‘Trauma Informed Care – Understanding the challenges, and the pragmatic steps which need to be taken to operationalise and deliver Trauma Informed Care across services’ is ACAMH’s inaugural ACE’s SIG day conference.

Booking

Sign up at this link or on the Book Now button at the top of the screen, and complete the form that follows. You’ll then receive an email confirmation and a link to the webinar, plus we’ll send you a calendar reminder nearer the time. Delegates will have exclusive access to recordings for 90 days after the event, together with slides. Plus you will get a personalised CPD certificate via email.

• ACAMH Members MUST login to book onto the webinar in order to access this webinar and get a CPD certificate
• Non-members this is a great time to join ACAMH, take a look at what we have to offer, and make the saving on these sessions

EARLY BIRD £79 for ACAMH Members (Print, Online, Concession) Join now and save (£99 from 30/04/25)

EARLY BIRD £159 ACAMH Learn Account holders (£179 from 30/04/25)

EARLY BIRD £159 Non Members (£179 from 30/04/25)

£5 ACAMH Undergraduate/Postgraduate Members

FREE LMIC Members

Don’t forget as a charity any surplus made is reinvested back as we work to our vision of ‘Sharing best evidence, improving practice’, and our mission to ‘Improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 0-25’. 

About the conference

Reviews of Twenty-Five Years of ACEs Research and Development – Racine, Bellis an… Child Abuse and Neglect 2025

Over 25 years ago, the landmark study by Felitti and colleagues coined the term ACEs by examining how exposure to abuse and household challenges were associated with increased health and mental health risks among nearly 10,000 adults. It also laid the foundation for exploring the mechanisms through which ACEs exert their influence on individual health, functioning, and wellbeing. At the same time, a growing body of research also highlights the role of protective factors in mitigating the risks posed by ACEs. However, they state despite the exponential ACEs research, progress in developing effective prevention and intervention strategies has been disappointingly limited. For example, in the United States, the prevalence of ACEs over a 14-year period from 2009 to 2022 has increased slightly and evidence-based interventions for preventing exposure to ACEs remain scarce.

The authors state this stagnation serves as a clarion call for action, demanding heightened attention to policy reforms and strategic funding mechanisms designed to systematically reduce ACEs exposure. Without significant investments in prevention at a systems level, the burden of ACEs will continue unabated, and the risk of perpetuating cycles of adversity across generations will sadly persist.

The most relevant development of intervention, and prevention is the introduction of Trauma Informed Care in 2001 which focuses on interventions to target ‘Toxic Stress’ associated with the impact of exposure to adversity. Trauma Informed Care approaches have   developed in parallel with the developments of knowledge on the impact of ACEs in the lives of children and young people, and across the life course.

A recent scoping review by Berring and Colleagues (2024) from Denmark on the theme Implementing Trauma-Informed Care-Settings, Definitions, Interventions, Measures, and Implementation across Settings reviewed over 3000 papers published from 2000 to 2020 mainly from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, focusing on study settings, methodologies, and definitions of TIC, as well as the types of interventions and measures used.

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is defined as a strength- based framework for human services that assumes that individuals are more likely than not to have a history of trauma and acknowledges the role that trauma may play in the lives of service users, care providers, and the public. TIC was first described by Harris and Fallot in 2001. They envisioned how human services, such as hospital settings or schools, should commit themselves to providing services in a manner that welcomes and is appropriate for the needs of trauma survivors. TIC is holistic and integrates six guiding principles: safety; trustworthiness and transparency; peer support; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice, and choice; and cultural, historical, and gender issues. These principles ensure that the human services are trustworthy and person-centred, targeting trauma survivors’ needs.

TIC is described as distinct from trauma-specific treatment (TST) and is an organizational framework that addresses human service organizations’ cultures and practices in the entire organization and across management levels, where the different levels influence one another and vice versa. As such, TIC implies vigilance in preventing and avoiding institutional processes and individual practices that risk re-traumatizing individuals who have previously experienced trauma.

The proposal is that the conference will review the pragmatic steps taken to implement Trauma Informed Care to meet the complex needs of Children and Families across services, and the outcome of that implementation, and the role of Trauma Informed care in prevention.  Principles which have emerged will be reviewed, which can help to grow the knowledge base about how best to implement Trauma Informed Care.

