the language. And also when we are saying to parents, "You know what, when Donna does this in the centre or at school, we are doing this. How about you try this at home at well, we'll all be doing the same thing, which will build Donna's cerebellum, or build Donna's emotional brain beautifully." Most parents love this, they, they come on board with it. So we talk a lot about psychoeducation for parents, psychoeducation through the centre, like, through your newsletter. What you are learning is sharing it with parents about them understanding what a child needs in terms of development. Now, my slides are just frozen for a bit. So now we're just going to look at trauma, and think about what is the impact of trauma on the brain? We've looked at the developmental, what's required for developmental, and I've talked a little bit about some of the impacts of trauma as I went, so this won't be too extensive. So really think about, what is trauma? What does trauma do? And often it's a word that's thrown around, you know, a little bit. Triggers and trauma, you know, have become a bit jargonistic at the moment, but really what is trauma? And how is it different from stress? And then what is different about traumatic experiences that occur early in life? And then how can trauma impact on a child or young person? So what I want you to do is just take a moment alongside that child that you drew earlier, and I want you to just draw what you think trauma is. It's good to draw, it engages your right hemisphere. So just draw, what is trauma? What does it look like? And then we'll explore the definition of trauma, and what trauma looks like for children. I think I have sort of covered trauma as I've gone along. So what is trauma? So it's an understanding that any single ongoing or cumulative experience, which is perceived as a threat, overwhelms our capacity to cope, feels outside our control, but evokes both a physiological and a psychological set of responses based on fear or avoidance. And there is alongside the responses with the children, their behaviours that are linked to trauma, is also neurophysiology. There are lots of things that happen in a child when they're experienced that threat of trauma. So really understanding child development is pivotal to recognise and distinguishing the impact of trauma from what is normative behaviour or misbehaviour. But we know that children, infants and children who experience chronic traumatisation frequently experience delays across their development spectrum, like, cognitive skills, language, motor, social skills. So simple trauma is overwhelming and painful. It's usually a single incident. It might be that you have a car accident and children end up in hospital. It doesn't have a lot of stigma. Often, community responses to simple trauma is much more supportive than helpful than complex relational trauma, 'cause complex relational trauma are multiple, extended incidents over an extended period of time in blaming or stigmatising the child. It's usually based in the relationship and associated with shame. Isolates the child, impacts on their identity. Sometimes it's underpinned by intentionality. So if you think about intentional family violence, or if you think about sometimes intentional not feeding a family, or intentionally targeting a child and victimising the child in the family. So what it does, it induces a sense of disconnection from others and from support. So often, the child who has the most extreme impact from complex relational trauma struggles to survive. Also, if you think about children's behaviour from a survival perspective, that children and women die every week in Australia from family violence. So often, what we call maladaptive behaviours are survival behaviours. They're developed by the child to survive in a world, either running away or hiding. Or some of the things we see is, you know, enuresis and encopresis, wetting pants, pooing pants, faecal smearing, because it's a perfect tool to keep the perpetrator away. And there's lots of behaviours. If we start to put them in a context of looking at them around, how did this help the child survive? What we know from children who come from extreme and multilayered trauma, is often they become very black and white, and very inflexible, and don't connect to you, the worker, because their trust in adults has been severely damaged, they've not had attuned and attached relationships. Children who can join in and connect to us have had beautiful, attuned relationships in their life. Children who can't connect, and often it's difficult for us to work with them. To be honest, I often say to people, "Let's be really serious. These are the children who are the most difficult children to work." And often when I'm in an early childhood centre, I look across, and all the other kids are playing the educator is reading to the story, and there's this child, and you just have to look at them to know that this child is sitting on his own, and not joining in, 'cause often, they are difficult to engage, because they see the world as unsafe, and they just see you as a bear. And they'll do things to prove that you are unsafe, and then when you punish them, is perhaps a really strong word, or you remove them from the other children, or you put them into time out, then you are actually saying, "I am a bear." And you're just enhancing their mistrust of the world. The other ways of engaging these children is really to have time with, eyes on, hands in, in here with me like a toddler, like a baby. I want you front and centre in my world. And if you look at Dan Hughes' PACE, if you look at Kim Golding's work, it's all about bringing in the child and creating this sense of attunement with the child as well. And then developmental trauma occurs in those crucial stages of brain development. So the child's development can be slowed down or impaired, often then leading to the children experiencing really splinted development. So these are the children who are neglected, abused, sexual abuse, physical abuse in really high-level family violence. Or high-level family conflict in the context of separation or divorce. We also know that high stress levels can also create intransigence. We know that just transience creates a sense trauma for a child. And then these are sort of when we layer on, so