Session 3E
Tracks
Track 5
| Friday, October 30, 2026 |
| 2:00 PM - 3:35 PM |
| Meeting room P8, Plaza Level |
Overview
Meeting room P8
Speaker
Mrs Melissa Powney
Senior Education Consultant
Australian Childhood Foundation
Joy. Nurture. Learn. Bringing Trauma-Transformative Practice to Life in Port Noarlunga Primary School, SA
2:00 PM - 2:45 PMAbstract
Aim:
To share an action research journey that translates trauma-transformative theory into practical, sustainable classroom strategies that foster joy, connection, and readiness to learn.
Background/Context:
This practice reflection journeys through an action research project between the Australian Childhood Foundation, the South Australian Department for Education and Port Noarlunga Primary School, supporting whole-school, trauma-transformative change guided by the SMART Practice Framework. The work centred on fostering joy, supporting a positive start to the day, and strengthening connections between school, families, and community. Through cycles of action and reflection, educators explored the impact of trauma on learning and the critical role of relationships in supporting engagement and trauma transformation.
Relevance:
Students experiencing sadness, disconnection, and stress often struggle to access learning. This project highlights how trauma-transformative, relational approaches support regulation, belonging, and meaningful engagement.
Contribution:
This work demonstrates how embedding reflective, trauma-transformative practice can shift school culture, strengthen educator confidence, and build consistent, strengths-based partnerships with families.
Description:
Using an action research model, educators engaged in termly cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Strategies focused on curiosity, meaning-making, and co-regulation, supporting students to reconnect with safety and re-engage in learning.
Engagement:
This interactive, practice-focused session brings trauma-transformative work to life through real examples, reflective prompts, and shared strategies. Participants will actively explore how small relational shifts can create meaningful change, leaving with practical, strengths-driven approaches ready to apply in their own contexts.
To share an action research journey that translates trauma-transformative theory into practical, sustainable classroom strategies that foster joy, connection, and readiness to learn.
Background/Context:
This practice reflection journeys through an action research project between the Australian Childhood Foundation, the South Australian Department for Education and Port Noarlunga Primary School, supporting whole-school, trauma-transformative change guided by the SMART Practice Framework. The work centred on fostering joy, supporting a positive start to the day, and strengthening connections between school, families, and community. Through cycles of action and reflection, educators explored the impact of trauma on learning and the critical role of relationships in supporting engagement and trauma transformation.
Relevance:
Students experiencing sadness, disconnection, and stress often struggle to access learning. This project highlights how trauma-transformative, relational approaches support regulation, belonging, and meaningful engagement.
Contribution:
This work demonstrates how embedding reflective, trauma-transformative practice can shift school culture, strengthen educator confidence, and build consistent, strengths-based partnerships with families.
Description:
Using an action research model, educators engaged in termly cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Strategies focused on curiosity, meaning-making, and co-regulation, supporting students to reconnect with safety and re-engage in learning.
Engagement:
This interactive, practice-focused session brings trauma-transformative work to life through real examples, reflective prompts, and shared strategies. Participants will actively explore how small relational shifts can create meaningful change, leaving with practical, strengths-driven approaches ready to apply in their own contexts.
Biography
Melissa Powney is a Senior Education Consultant with over a decade of experience in trauma-responsive practice across education, out-of-home care, mental health, and family violence sectors. Qualified in Social Work and Developmental Trauma, she specialises in therapeutic assessment, advocacy, and holistic support for children, young people, and families.
Melissa designs and facilitates tailored training for diverse professional groups, delivering accredited and non-accredited programs nationally. She also delivers and assesses the Graduate Certificate in Developmental Trauma.
She provides consultation, supervision, and reflective practice to educators, residential care teams, and allied professionals, focusing on practical, real-world application.
Marie Wright is the Principal of Port Noarlunga Primary School in South Australia, with over 20 years of experience in education and a decade in school leadership. Her journey into education was shaped by her own experience of school as a place of safety, inspiring her commitment to ensuring every child has access to a supportive and inclusive learning environment. Marie has led schools in diverse contexts, including Indulkana Anangu School on the APY Lands, and brings a strong focus on trauma-informed and culturally responsive practice.
She is passionate about fostering positive workplace culture, strengthening staff capacity, and driving purposeful curriculum improvement. Marie’s work is grounded in the belief that wellbeing and learning are deeply connected. Her presentation shares two years of action research conducted in partnership with the Australian Childhood Foundation, highlighting the transformative impact on student wellbeing and staff practice at Port Noarlunga Primary School.