The Conference will be delivered online, and has been organised by Arnon Bentovim Chair of the ACEs Special Interest Group of the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Speakers will give a 30-45 minute presentation and 15 minutes for discussion with Q&A’s, and there will be opportunities for discussion between speakers.

About the talks

Sophie Bennett – Integrated mental health treatment in children with chronic physical illness: The Mental Health Intervention for Children with Epilepsy (MICE)

Children and young people with chronic physical illnesses, such as epilepsy, often experience mental health difficulties, yet accessing appropriate care for these mental health difficulties remains a challenge. The Mental Health Intervention for Children with Epilepsy (MICE) Programme was developed to address this gap by providing a tailored modular psychological intervention. The results of the trial (n=334) demonstrated that MICE was effective in reducing emotional and behavioural difficulties. As a result of these positive findings, MICE is now part of a funded pilot programme of implementation within the NHS England Children and Young People (CYP) Transformation Programme. A key advantage of MICE was the inclusion of neurodivergent children and young people, in line with the NHSE national CYP Core20Plus5 agenda.

Learning outcomes

1. To describe the prevalence and impact of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children with epilepsy and the need for targeted interventions
2. To understand how evidence-based interventions can be modified for flexible delivery within a chronic illness population
3. To explain the modular structure, delivery, and key components of the MICE intervention
4. To evaluate the evidence supporting the effectiveness of MICE

Lene Lauge Berring – Findings from the recent scoping review, Implementing Trauma-Informed Care-Settings, Definitions, Interventions, Measures, and Implementation across Settings

The review states that TIC is gaining momentum. This is because it resonates with human beings’ expectations of what service systems should be like and because it resonates with a human rights-based approach. The authors advocate for a trauma-informed approach to healthcare as a standard of care due to the sensitive nature of mental health issues, as well as the likelihood that many patients may not disclose their trauma history.

However, Berring and colleagues described TIC as a ‘complex and multifaceted framework, with no overarching structure or clear theoretical underpinnings that can guide practical implementations. TIC has been defined and adapted in varied ways across different settings and populations, making it difficult to synthesize knowledge’.

Joanne Hopkins – The extensive developments of Trauma Informed Care in Wales, what has been learnt about implementation across services.

The ACE Support Hub Wales, established in 2017, has significantly influenced other countries’ approaches to addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) in Wales was formally established with the publication of the Trauma-Informed Wales Framework in 2022. This framework, supported by the Welsh Government, was developed through co-production with professionals, people with lived experience, and organizations across Wales. It provides a unified approach to embedding trauma-informed practices across Welsh society.

The work of the ACEs Trauma Hub has been recognized for promoting a trauma-informed, whole-system approach and sharing expertise internationally. Key contributions include:

Knowledge Sharing: The Hub’s research and public health approach have been shared widely, influencing UK-wide policies on ACEs, including non-devolved areas of governance in England and Northern Ireland. Its evidence-based practices have shaped strategies for creating trauma-informed public services

The Hub has introduced a model of four Practice Levels providing an integrated coherent joined up trauma informed practice framework. These include

• A trauma aware universal approach which emphasises the role that we all have as members of society personally and professionally seeking to raise awareness and understanding
• A trauma -skilled approach embeds the trauma informed approach within the practice of everyone who provides care or support to people who may have experienced trauma whether or not the trauma is known about or not applying to most organisations and services
• A trauma enhanced approach is provided by frontline workers across organisations providing consistent direct or intensive support to people who are known to have experienced traumatic events there is no wrong door to accessing helpful support asking what has happened to them and providing compassionate and helpful responses to disclosures
• Specialist interventions are offered within a range of settings to support organisations and systems to be trauma informed and deliver compassionate collaborative and person -centred comprehensive assessment of needs and effective and evidence based interventions for individuals and families
• Training Models: The Hub’s comprehensive training programs, such as those for police officers and educators, have set an example for other nations looking to implement ACE-aware systems. These programs have demonstrated the value of early intervention and multi-agency collaboration.
• European Collaboration: The Hub has contributed to international discussions on ACEs through reports like Burden of ACEs Across Europe, highlighting effective interventions and fostering cross-border learning

Prof. Helen Minnis and Ruchika Gajwani – Developments of Trauma Informed Care in Scotland, research on outcomes now emerging, and lessons learned.