for some children, they will have all of these in their lives. So they may have simple traumas on a day-to-day basis because you know, we become homeless, or we don't have food. They have complex trauma across their world in terms of what's happening in their world. And then in relationships and their needs being met. And then developmental trauma is that it impacts on particular stages of my life. So we know that high stress levels in mum, in utero, impact on brain development. We know that at certain points of time, children who often are removed, like, at four to eight months, often have very poor cerebellum in out-of-home care, one of the things that we see is very poor cerebellum. But when they have great caregivers, they often then have beautiful cognitive development. We have intergenerational and transgenerational. So sometimes some people use intergenerational and transgenerational interchangeably, but intergeneration means that it comes between two generations. Most of us, as we get older, we start saying, "Oh my God, I said something, I sounded like my mom." That's intergenerational. And there's positive things that are intergenerational as well. Like, my love of babies comes from my mom, comes from my grandmother, that's intergenerational. And then transgenerational are the things that occur across a multiple layers of generations. So if you think about our Aboriginal communities where, you know, you had genocide and stolen children, then the community were sad. And then you have violence where, you know, 'cause men's roles were removed, children were removed. So there was this huge, deep sadness. Women were removed and put into, you know, servitude in houses, and were often abused and then unable to share and connect to their children. And often that has come across a range. So often those things that change transgenerational outcomes. Historical, if you think about historical in Australia, even white people coming to Australia, came out on convict boats, they weren't P&O Cruises. You know, there was lots of violence. We had the Second World War and First World War, where men came back after experiencing horrific things. So if you think about historical events that is really, starts to impact in lots of ways. And then epigenetics is our response on our DNA. And a really simple way of putting that is that our coding can be switched on or switched off. And the major research has occurred after the First World war, there was famine in Holland where Dutch people started to store fat, and that has remained switched on for five generations. I thought my heritage was Irish, but if you have a look at my hips, I think there's a Dutch ancestor in there somewhere. And then Rachel Yehuda, it's a very new science, epigenetics, but worth having a look at, it's fascinating. Rachel Yehuda did work on the epigenetic changes for people, children of Holocaust survivors. We know it's a response to pollution, to the environment that happens in our DNA. But we also know that when violence switches on particular coding in our DNA, it takes around about three to six generations of really beautiful, nurturing, and caring to change that our DNA coding. That's a very simple form. I'm happy for you to jump on and do one of our trainings around epigene... Or have a look, there's some beautiful YouTube podcasts and evidence papers around epigenetics. And then collective trauma is the collective trauma within a community. That often if you are sitting in a community where there's lots of violence, low socioeconomic, homelessness, poverty, then you have a collective trauma. So for some of our children, some children will have all of these in their lives. And then how do we change that for them? So these children need to be at the centre. If you remember that little heart right back at the start where the child is at the centre, we need to have them there, we need to give this child the most love and delight that we can actually share with them to change their world. But also, to change things like intergenerational violence or intergenerational trauma. The other thing is about, you know, stress is different to trauma. Stress is difficult, and we feel we have to cope. And sometimes it's difficult in this world to cope with the level of stress, but trauma leaves a lasting impact, that's the difference. And we don't have those inheritable changes in the gene function as in epigenetics when our world is normative, and we have attached and attuned people in our lives. So these are the ways that children experience trauma, and really understanding that cognitive impacts language, impacts motor skills, social skills, that children and young people who experience chronic traumatisation often have these delays across areas in their life as well. Often they have gaps. And if you think about the house, often, for some children, the floor is not fabulous. Or the walls, which is the cerebellum, are not fantastic. But don't think just because they've got poor four wall, some kids have fantastic roof. You know, it's like the house that they built the beautiful roof first. But for some children, in actual fact, the impact from in utero will impact on all layers of their brain development. So even when we are working with disabilities, what we do in this space around brain development impacts beautifully and creates the best outcome for children who have a disability as well. We also know that relational, the relationship is really important. We know that attuned, attached relationships, have a look at the evidence and the research, there's some really fabulous new evidence and research about very attuned and healing in attachment through your role with them as well. And it doesn't have to be lots of time, people say, "Oh, I'm only here 9 am to 5 pm or 9 am to 3 pm." Okay, so this is just a really, just a nice, little thing saying trauma can impact all those areas, all those domains of a child's life, brain, body, memory, learning behaviour, emotions, relationships. Excuse me, I'm just, I need to drink water. So things like, children will push away the memories of pain. They shut down their feelings. We know that emotional literacy, we do lots of things like, emotional Jenga, emotional bingo, things like zones of regulation. There's some beautiful zone, you know, ways of getting children. When