Emily Taylor is the Student Wellbeing Leader at Port Noarlunga Primary School in South Australia. She began her career in education in 2018 as a School Services Officer, before moving into teaching and later working as the school’s Autism Inclusion Teacher. In 2024, Emily moved into leadership, with a strong focus on student wellbeing and inclusion.
With a background in special education and disability, her work is grounded in trauma-informed and neuroaffirming practice. She has a particular focus on emotional regulation and supporting students to access learning in ways that work for them.
Emily is passionate about helping children build the skills they need to navigate school and life, and about supporting staff to feel confident in responding to a diverse range of needs. In this presentation, she shares her role in implementing and embedding whole-school approaches developed through the school’s action research partnership with the Australian Childhood Foundation, bringing the work to life in practical and responsive ways.
Ms Marie Wright
Port Noarlunga Primary School
Co-presenter
Biography
Mrs Emily Taylor
Student Wellbeing Leader
Port Noarlunga Primary School
Co-presenter
Biography
Ms Sharon Duthie
Senior Education Consultant
Australian Childhood Foundation
Transforming trauma through movement in education
2:50 PM - 3:35 PMAbstract
Aim: To provide creative, experiential, sensory and body-based strategies supporting regulation, engagement, and connection within the class/room – and when, how and why we use them.
Background/Context: Movement-based approaches strengthen neural pathways that are disrupted by trauma. Simple, intentional movement supports regulation, attention, learning, safety, belonging and healing.
Relevance: Trauma-transformative practice recognises body-based activities as healing for children who have experienced trauma. Integrating movement into education spaces and routines offers a practical, non-pathologising approach, creating learning environments where children feel safe within themselves and with others.
Contribution: This workshop reframes movement not as a behaviour management tool, but as a neurodevelopmental and relational imperative driving regulation, safety, connection, engagement and learning readiness. It provides a grounded rationale for embedding embodied practices into everyday pedagogy, creating trauma-transformative and healing-resourced education systems.
Description: This workshop draws on practice-based methodology, integrating movement-rich, relationally-attuned activities within class/room environments to support regulation and engagement. Practice examples illustrate how rhythmic, co-regulated movement can shift children from survival-oriented states of mobilisation/immobilisation into readiness for connection and learning, highlighting body-based strategies that are responsive to children’s developmental and relational needs. This approach supports reflection on how body-based practices create safer, more responsive environments for children who have experienced trauma.
Engagement: This interactive workshop utilises case examples, brief experiential movement invitations, and visual material that makes complex ideas accessible and embodied. Weaving together research, story, and action, participants will experience how movement can transform regulation, relationship, and learning.
Background/Context: Movement-based approaches strengthen neural pathways that are disrupted by trauma. Simple, intentional movement supports regulation, attention, learning, safety, belonging and healing.
Relevance: Trauma-transformative practice recognises body-based activities as healing for children who have experienced trauma. Integrating movement into education spaces and routines offers a practical, non-pathologising approach, creating learning environments where children feel safe within themselves and with others.
Contribution: This workshop reframes movement not as a behaviour management tool, but as a neurodevelopmental and relational imperative driving regulation, safety, connection, engagement and learning readiness. It provides a grounded rationale for embedding embodied practices into everyday pedagogy, creating trauma-transformative and healing-resourced education systems.
Description: This workshop draws on practice-based methodology, integrating movement-rich, relationally-attuned activities within class/room environments to support regulation and engagement. Practice examples illustrate how rhythmic, co-regulated movement can shift children from survival-oriented states of mobilisation/immobilisation into readiness for connection and learning, highlighting body-based strategies that are responsive to children’s developmental and relational needs. This approach supports reflection on how body-based practices create safer, more responsive environments for children who have experienced trauma.
Engagement: This interactive workshop utilises case examples, brief experiential movement invitations, and visual material that makes complex ideas accessible and embodied. Weaving together research, story, and action, participants will experience how movement can transform regulation, relationship, and learning.
Biography
Sharon Duthie has over 25 years’ experience providing therapeutic support to children and young people who have experienced trauma from abuse, neglect, violence, and attachment disruption. Sharon is passionate about the interplay of creativity, movement, neuroscience, and relational safety as foundational for healing from trauma and adverse childhood experiences.
Sharon holds a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Psychology, a Graduate Diploma in Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy, and a Master of Counselling, and is trained in modalities including DDP, EMDR, Play Therapy, Sand Therapy, and Mindfulness and Meditation. Sharon delivers national training on Trauma-Transformative Practice across many sectors, including training education staff through the Australian Childhood Foundation’s Making SPACE for learning program.
Sharon is passionate about equipping educators and professionals with practical, embodied approaches that support children and young people who have experienced trauma to reconnect with their bodies, strengthen relationships, and engage in learning.