The Scottish ACEs Hub was established by NHS Health Scotland in 2016 as a multidisciplinary initiative to address Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). It emerged as an action point from the report Polishing the Diamonds and aimed to raise awareness, build evidence, and develop policy and practice to prevent and mitigate the impacts of ACEs. The Hub includes members from health, police, social work, academia, and government sectors, fostering collaboration across discipline. The Hub continues to play a central role in integrating ACE awareness into public services and policies across Scotland

Scottish Trauma-Informed Care was formally established with the launch of the National Trauma Training Programme (NTTP) in 2018. This initiative, later rebranded as the National Trauma Transformation Programme, aimed to embed trauma-informed and responsive practices across public services in Scotland

Chris Layne – The core curriculum on child trauma for training in trauma psychology and child and adolescent psychiatry, and the role of consistent core training as a key element in implementing Trauma informed Care

Chris Layne and colleagues have stated there is a pressing need to develop a knowledge base that describes, explains, and predicts how trauma, loss, and other severe adversities in childhood and adolescence accumulate in their number, accrue in their causal effects, risks, and vulnerabilities over time, and influence ongoing adjustment and development. They propose the term risk factor caravan as a useful conceptual vehicle for describing the specific causal processes, differential pathways, and trajectories through which various life adversities occur, co-occur, accumulate in number, accrue in their respective risks and effects over time, and “travel” with their host across development. They conceptualize ACEs as chronologically and causally sequenced and stratified elements of risk factor caravans—accruing in their harmful effects and cascading forward and “traveling” with their host across the life course.

The resource caravan are constellations variously comprised of personal, (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism), social (e.g., social support), group membership or condition (e.g., family membership), and material resources (e.g., housing, schools) that codevelop, co- occur (often intercorrelating highly), and travel in “packs” or caravans over time.  The resource caravan passageway consists of conditions within the social and physical ecologies that supply, enrich, protect, and pool the resources of individuals or groups.

Together with colleagues Chris published a key paper ‘Creating Trauma-Informed Systems: Child Welfare, Education, First Responders, Health Care, Juvenile Justice’ (2008). This article reviewed how traumatic stress impacts children and adolescents’ daily functioning and how various service systems approach trauma services differently. It also provides recommendations for how to make each of these service systems more trauma informed and National Child Traumatic Stress Network resources that have been produced to meet this objective.

Recommendations include Promoting the integration of trauma-focused practices across formal mental health treatment and other service sectors. Such efforts include accurate risk detection and case identification; triage of clients to appropriate interventions; continuity of care across providers; and facilitation of staged. multisystemic. or flexible interventions for high-risk, treatment-refractory. or culturally diverse populations. Changes in Practise need to be established, Trauma informed services need to be rigorously evaluated, interventions need to be delivered at an early stage. The approach needs to be included in all service providers education, and there needs to be collaboration and relationship building across services.

Marleen Wong – Lessons learned from introducing Trauma Informed Care in education settings

Marleen will present her multi-tiered approach to introducing trauma informed care in educational contexts. This includes an initial tier to help schools design a whole school transformation; a tier introducing trauma informed skills for educators to better understand the impact of trauma, equipping them with knowledge and skills to recognise and intervene, introducing Psychological First Aid: Listen, a universal prevention intervention for educators and school staff to support students after crises or disasters. E-learning courses for students, and Cognitive Behavioural Intervention for Trauma in Schools is an evidence-based program designed to help students experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. It uses skill-based group interventions to address symptoms caused by trauma, such as violence or bullying. These programs have been widely adopted helping schools become more trauma-informed and equipping educators to address the mental health needs of students effectively.

David Trickey – Future developments of Trauma Informed Care

David Trickey is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Co-Director of the UK Trauma Council. He has specialized in working with traumatized children, young people, and their families since 2000. Trickey is affiliated with the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families in London and serves as an Honorary Lecturer at University College London. His work focuses on clinical practice, training, and supervision of professionals addressing trauma in children. He has contributed research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bereavement, and trauma-informed care.

