IFCA trainings for foster carers and practitioners in Counties Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon, in collaboration with Tusla

Shame in Developmental Trauma: How to Support Children to Recover from Toxic Shame

In person with Christina Enright

Choose the date and venue most suitable for you:

Thursday 15th October, 10am to 1pm, in Sligo – in the Tusla Offices, Conference Room, Markievicz House, Barrack Street, Sligo Town, F91 XC84.

Or

Friday 16th October, 10am to 1pm,  in Carrick-on-Shannon – in the Sligo-Leitrim Home Youth Liaison Service, 1st Floor, Castlecarra Road, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim, N41 KF88.

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

Course Overview:

This course explores how early trauma impacts on brain development, nervous system regulation as well as the shame-based beliefs, thoughts and emotions a child in care can carry. It considers the impact of shame on a child’s sense of self-worth and how shame can make it more challenging for children to understand, reflect on and take responsibility for their own challenging behaviour. The course also explores how shame in children can trigger shame in the adults who care for them and how adults can trigger shame in children and how this can result in disconnection in the relationship. Consideration will be given to how a relational-attachment focused approach can help children to co-regulate when triggered into shame and help to change how they see and experience themselves so that their inner world becomes less shame-based and they develop a healthier understanding of themselves based on self-compassion.

  Learning Outcomes:

• Why do we experience shame as humans, what is developmental function of shame
• The impact of historic cultural and intergenerational family shame in Ireland
• How early trauma impacts on brain wiring, nervous system regulation as well as the shame-based beliefs, thoughts and emotions a child in care can carry
• How shame is socialised in toddlerhood matters
• How does shame become a toxic part of a child’s personality and defence system where the child comes to believe that they are bad, worthless, unlovable?
• Shame as dysregulation of the nervous system, as a survival strategy
• The difference between shame and guilt and the reparative value of guilt
• The link between shame and children denying their challenging behaviour
• How the child may trigger shame in adults
• How adults can inadvertently trigger shame in children and how this creates disconnection in the relationship
• How shame can block the processing of other emotions
• How to notice when a child is being triggered into shame
• How expecting children who carry high levels of shame to take responsibility and apologise, is counterproductive and harmful to the connection with the child
• How children whose internal world has become “shame based” will require a unique relational- attachment focused approach to help them to change how they see and experience themselves and other people
• Ways of responding to help a child when they are triggered into shame to coregulate and reduce shame as well as supporting a child over time to develop a healthier self-concept and to learn to use self-compassion as a way of regulating shame.