they come in, I talk to a lot of educators who say, "The first thing in the morning is we just have a little rhythm singing song because I know that they've had mum yelling at them and mum the day." So we know that all those things that we do just naturally, this gives meaning to them as well. Remembering also children who have all those trauma impacts, often stop believing in and trusting adults. Also, prolonged exposure to trauma and stress for a child . So they start scanning the environment constantly. When I'm in a fight, flight stress response, I don't have access to my memory. So it impacts on how people see me, but I'm not even remembering, you know, that two plus two is four. I was gonna say six, 'cause that's what I normally do, but I just thought you all might think I've forgotten. But you know, that's sort of thing that if the child next to me is annoying me, or if your voice is raised, I might be in a fight-flight remembering that the hippocampus, which is our memory, goes offline. But if I've just got, you know, if I'm living in this household of not getting to bed at night, constant arguing, drug and alcohol, family conflict, not being fed, all those things will mean that I'm in a heightened state, and I'm unable to learn until someone assists me in regulation. But they're also relying on you to protect them and to help them find that sense of safety as well. Complex trauma results in a loss of core capabilities like self-regulation and being able to have interpersonal relationships. So often, the young person, the child, or the infant will then have lifelong problems that place them at extra risk of additional trauma, are not being invited to play dates, not being invited to other children's parties. That starts happening at kindergarten age, at a very early age, labelled with names. But we also know, if you look at Gabor Maté's work, it's linked to addictive disorders. We know that it impacts, we know that disassociation in children, if not addressed, leads to chronic mental illness in adolescents as well. So if you think about Dan Hughes work, he says that severely traumatised children, actually always present with a combination of biological effects, such as being, you know, in constant fight-flight-freeze. The active freeze difference as opposed to the hyperaroused flop disassociate is the heartbeat is faster in the active freeze. It slows down in the disassociated state. So emotional effects such as hyper vigilance, always looking out, little things will impact on me, just another child moving, or a raised voice, or a face, or unable to read people's faces or emotions. Unable to label and describe feelings, difficulties communicating my wants and needs, unable to say, "I need to go to the toilet." And then the behaviour effects that we see, and you can add to my list, if you want to, as I go, the behaviour effects are hyperactivity, poor impulse control, demanding, attention seeking in a really odd way, violence. You know, and then we start talking about oppositional behaviour, we start labelling. Difficulty hearing, difficulty following rules. We see stealing food, often children in disassociated states steal food, or steal lollies, or go and find places where they can steal food. Then often don't remember. Often, extreme risks almost at the edge of self-harming. And then they lack curiosity because in those hormones, in the diencephalon around hormones, one of the key things that gets impacted in this state are dopamine and oxytocin. Oxytocin is our connecting neurotransmitter, and dopamine is what is essential for learning about having curiosity. So they usually often have really poor problem-solving skills. So even when we are giving them, we need to be much more defined and actually often demonstrate, and do it with them rather than just trying to get them to do it. And lots of problems in terms of that really higher brain functioning, higher cognitive functioning around planning, goal setting. Very often, very poor, low self-esteem, sense of shame and guilt, always blaming others or blaming themself. And then just having a really poor sense of belief about relationships. Sometimes need to control others or control themselves, because that means I stay alive, it's a survival skill. If I don't let you in, and if I manage everything around me, if I'm really black and white. Inflexibility is one that we see, and especially in early primary school. Really unhealthy boundaries with others, sometimes withdrawn socially. So children with attachment difficulties from, attachment remember is very early infancy, often mask anxiety about their relationships and learning, by really controlling behaviours or aggression. So really think about, as educators, that we have to embrace this child's brain as it has huge plasticity, and what are the changes that I can create? I think it's a really exciting time. So this is just implicit memory, thinking for these children. Often, implicit memory is what they respond to. Often, they don't have narrative memory, and people do like, child protection, the justice system, education, often want narrative. Often, children in a disregular state don't have narrative. I want you to just have a think about, how does this hand feel? And it will be unique to each one of you. I want you to consider, how do you feel in the relationship to this gesture? What are the emotions you attach to it? How tall are you? How old do you feel? Is the hand offering you something, or wanting something? Is this hand safe to you, or is this hand unsafe? So how we respond just to this simple hand gesture will be different for each one of us. And the way we interact with this hand has to do with the procedural cues that we have implicitly coded over the years. We don't even know why we respond to the hand in that particular way. And it does change, each time I see this hand, I now have a different response. But when we think about how strong that response is just to a simple hand on a slide, and some of the feelings that are attached to it, think about the implicit memory that these children who come from trauma have, that hand may not be safe, and it may not be saying, "Come with me," but it may be threatening. So we often forget about the implicit memory, and the implicit responses that are coded for the child that they have