The UK Trauma Council (UKTC) is a UK-wide expert body dedicated to addressing childhood trauma. Hosted by the Anna Freud Centre, it brings together specialists in research, practice, policy, and lived experience from across the UK. The UKTC creates free, evidence-based resources to help professionals and carers understand and respond to trauma, such as guidance on traumatic bereavement, PTSD, and the effects of abuse on brain development. It offers training courses on trauma-informed practices and interventions like trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for PTSD. The council influences public policy to improve support for children and young people affected by trauma, and shares insights from neuroscience and psychology to inform best practices in supporting children exposed to traumatic events. The UKTC aims to reduce the negative impact of trauma through timely interventions, improved understanding, and community capacity-building

Programme – subject to change

10:00 Arnon Bentovim – Welcome and Introductions 

10:15 Lene Lauge Berring – Findings from the recent scoping review, Implementing Trauma-Informed Care-Settings, Definitions, Interventions, Measures, and Implementation across Settings

11:00 Joanne Hopkins – The extensive developments of Trauma Informed Care in Wales, what has been learnt about implementation across services.

11:45 Prof. Helen Minnis and Dr. Ruchika Gajwani – Developments of Trauma Informed Care in Scotland, research on outcomes now emerging, and lessons learned.

12:30 – 12:45 Panel Discussion, and reviewing morning presentations

12:45 – 13:30 Lunch Break

13:30 Chris Layne – The core curriculum on child trauma for training in trauma psychology and child and adolescent psychiatry, and the role of consistent core training as a key element in implementing Trauma informed Care

14:15 Marleen Wong – Lessons learned from introducing Trauma Informed Care in education settings

15:00 Sophie Bennett – Modular Approaches as a core model to address the complex needs of Children – a key component of Trauma Informed Care

15:45 David Trickey – Future developments of Trauma Informed Care.

16:30 Final Panel Discussion

 

About the speakers

Arnon Bentovim is a Child and Family Psychiatrist, and Director of Child and Family Training. He trained as a Psychoanalyst and Family Therapist and worked at the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and the Tavistock Clinic. He is a Visiting Professor at the Royal Holloway University of London. At Great Ormond Street he shared responsibility for Child Protection at the Hospital and helped to initiate a number of services including the first Sexual Abuse Assessment and Treatment Service in the UK, and a Child Care Consultation Service. Research on Family Assessment formed the basis of the tools commissioned by the Department of Health to support the Assessment Framework. Child and Family Training was established to provide training and further developments.

Associate Professor Lene Lauge Berring is Head of the Psychiatric Research Unit at Region Zealand in Denmark and an associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark. Her work focuses on reducing coercion and violence in mental health care through de-escalation practices, trauma-informed care (TIC), and organizational change. She emphasizes creating supportive environments for patients and staff, integrating public health perspectives, and promoting patient recovery. She is an expert in qualitative research methods, including discourse analysis and participatory research. Her projects include developing TIC models and implementing strategies to improve mental health care environments across Europe, including programs for children and youth in schools and juvenile justice systems mental healthcare settings, and somatic healthcare settings.

Joanne Hopkins is the Programme Director for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Criminal Justice, and Violence Prevention at Public Health Wales. She leads initiatives to develop trauma-informed practices across public services and communities in Wales. A former Senior Civil Servant with the UK Home Office, she worked on violent crime, violence against women, and immigration, as well as serving as Head of Wales and Devolution for seven years. In 2018, she became Director of the ACE Hub Wales, overseeing the Early Action Together Programme to transform systems addressing ACEs. Joanne holds a PhD from Aberystwyth University on coercive control in conflict (completed in 2023) and is a Visiting Professor at Wrexham University. Her work focuses on implementing the Trauma-Informed Wales Framework to mitigate ACEs and promote resilience.

Prof. Helen Minnis is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow, and the Institute of Wellbeing. Her research focuses on the mental health impacts of child maltreatment, neurodevelopmental disorders, and attachment issues, including reactive attachment disorder. She has conducted significant studies on foster care interventions, childhood trauma, and systemic improvements in child welfare, research in Guatemala and Bucharest, and she has pioneered innovative approaches to mental health care for vulnerable children.

