A Child’s Language of Harm
Unsilencing the voices of children and young people who have experienced trauma
At Nikki Butler Consulting, we are passionate about children and young people being seen, heard and understood. Our transformative training is designed to provide an integration of theory and practical strategies to create lasting transformation in the lives of children, young people and their families.
Our training sessions are provided direct to your organisation, arranged with you. We also welcome combined organisational training.
Applying a trauma-informed and developmental lens to understanding the ways in which children communicate is essential.
Course overview
This course focuses on recognising and understanding the ways in which children and young people communicate abuse, harm and threat to their safety. It addresses the urgent need to unsilence children, by understanding their language across multi-level modes of communication, behaviour and processes of disclosure.
Research claims it can take an average of 20 years to disclose childhood abuse. However, what is not broadly recognised, is that children communicate signs of harm through a variety of modes, and often as part of a process. Disclosures of harm are more often in the form of behavioural and emotional language and non-verbal cues, rather than through words. The pressing issue is that adults around them are not noticing, hearing or understanding their language.
Children have a right to be heard and a right to live free from abuse and neglect. It is vital that adults, across all levels of society, notice, listen, understand and respond to their language of harm.
“Safety, emotional wellbeing and healing from trauma is more likely when children’s experiences are acknowledged, listened to and validated.”
Learning outcomes
- Recognising the language of children and young people who experience harm from a trauma-informed and developmental perspective.
2. Unsilencing children and young people by undestanding their language across multi-level modes of communication, behaviour and processes of disclosure.
3. Acknowledging, listening to and validating children’s experiences as part of a process of increasing safety, emotional wellbeing and healing from trauma.
Who is the course for?
The course is designed for practitioners, domestic and family violence workers, child disability carers and supervisors, counsellors, social workers, support workers, educators, youth workers and anyone who provides services to children or young people.
Mode of delivery
This course is available online or face-to face, at a date and time convenient to you. We can come to your service to deliver the training, or if a training venue is required, we can work with you on a location that will suit.
Note: Additional fees may apply for travel arrangements.
Course options:
- Information Session – 2 hours
- Core Competency – 1 day (6-7 hours)