Considering diseases like cancer are on the rise worldwide, medical stress is impacting more and more households, and this can travel into children's classrooms. Paediatric Medical Traumatic Stress (PMTS) affects up to 80% of children who experience injury or illness, and is responsible for their psychological and physiological distress responses. Caring and practically wise teachers can help minimise student stress and enable their education during adversity; however, care-wisdom is difficult to develop in areas of sensitivity, such as cancer, where needs might be misunderstood and experience might be limited. This presentation shares a current PhD study which explores a novel professional learning method that uses embodied learning to potentially grow a teacher's care-wisdom in PMTS and better prepare them to support these trauma-impacted students.

Siobhan's life journey, marked by complex medical and social traumas from an early age, offers invaluable insights for educators. Born prematurely at 27 weeks, Siobhan's challenges began early, compounded by diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder at two, PTSD by six, and battling depression and suicidal ideations by nine. Her experiences encompass not only medical conditions but also profound social adversities, including grief and loss, family breakdown, homelessness, and exposure to family violence.
This presentation delves into Siobhan's journey, highlighting effective and ineffective strategies she encountered across different life stages: 0-2, 2-5, 5-10, and 10-15 years old. By reflecting on her interactions with medical and educational professionals, Siobhan emphasizes the critical need for early and ongoing interventions to support children living with trauma.
Siobhan advocates for a multidisciplinary response to trauma, stressing the importance of collaboration among medical and educational professionals. Her insights illuminate the challenges faced by traumatized children and underscore the role of comprehensive support systems involving all stakeholders in promoting resilience and healing.
Drawing from her own experiences, Siobhan provides practical guidance for trauma-aware schooling practices for each developmental phase. Her narrative informs education professionals on the importance of creating safe and supportive learning environments that prioritize the unique needs of traumatized students, enhancing understanding of trauma's impact and equipping education professionals with the tools and strategies needed to support students.
Overcoming adversity, Siobhan is a beacon of hope for others. This young founder of Our Pixie Friends is an inspiration to all who meet her or hear her speak. The lessons gleaned from Siobhan's story promise to deepen our understanding of trauma's far-reaching effects and inform practical strategies for more effective support and intervention for young children and adolescents.

Culturally responsive education offers pedagogies that explicitly acknowledge the strengths and values inherent within students’ own cultures in order to dismantle the intergenerational impacts of colonization, systemic racism, and educational inequities on student wellbeing, learning and academic achievement (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2021; Rigney & Hattam, 2024). Many schools currently engaged in trauma-aware whole school implementation serve superdiverse student cohorts from First Nations, and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Morrison et al., 2019). Critical researchers have argued that traumatisation can occur within schools that do not address their own cultural biases and exacerbate harmful deficit discourses around young people and their families (Gorski, 2020; Palma et al., 2023). As trauma-aware educators it is therefore an imperative that we seek to embed culturally responsive practices within whole school initiatives and classroom-based practice.

Drawing on our team’s original research and emerging practice (Langley-Freeman et al., 2024; Norrish & Brunzell, 2023) this session provides pathways toward integrating trauma-aware and culturally responsive practices to support educators to provide safe and empowering learning environments for all students.

Strategies you will learn include:
• Building culturally recognisable coregulatory routines
• Including students’ cultures as an asset for learning
• Empowering student voice and building co-agency
• Reflective practice for relational repair

References
Brunzell, T., & Norrish, J. (2021). Creating Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Classrooms: Teacher Strategies for Nurturing Students’ Healing, Growth, and Learning. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Gay, G. (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. Teachers College Press.
Gorski, P. (2020). How Trauma-Informed Are We, Really? Educational Leadership, 78(2), 14–19.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Asking a Different Question. Teachers College Press.
Langley-Freeman, M., Greig, J., Ganambarr-Stubbs, M., Langton, G., Brunzell, T. (2024). [Manuscript in preparation]. Towards culturally responsive, trauma-informed education: Uplifting Australian school systems through social complexity. Critical Conversations in Teacher Education: Contemporary Perspectives from Australia. Emerald Publishing.
Norrish, J., & Brunzell, T. (2023). How is Trauma-Informed Education Implemented within Classrooms? A Synthesis of Trauma-Informed Education Programs. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 48(3). https://doi.org/10.14221/1835-517X.6159
Palma, C., Abdou, A. S., Danforth, S., & Griffiths, A. J. (2023). Are Deficit Perspectives Thriving in Trauma-Informed Schools? A Historical and Anti-Racist Reflection. Equity & Excellence in Education, 0(0), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2023.2192983
Rigney, I.L., & Hattam, R. (2024, April 17). Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. University of South Australia. https://culturallyresponsivepedagogy.com.au/

Trauma is a visceral force that resonates through time, leaving children and young people unable to learn effectively. Impacted children are often considered disruptive or poor learners or too overwhelmed to go to school. With classrooms becoming more complex, teachers can feel ill-equipped to respond; and there’s a need to work differently.

Trauma transformation is new way of working with trauma, founded on the principle of working with the whole person as part of a network of relationships. It’s a whole of school approach that guides how teachers, leaders, and systems work together to translate the neuroscience of relationships and trauma into practice.

This session draws on 20 years of Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF) work across Australia and is informed by the release of the Handbook of Trauma Transformative Practice; which brings together the work of leading international trauma experts in a vision of transformation and healing.

We will describe Making SPACE for Learning, ACF’s framework for schools to better understand and meet the needs of children who have experienced trauma, disruption and disadvantage. MS4L draws on the neurobiology of trauma and provides strategies for helping students feel safe and connected at school.

We will share our recent experience a ‘whole of system’ professional learning program in Tasmania, delivered in partnership with the Department for Education, Children and Young People. This delivered tailored learning across 195 Tasmanian government schools, helping over 3000 staff to build the skills and culture needed to support students impacted by trauma. An evaluation was conducted with the University of Tasmania to examine the process, change elements, and outcomes of the program.

We will describe key elements of trauma transformative practice:
• Developing system-wide and whole-of-school approaches that enable consistent, multi-tiered support.
• Building classrooms and school environments that focus on relational safety, predictability, connection.
• Supporting leadership capability for cultural change, workforce development, policy, and ‘compassion satisfaction’.
• Understanding the interface of trauma and neurodiversity.
• Family and community engagement to connect people around the child.

We will showcase methods and approaches that are working:
• Practical, tailored strategies for early learning, primary, secondary, specialist settings.
• Opportunities for cross-over learning and problem-solving between colleagues, integrating new knowledge directly into classroom practices.
• Using emerging technologies to simulate real-world scenarios, offering learners a safe and more exploratory approach to build skills.
• Using reflective practice and action research to support the implementation of change.