Dr. Ruchika Gajwani is a Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Psychology at the Centre of Developmental Adversity and Resilience (CeDAR) at the University of Glasgow. She is an honorary Clinical Psychologist within Specialist Children’s services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, with a special interest in Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Engaging substantially in the model of early intervention and prevention, she is leading complex clinical trials in adolescent mental health for some of the most vulnerable and excluded children and young people. With the prestigious MQ fellowship, her current work is focussing on testing community trials for young people with Borderline Personality Disorder features (BRIDGE project). Through partnership working and collaborations, the team is building a research portfolio on innovative solutions, scaling up proven treatments, and ensuring they reach those who need them most. Her research focus for the last twenty years has been on developing pathways for understanding risk and resilience within marginalised, clinical high-risk children and young people. She has conducted genetic, longitudinal and qualitative research on the role of developmental adversities and neurodevelopmental conditions on health outcomes. Recent and current projects have been funded by the Medical Research Council, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, CSO – Scotland, UNHCR, MQ, Rosetrees Trust and Why Not Trust.

Associate Professor Christopher M. Layne is based at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) and is Director of the Child and Adolescent Traumatic Stress Program (CATSP). He specialises in the assessment and treatment of trauma, PTSD, grief, and bereavement in youth. Dr. Layne has led major initiatives such as the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s (NCTSN) Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma and contributed to the DSM-5-TR criteria for Prolonged Grief Disorder. His research focuses on developmental psychopathology, resilience, evidence-based practices, and grief theory.

Marleen Wong trained as a Social Worker She served as Senior Vice Dean and the David Lawrence Stein/Violet Goldberg Sachs Endowed Professor of Mental Health at the University of Southern California (USC). She was also the Executive Director of the USC Telehealth Clinic and a Clinical Advisor for various programs, including the Family Nurse Practitioner Program. She was Director of Mental Health Services and Crisis Intervention in Los Angeles, and expanded school mental health clinics and advised the U.S. Department of Education and Department of defence on disaster recovery and crisis responses. She established the Center for Safe and Resilient Schools and Workplaces in 2021, providing trauma-informed interventions, consultation, and training in prevention, postvention, and recovery for schools and workplaces affected by traumatic events.

Dr Sophie Bennett is a clinical academic psychologist specialising in child and adolescent mental health. Her work focuses on developing and evaluating methods to ensure that children and young people who have emotional or behavioural difficulties in the context of a chronic physical illness are able to have both their mental and physical healthcare needs met in an integrated way. She has a particular interest in increasing access to psychological treatments through ‘low intensity’ interventions, including peer support.

 

David Trickey is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Co-Director of the UK Trauma Council. He has specialized in working with traumatized children, young people, and their families since 2000. Trickey is affiliated with the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families in London and serves as an Honorary Lecturer at University College London. His work focuses on clinical practice, training, and supervision of professionals addressing trauma in children. He has contributed research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bereavement, and trauma-informed care.

The UK Trauma Council (UKTC) is a UK-wide expert body dedicated to addressing childhood trauma. Hosted by the Anna Freud Centre, it brings together specialists in research, practice, policy, and lived experience from across the UK. The UKTC creates free, evidence-based resources to help professionals and carers understand and respond to trauma, such as guidance on traumatic bereavement, PTSD, and the effects of abuse on brain development. It offers training courses on trauma-informed practices and interventions like trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for PTSD. The council influences public policy to improve support for children and young people affected by trauma, and shares insights from neuroscience and psychology to inform best practices in supporting children exposed to traumatic events. The UKTC aims to reduce the negative impact of trauma through timely interventions, improved understanding, and community capacity-building.

Booking

Sign up at this link or on the Book Now button at the top of the screen, and complete the form that follows. You’ll then receive an email confirmation and a link to the webinar, plus we’ll send you a calendar reminder nearer the time. Delegates will have exclusive access to recordings for 90 days after the event, together with slides. Plus you will get a personalised CPD certificate via email.

• ACAMH Members MUST login to book onto the webinar in order to access this webinar and get a CPD certificate
• Non-members this is a great time to join ACAMH, take a look at what we have to offer, and make the saving on these sessions

EARLY BIRD £79 for ACAMH Members (Print, Online, Concession) Join now and save (£99 from 30/04/25)

EARLY BIRD £159 ACAMH Learn Account holders (£179 from 30/04/25)

EARLY BIRD £159 Non Members (£179 from 30/04/25)

£5 ACAMH Undergraduate/Postgraduate Members

FREE LMIC Members

Don’t forget as a charity any surplus made is reinvested back as we work to our vision of ‘Sharing best evidence, improving practice’, and our mission to ‘Improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 0-25’.