in our classrooms, or in our centre every single day. And the implicit responses come from very early infancy onwards. So it's quite an interesting phenomenon that implicit memory, and often when children don't have explicit memory, they will have really strong implicit memory. So this is the, like just having a look at the impact of trauma and disrupted attachment across those developmental stages. Behaviour changes are changes to the neurobiology of the brain in the central nervous system, are altered by that alarm system. Fear responses to reminders of trauma. And it may be things like a smell or a perfume. It may be a face, if I frown, the child may respond. Or it might be just sudden movement. Or it might be about me waving my hands around. The implicit responses that are embedded into that fear response are really strong. Often, some of the signs, and I do recommend that you have a look at the child development and trauma guide, which sets out what does the impact of trauma in each age stage look like from zero to 18? There are particular ages where the impact of trauma creates particular behaviours. Like, as an example, between five and seven, the impact of trauma often leads to hurting animals and lighting fire, it's pertinent to that one. Sleeping disturbances are in all age stages. I might be hyperaroused, constantly in that hyperaroused state. I'm hypervigilant around like, watching people, watching the other children. Or I might be insecure, anxious, or just withdrawn and hiding, or I might be pleasing. People talk about fawn, it's become quite common, it's not evidenced, and they don't know in research at where fawn fits. They think it sits in disassociation, but it's a word that people are using a lot. But we talk about pleasing as sits in the disassociated where I will... To actually orientate to the predator, I please the predator, and I learn in pleasing that I keep myself safe is how that develops. Loss of capacity. We know that when I don't have great attunement and attachment, and I don't have someone who gives me that attunement and attachment as I move through my developmental stages, I lose the capacity to manage my emotional states and to self-soothe. Adults who are very emotionally self-regulated, you know that they had an attuned safe person. We know that children who grow up in villages have this really calm, emotional regulation, because their needs were met. And I'm talking about where they have a whole family that are responsive to the child. And then these are some of the responses in terms of preschool developmental stages. Regression, often, regression in acquired developmental gains. Loss of capacity, again, to manage emotional states, they can be really insecure and anxious. And we know that sleep disturbances happen across all these. A loss of, or reduced capacity to attune to the caregiver. And in this, you would say loss or reduced capacity attuned to caregiver, educator, or teacher, or the people around them. I'm focusing on the perpetrator, I'm focusing on feeling, trying to make myself stay in this state where I'm responsible for surviving. And then these are some of the other things that happen. We would see, if the trauma actually impacts these particular, these are some things that you would see in these stages as well. Key behaviour changes. We might just do some more questions and answers, just for about five minutes. So how do we prepare ourselves as educators to guide and support a new child coming into the centre, who has experienced trauma? As an educator, one of the things I always recommend is that you, and if it's early childhood, you do this really well, anyway, I know that you do this really well, that you see the whole... But think about, what are the impacts? Where is this child sitting? Are they in a hyperaroused state, or a disassociated state, in a hypoaroused state? The other thing is don't focus attention on the child, because what we know is that in a group, or in a classroom, when we do activities that address the individual child, we know that we actually change the outcomes for all the other children. When there's a regulated, calm environment, children will learn better. When children play connected and in a relationship with the educator, we know that that builds brain capacity. We know that when children connect, and are seen, and felt, and heard by the educator, that then they actually build something really unique. I know from my work in early education centres, that early educators say that when children come to them because they connect and hold the child, that the behaviours that everyone else is talking about, family, child protection, who else is in the child's life, completely dissipate in the centre, because the child feels safe. So I think the key thing is around thinking about safety, and looking at, how do we create safety for the child who has experienced trauma. But also for the child's parents, so the parent feels... Cause of two year old not talking, sometimes selected mutism, but one of the things we're seeing more, an epidemic of children coming, both to kindergarten stage and school stage, is dysregulation, and no language. It's across Australia. So one of the things about that is around lack of attunement and attachment, is around parents not talking, not connecting. Lots of sociological reasons. I could go on for about two hours. The other thing is the child of two who is not talking needs a referral to a speech pathologist. And lots of language skills, lots of language opportunities. Leanne talks about nutrition, sits with brain development. Nutrition's not really key at this point. Of course, nutrition is important, but we know that nutrition doesn't have a huge impact until a little bit later. Most babies are getting bottles or breastfed, but we know that nutrition, of course, builds better physical. We know if the brain fails to thrive, then we have physical failure to thrive. We know that it's in the brain development that the physical development happens, so they sit alongside each other. There's lots of different advice, but I would be talking to dieticians in regard to the importance. Some people think it's not as important at the early stage until about three or four is when nutrition is essential, when the bottles go. Lots of talk, you know, there's lots