Christina Enright: Working with Fear & Threat in Children & Young People
Full Course Title
Working with the Nervous System in Mind: Helping Children who Present with a Tendency Towards Fear and Threat to Experience Felt Safety & Develop Better Physiological & Emotional Regulation
Summary of Training
Increasingly as therapists we are encountering more complex challenges in the functioning and behavioural presentation of the children we work with. One such challenge is the high level of fear, anxiety, and perception of threat in a child’s nervous system, creating difficulties in progressing to working with traumatic memories and emotions in therapy. As a result, this complexity requires more flexible and creative approaches for supporting these children.
Practitioners such as Occupational Therapists provide expert assessment and guidance for children experiencing sensory processing and nervous system regulation difficulties, however not all children will have access to this specialist input. With additional knowledge there are ways that other practitioners can offer support to children in this area. Moreover, it is important that this knowledge is disseminated to all across the child’s network so that children are supported by adults who understand the importance of felt safety and nervous system regulation for a child’s emotional wellbeing, mental health, progress in education.
This training is designed to help therapists to explore how to work with the child’s dysregulated nervous system as well as their fear and potential disrupted interoceptive awareness, to support the child towards a greater sense of internal safety and coherence. This will support the child to feel safe enough to turn towards the exploration and processing of difficult emotions and experiences as well as to help the child to learn to know and understand themselves and their bodies, and to develop a more confident and coherent sense of self.
There will be time included for discussion, reflection and an opportunity for attendees to ask questions with their own clients in mind.
Training Outline
In this full day training we will cover the following:
- A brief overview of the neuroscience of interceptive awareness, fear and anxiety as well as felt safety
- What is interoceptive awareness and how does it develop and why is it so important?
- How hyper and shutdown states can prevent us from feeling our emotions
- The impact of outside world experiences on our capacity to be present and to feel
- Interoceptive awareness and neurodivergence
- The link between fear and avoidance
- The relationship between fear, anxiety and interceptive awareness
- The link between interoception, emotional awareness and emotional literacy mental health and physiological and affect regulation
- How trauma can impact how the body processes sensory information and internal sensations and emotions
- How the body learns to misread and misinterpret internally and externally generated sensations and emotions as threatening
- Importance of identifying levels of intervention in relation to the functioning of the child’s brain and nervous system
- The importance of paying attention to what is happening in our own bodies through our work as therapists
- Creating space in the relational interaction/communication to help children to create space and connection inside
- The importance of ritual to help fearful and anxious children to transition in and out of the therapy room
- Sensory regulating activities that can be integrated into therapy sessions
- How to use creative approaches in sessions to help children to become more aware of their internal states as well as what supports their bodies to feel safe and comfortable
- Practical strategies from case material to use in the therapy room to help children to feel safer inside and to move into more connected and present states
- Explaining hyper and shut down states to parents and other adults responsible for supporting the child as well as how they can help the child
About Christina Enright
RN, BSc Psychology, Dip in Family Therapy, MA Child Psychotherapy, Dip Clinical Supervision.
Over the past 19 years, Christina has worked as a psychotherapist with children, adolescents, birth parents, foster carers and adoptive parents. Her experience includes the development of a multidisciplinary clinical service for families experiencing trauma and attachment problems who were reluctant to engage with main-stream social care and mental health services. From 2015-2017 Christina provided trauma consultancy to the clinical team developing a children’s service within the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in the UK.
She also delivers training on child development, trauma and attachment both within the NHS and other education and social care systems across the UK and Ireland. Her special interest is in early childhood development and the impact of trauma on a child’s developing capacities, functioning and behaviour. From her experience working with children who have endured developmental trauma characterised by neglect and abuse, she has found it necessary to use a comprehensive integrated approach in order to address the multiple complexities which such children present with.
Christina returned to live in Ireland in 2016 and currently works as a Developmental Trauma and Attachment specialist providing training, assessment and clinical interventions on behalf of Tusla Child and Family Agency, and in private practice with birth and adoptive families. Christina is also a trained clinical supervisor and has over 10 years experience providing supervision to qualified psychotherapists, counsellors and allied professionals.
Ethical Conduct
It is a requirement that all participants adhere to ethical conduct in the context of events including:
- Respect for our team, trainers and other attendees
- Adherence to policies and procedures
- Maintaining confidentiality and privacy
- Sensitivity to complex issues being discussed
Anyone in breach of these threshold requirements may be removed from an event and could be unable to attend further events in the future. This is to safeguard the staff and participants as well as to enable quality assurance for the safety and wellbeing of all attendees.
In booking an event these criteria are agreed to in principle and committed to in practice.
Self-Care Notice
Therapeutic trainings can work with complex and emotive topics that may be deeply personal for some delegates, depending on their lived experience. There will be breaks included on the day and one to one support will be available if needed, but please do reflect on whether you feel able to attend. Your safety and wellbeing is of paramount importance.
Recordings
Please note – our live online events are NOT recorded for purchase or view at a later date nor do we permit independent recordings of the event to be made. This is to safeguard the nurturing and contained environment we create online in order to maintain our culture of safe, private and supported interactivity and sharing.
Uncredited Use or Replication of Content Shared
On behalf of the trainers we work with, we do not allow content shared during our CPD days to be replicated or used in any way without due credit to the copyright owner. Doing so without previous consent may result in exclusion from further events.
Ways to Pay
It is possible to arrange payments for tickets to our events in instalments on the condition that the full balance has been received no later than one month before the chosen event takes place. We also offer discounts for groups / teams of 3+, discounts for individuals booking 3 events or more, and we can provide invoices if you wanted to arrange for your place of work to pay for you (advance payment required). To discuss or arrange any of these ways to pay, please email [email protected]
Terms & Conditions
All bookings to be paid in full except where private arrangements have been made to pay in instalments and agreed by us. Tickets &/ or any instalment payments are non-refundable once payment has been made. You can re-sell or transfer your ticket to another attendee up to 24 hours before the event opens – as long as we have notice in writing with their name. On request With Kokoro Ltd may be able to help advertise and/or facilitate any re-sales but this will incur an admin fee of £15.00 to cover our costs including subsequent charges we receive from the ticket providers. Please note With Kokoro Ltd cannot ever guarantee a successful re-sale and responsibility for finding a new purchaser remains with the original ticket holder at all times. No transfer or refund will be considered for a ‘no show’ on the day of the event or if you choose to leave the event early.
If you are booking a ticket as part of a discount offer, only ONE discount can be applied to a ticket at any one time.
With Kokoro Ltd reserves the right to make changes to the booking terms and conditions, the timetable, content and/or any events at any time due to unforeseen circumstances. In the event of cancellation by us and if we cannot offer an alternative date, we will refund the cost of the ticket price for the event in full. We will not be responsible for any further cost incurred by you in relation to your booking.
