Children Stuck in Rage and Hate

with Christina Enright, Psychotherapist and Attachment Specialist

Wednesday 11th November, 10am to 1pm

Online via Zoom

For Foster Carers and practitioners throughout the country

To Book You Place: email Katherine on learning@ifca.ie

Course Overview:

Developmental trauma impacts a child’s development across cognitive, psychological and emotional domains. For some children the trauma is so severe and the absence of a lack of caring adults can have a profound effect on how the child sees themselves, other people and  the world. There is also the risk of internalisation of the harm and aggression the child had experienced, only then to be projected out onto to others in the child’s life. For foster carers and adopters understanding this is crucial if we are going to be able to help the child. Understanding can make way for the care, compassion and empathy that these children so badly need. This course offers an opportunity to support parents/carers to understand this complex topic and to explore how they may be able to support a child who is experiencing this.

Learning Outcomes:

• What research tells us about aggression in developing children;
• The neuroscience of threat and fear and the impact of a lack of safety on a developing child’s brain;
• What goes so wrong that a child can get stuck in rage and hate?
• What are the indicators that a child is locked in rage and hate?
• How does a child trapped in rage and hate see the world?
• Why behaviour management approaches will not have a desired impact;
• How can parents/carers respond to help the child to shift their fearful and negative internal representations of people to safer and more optimistic ones.

About Christina Enright

RN, BSc Psychology, Dip in Family Therapy, MA Child Psychotherapy, Dip Clinical Supervision. Over the past 20 years, Christina has worked as a psychotherapist with traumatised children, adolescents, and birth parents as well as with 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.

Christina’s special interest is in early childhood development and the impact of trauma on a child’s developing capacities, functioning and behaviour. From her experience working with children who have endured developmental trauma characterised by neglect and abuse, she has found it necessary to use a comprehensive integrated approach in order to address the multiple complexities which such children present with. Christina returned to live in Ireland in 2016 and currently works as a Developmental Trauma and Attachment specialist providing training, assessment and clinical interventions on behalf of Tusla Child and Family Agency and in independent practice with birth and adoptive families. 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.