of this information around formulas for toddlers and things. There's lots of nice debate happening, so jump online and have a look at the debates that are happening, that in actual fact, children need to be starting, you know, to experience food across a whole range of things. That in actual fact, some of those toddler formulas are impacting on nutrition. It's not my area of expertise, but they're just some of the things that I do know. Oh my gosh, you can see three weeks of him enjoy, and you see improvement in his behaviour and connecting with us. I would be doing some upstairs brain, upstairs, downstairs brain. I would be teaching the children that, like, things are happening for him. Things are making him feel unsafe. I would be doing, because there's some beautiful songs about the brain. There's some beautiful activities about the brain, but we know that when we teach children about other children's brains and about their own brains, that we also know, you know, one of the things that I see is very young children is saying, "Is your upstairs brain off?" Or, "Is your roof gone?" They stop, and you actually see them start to regulate. But obviously, you're doing all the beautiful safety things. And just making the other children feel safe in this is probably the important thing as well. But also around, if you think about behaviour, and this is Donna-ism, this is not based in evidence, but this is Donna-ism, his behaviour or her behaviour is designed to enable that I survive extreme things happening in my life. If you just change my behaviour, I'm left feeling like I'm going to die. That's how these children describe it. This is how they feel. That I use this behaviour to keep me... So I'm in a dysregulated state, so I'm not reasoning, I'm just surviving. I'm fighting a bear, I'm fighting a crocodile. So when we are changing behaviour, I want you to think about, what do I replace that behaviour with? How do you find that behaviour? Where is it? All right. Where do we find the trauma guide? New South Wales have a trauma guide. WA is the easiest one, because all my students and participants, 'cause it's an easy one to download. And it just comes in beautiful, little... It's much easier. Victoria has one, it's huge, it's lots of chapters. New South Wales have one. I'm happy for someone from New South Wales to pop up where they can, if you have access to it. Go Kate, can you answer that?

- Can you hear me, Donna? Yeah, we will locate it. And when we send out the recording for the session, we'll include the trauma guides as well.

- I'm not sure what happened to that question. I do know, if you just Google WA Child Development Trauma Guide, it pops up. A simple yoga, breathing yoga, drumming, we know that marching, universally singing, are all regulation. We know that drumming helps the hyperaroused child. And the hypoaroused child, we know that things like, body tapping, body drumming, lots of scripts. You don't need me to give you the scripts, but simple yoga is a beautiful way, mindfulness. Children love it, there are simple activities. You know, I see children as young as three and four doing, you know, peace and quiet. You know, crossing their legs and doing little yoga activities, perfect way, 'cause it helps regulate the whole class. But the things that you know that regulate your class, the other thing is if you're taking your class, and these are just activities where we get children really in a beautiful natural, because that's how we want them to be across the day. Don't just bring them down, because for a child who is easily disregulated, think about and map the child in your classroom. We know that around about midafternoon is a normal time for dysregulation, around tiredness. Lots of schools are moving lunchtime out, and then having very quiet activities in the afternoon. Some schools are going to quarter to two for lunch, 'cause it shortens the afternoon, but it is just hitting that mark when kids are really tired and need some time out. Also, the other thing is around transitions and changes. Any change, change of educator, relief teachers coming in, change of transition from inside to outside. How do we manage those, and how do we make them really predictable is great. I would just say for this little, the two siblings, I just think you're doing exactly what this child needs. That you are actually giving him people who are safe. People who are caring, and people who are attuning and attaching to his needs. And yes, we really do struggle with it, but remembering that you are making the difference in his life, that we know that just that connection can change his life. The other thing is also is to greet mum and make mum feel safe as much as possible. Often, there's this thing about that parents don't feel safe, and the more unsafe they feel than their children. The other thing is when we connect to adults who come from trauma, we often get them to then start seeing that we're a safe place for their children to come. I've got lots of stuff around, and there's lots of stuff. And I'm sure that you will have other webinars around connecting to parents, and how do we connect to parents, but there's lots of really good information out there. Happy to share some that I've got. But I would just say, just keep doing what you're doing so that these children have a moment in their life that means they have an attuned, connected relationship, and that someone is really caring for them. Can trauma be caused by parents? Yeah, definitely, worked with lots of adults who say, "Oh, my father took a horse whip, I deserved it, didn't impact on me." But it's really visible the impact, so definitely, yeah. Our ACF's mantra is connection before correction. And if you are really connecting to a child, and working with a child, and teaching them problem solving, then you don't have to punish a child or correct them. It's about connecting. And when we really humanly connect, we actually then start changing a child's state. Oh, okay, so this is just a classic, disassociated child. Disassociation, read about disassociation, we'll explore that. Well, no, we're not exploring that today. Have a look, whose work is really good in disassociation? Dan Siegel does some work, Bonnie Badenoch, Kim Golding, Pat Ogden, all do work in disassociation. So the response in the hyperaroused, which is indicator of huge trauma for a child, the lowest evolutionary response to trauma, is around contracting of bowel and bladder, where children pee themselves, enuresis and encopresis. It means they're in a really heightened, same as a really heightened child, but they're in a different state. And they will go into a state and then come out, look really hyperaroused and they'll move between the two. But in actual fact, the bowels, or it is a behaviour that is meant, it has kept people away, so it's a survival. So the child needs something to replace it. Again, connection before correction. But also children need to know that it's predictable. Children love consistency. We say in trauma, the biggest things you do is relationship predictability. So I'm just looking at time. I might just leave some more questions, and just go back and finish our webinar. But we know the consistency, predictability. Consistency and predictability, the things that make children feel safe. They're also about predictability about how you are going to respond. We know that that creates something really spe... It's like the mum, if you think about the infant, the baby cries, I pick them up, I soothe them, I feed them, I change them, and then I talk to them. That's the response, we want children to know that at this particular time, and if you think about how we build our services, it's about predictability and consistency. And often for children from trauma, when we move and change those, is when we have dysregulation. Lots of information around consistency and predictability. So this is the Department of Education, New South Wales Department of Education and Training. This is the childhood online trauma development programme that's available to you, that you can just enrol in and do, and it's a self-paced work through module, and that's the site for it. And I'll get Kate to pop that link into the chat, into the question chat as well. So this just will build, today's just an introduction. So that's available to you at no cost, and it's a fabulous, little programme that's got lots of interactive, and lots of information for you as well. The eight senses, so we know, and I'm just gonna briefly do these. We know that visually, that trauma impacts. So what happens is because I'm looking for the, and we know that our peripheral vision changes when we're in a fight-flight stress response. We also know that we need to be able to make sense of non-verbal cues and map people as they move. Often, this is missed for children from trauma. They have hard time processing a visual stimuli as well. And often, you know, have other impacts in terms of visual, unable to sort of make sense of colours or letters. Because when I'm focusing on a bear, and remembering if I'm trying to remember these things and my hippocampus is not online, then I can't hear it. We know that auditory, there's huge changes. We call it listening to the bear, and that's like, the auditory, the canal changes for children from trauma. The hearing, they often have hearing tests and they're fine. But it's where my attention goes, my attention goes to listening for the bear. And often, they have difficulty, often, they have really difficulty in filtering out background noises, so a fan. If you just stop and listen for a moment, there's lots of noises that we just filter out that you don't hear. For them, like, a fan or an air conditioner can sound like a jet engine. Or someone clicking their pen will sound like a jack hammer. So often they have auditory overload. Also they can have visual overload. One of the things I say is, don't have lots of bright lights on. Like, if you are mapping when children become, if it's, you know, afternoon or a particular time, turn the lights down. There's a really nice sense when we turn lights down for the brain as well. You know, I want you to think about, you know, nice, warm grandmother hugs. Warm, cuddly beds. What does it feel like? How do we create that in our centres? What does it feel like? 'Cause that's when we feel safe. And then touch, we're seeing lots of children now with sensory disorders. And often, touch is, you know, they're unable to bear particular fabrics or a tag of their clothes. Or if I handed out cotton wool balls, some of you would just love them, and some of you would go, "Oh, no way." So often, there's a sense of touch that is different. And sometimes, the things that we think are really safe, these children won't feel safe. So often, we have to play with lots of things to find the things that, like a soft toy may not work for a child who has been, you know, seriously abused and then handed soft toys as a makeup. The soft toy is part of the abuse. So it might be something completely different, might be a different texture. Often, you know, the slime, those sorts of texture seems to run across the board. Those metallic beating things that move that kids often have on their T-shirts, they're fabulous, the kids mostly like those. It changes with each child. And sometimes, it'll work for a child for a little while and then not others. And taste, I talked about taste a little bit earlier. And then we know that smell, the sense of smell, olfactory, umm, old factory, no it's olfactory is considered the oldest system in the brain but it's also the one that is most connected to the amygdala. We know that just the smell of another child, or the smell of someone's food, or the smell of your perfume. I recently was at school, and they were talking about every time a particular art teacher came into the school, this child dysregulated. And when they worked with the child, what they found was, they changed their perfume and the child stopped being dysregulated. So that was their really strong sense of smell triggering them. So it's the one that is most likely. And then vestibular, we know that children have this really sense of head movement in space, where my head is like, when you're sitting there, I know exactly where my head is, it's here, it's in space. The children often from trauma, they have no idea, and so they'll bang their heads on things, or they'll, you know, bang their head on other children. They just don't have a sense, but it also helps the body to maintain balance. And it's really strongly connected to the cerebellum, 'cause it's a vestibular is about, I'm aware of where I am in space, and that's the cerebellum. So they can be really clumsy. Dancing, jumping, swinging activities, are really good to develop vestibular opportunities. And then proprioception are the sensation of really being aware. It's a similar to vestibular, but it's more about where I am in my whole body and space, where my arms and my joints are, where my elbow and my knee are. They often have difficulty navigating their muscles and joints where they're located, and how different body parts respond to external stimuli. And then introception is really the awareness of like, hunger, toileting. Most people, OTs will tell you that introception is at the heart of regulation. If you have very poor introception, you will have very poor regulation. Occupational therapist, neuroscience, Jane Ayres, it's a.jean Ayres, I think it's A-Y-R-E-S, liken sensory processing disorders to the brain receiving information, and it doesn't receive sensory information correctly. Introception is doing things like kangaroo jumps, and frog jumps, and getting children to be really aware of their body. And then self-identity, often, children from trauma have very poor self-identity. It gets mixed. So this is our hierarchical nervous system. We need safety. Danger is diminished. The body responds in these different ways. Immobilised responses is the thing that is indicative of very high trauma for children. And if you read, this is Stephen Porges work. Please explore Stephen Porges 'cause his research reveals how our nervous system reacts to our environment. And it's a neuroception of safety that promotes the ability to really utilise our higher cognitive and our neural systems to overcome those responses to fear, both the mobilised fear and the immobilised, which is our disassociated-submit-collapse state. So the window of tolerance is its own in which, you know, is where we operate, where our hippocampus is online. Relationships feel available. The brain shifts from the emotional into the really high cognitive function. When we slip outside of that, either in a hypo-dysregulated state, or a hypo submit-collapse state, our cortex is no longer online, we don't have learning. And top down doesn't manage the emotional brain. So the window of tolerance, and our accessing all of our brain the way we should, if they're around helping children feel safe in their body. So this is, the yellow part of this is our window of tolerance. And what we want to keep children is in that window of tolerance. So the submit-collapse hyperaroused state is, you know, where children feel emotional numbness, emptiness, and sometimes almost paralysed. So that window of tolerance is where I feel safe, and I can move up and down in the window, but I don't. Lots of work now happening. The research and the work in the trauma space is very much about, how do we build the child's window of tolerance? How do we create connections between me, the educator and the child, and then the child and other children? And then how do we connect that to the whole community? So it's really about that we are building and moving the child's window of tolerance to a much great... 'Cause some children's window of tolerance will be really tiny, really small. Think about what is the baseline for your community? What's the window of tolerance in your community? What does it look like? Is it a really hyperaroused community, or is it a really calm? All of you will be in different communities, but also think about what is the baseline for your centre? What might it be? Is it in a collapsed state 'cause it's overwhelmed? Or is it in a really dysregulated, hyperaroused fight-flight response, responding to all the chaos? Responding to COVID and everyone is out their window of tolerance. So think about, how do we maintain those things in our centre, but also in our children? And this is just from Cathy Malchiodi he is another beautiful neuroscientist who does lots of work around play. So children are to engage in pleasurable activities without becoming hyperaroused before they develop the capacity to play with others. So we need to teach children how to regulate in both states before they can even start to play. And one of the things we do see is that sense of not having social skills. I think I've said enough about safe, attuned relationships. I can't say enough about the human safety that the child needs for their internal world to feel safe. And what is the parent's sense of safety in your centre? How do you create that? The environment, is it safe? What does it smell like? Is it visually overwhelming? So human safety for the children, are all the people around them really safe? So think about, you know, it's neural safety, do you have beautiful, safe spaces for the children? Do you have activities that make... And how do you engage in the safe spaces with them? Because it's in the relationship that the child needs to feel safe, just as much as in the safe. So safety is really embedded in our bodies, and it's a relational experience. So remembering that child abuse is that really deep sense of violation of the child's sense. And these are some of the strategies that we talk about. And this is very embedded in the polyvagal theory from Stephen Porges. So really about environment, looking at the environment. How close can I be to a child before they feel unsafe? Or do I need to feel, be close for them to feel unsafe? What's my eye contact? And we know that the brain is a social animal, and it connects if you've got dogs or cats. As soon as you see your dog, it'll have eye contact. Mammals need eye contact for the brain to say, "I'm seeing you, I'm connecting." What are my facial expressions? Do I have resting bitch face? that kids read as, "Oh, she's angry at me." What's your tone of voice? We know that prosity of voice creates safety. You know where the voice moves. What are our postures and gestures? Am I like Donna, like lots of arms and hands. So think about, what does that feel like? And then think about how do I really connect to the child in terms of lighting up their mirror neurons? You know, that sensation in our brain when we really connect to someone. And then how do I really help the child to make meaning of their experiences, and their world that they're moving through? In all those environments, how do I do that? But they make meaning of it about how I reflect back from you. And even, I've asked Kate today to stay with her camera on, 'cause it's the only phase, and it's really important to me to be connecting to Kate, so that my brain is making that I'm actually connecting to people out there, the question and answers were great, but that's what the child sees. So to cope, children from trauma use adaptive responses. They will be different for every child, and they will change as soon as they think you are safe, they'll do something that makes them think, "I'm just gonna poke them to see if they're really safe." Think of a, really a range of combinations of appropriate developmental behaviours that you can swap in to help the child survive when you are thinking about changing their behaviours. When we make meaning for the child to understand that some of this isn't about you, it's about what you've experienced. Then if we just tell them, "You're okay," that they're loved. And that sense of that, "I see and delight in you." That sense of taking great delight and the person says, "I see, and I really care about you." We need really trauma-informed and -integrative systems. We know that from trauma work, every single framework across the world talks about collaboration. We need collaboration with people who support us. We need collaboration with the community, with parents. The parents are our partners in this. We need collaboration with our OTs and speech pathologists. We need to be building those networks. We also need to have those networks of child protection. One of the questions earlier, how do we create that connection? And how do we have those networks that they're responsive to us as well? And then reflective practice is really essential. And today is really about that you are doing some reflective practice, reflecting on the children that you work with. So that's some of the resources that are available for you. Online, we have lots of resources, lots of nice little things. I know this is "The Handbook of Therapeutic Care for Children," and it's designed for children in out-of-home care. But it works really well in schools and in early childhood. Some of the information, especially from Martin Teicher, about understanding dysregulation is beautiful. Cathy Malchiodi, that's how you pronounce her name. Cathy Malchiodi's work around activities for children is beautiful. Kim, like all of those, are amazing people. So that's also a list that you can follow up on all the different researchers. They all have beautiful podcasts and YouTubes that they share with people. Here's some of our references, and that's my email address, and we've got about five minutes of questions and answers. All right, here we go. Okay, how do we respond of an eight year old? One of the things I would, this is a Donna challenge, but it's across ACF, is sometimes an eight year old is not sexualised behaviour. If you change that and call it challenging behaviours, we deal with it exactly the same as we do in any other behaviour. We manage it, we actually take control of it. We talk about that it's not appropriate to talk about sex in the classroom, that's in private. So manage and stop thinking about it as sexualised behaviour, but as a really challenging behaviour that I need to actually identify, what is the need for the child? And probably the need is to be connected to other children, even though it's adverse. So think about what sits beneath behaviour, like you would any other behaviour. And it's really common, but often it's labelled, and then the child is seen as a perpetrator, rather than a child who has challenging behaviour. A lot of information on that one, Marika. Okay, so in this one, we've got child separation anxiety. We know from lots of different reasons for separation anxiety, and you probably need to explore what the different reasons are so that you can actually analyse why. One of the things that pops into my mind around separation is a lack of attachment, really solid attachment and attunement. Children who have solid attachment and attunement are actually quite confident. That's one of the things we know about letting go. If you look at attachment theory, we know that children who are solidly attached. So one of the things I would do is build that, and Dan Hughes' work around saying, have that child with you, and eyes on, hands on the entire time they're there for about six weeks. If they're still not ready, if they're still showing that, then do it for a bit longer. But he says that's what builds that sense of confidence for the child. But also the child, it sounds like the child is feeling quite safe as well, just keep building on that.

- How always wonderful? When they feel valued, at least, can you choose...

- Beautiful comment. Yeah, probably is sensory integration, definitely. Marika, that is the most... Oh, no, Deb. It is and it is that delight in the child that they feel valued and listened to, but it's attunement. If you think about it, it's really core attunement and attachment, because that's what good attunement and attachment is for, from parents, with infants as well. Ah, so the book, let me just skip back to the book. "Handbook of Therapeutic Care for Children" available through the ACF shop. I have to say, it came out, and I didn't read it, and then I started reading it as part of GCDT. And I now use it in when I'm training in early childhood or schools, 'cause it has such beautiful information in it. So I apologise for not grabbing hold.... Lots of beautiful books out there. Kim Golding, Sharon Phillips, Relationships in Schools is probably one, and Kim Golding is part of this one. Kim Golding and Sharon Phillips have put out one about dyadic relationships in schools and using that. Okay, I think that's about it. I apologise for too much information. I want everyone to know everything that I'm so passionate about trauma-informed practice, especially in early childhood and schools, because this is where you will do the most valuable work as well. That's the reference page as well. All right, I think that's all for me, thank you.

- Thanks, Donna, we'll send out the recording, and everything that the links that were all mentioned today to all attendees in a couple of days when the recording is up on the website. Thanks, everyone, bye.