Session 4F
Tracks
Track 6
| Saturday, October 31, 2026 |
| 11:30 AM - 1:05 PM |
| Meeting room P9, Plaza Level |
Overview
Meeting room P9
Speaker
Ms Mitzi Sneesby
Head Of Teaching And Learning
Berengarra School
BELONGing before learning: transforming outcomes for neurodiverse students through trauma-aware practice
11:30 AM - 12:15 PMAbstract
Aim: To demonstrate how a trauma-aware school framework facilitates measurable transformation among neurodiverse and disengaged students with trauma and complex mental health experiences.
Background/Context: This practice reflection examines the implementation of the BELONG model in a specialist secondary setting that serves students with social and emotional complexity. The model incorporates consistent routines, relational practice, daily check-ins, and strengths-based pedagogy to reduce cognitive load and enhance psychological safety.
Relevance: Aligned with the conference theme, this work highlights innovative trauma-aware approaches that foster significant improvements in engagement, wellbeing, and learning during adolescence.
Contribution: This session presents an actionable, evidence-informed framework that connects wellbeing, curriculum, and student agency. Early outcomes include improved attendance, reduced stress, and increased learner confidence, particularly among neurodivergent and trauma-impacted students. This work is informing the design of a purpose-built trauma-aware campus, extending these principles into the physical learning environment.
Description: The session provides a case-based overview of implementation across years 7 to 12, featuring structured routines, restorative practices, and co-regulation strategies. Insights are grounded in practitioner reflection, student perspectives, and ongoing data-informed refinements.
Engagement: Participants will analyse authentic classroom scenarios and adaptable strategies for application in their own settings.
Keywords: Trauma-aware practice; neurodiversity; student engagement; relkational pedagogy; whole-school approach
Contribution Format: Practice reflections
Background/Context: This practice reflection examines the implementation of the BELONG model in a specialist secondary setting that serves students with social and emotional complexity. The model incorporates consistent routines, relational practice, daily check-ins, and strengths-based pedagogy to reduce cognitive load and enhance psychological safety.
Relevance: Aligned with the conference theme, this work highlights innovative trauma-aware approaches that foster significant improvements in engagement, wellbeing, and learning during adolescence.
Contribution: This session presents an actionable, evidence-informed framework that connects wellbeing, curriculum, and student agency. Early outcomes include improved attendance, reduced stress, and increased learner confidence, particularly among neurodivergent and trauma-impacted students. This work is informing the design of a purpose-built trauma-aware campus, extending these principles into the physical learning environment.
Description: The session provides a case-based overview of implementation across years 7 to 12, featuring structured routines, restorative practices, and co-regulation strategies. Insights are grounded in practitioner reflection, student perspectives, and ongoing data-informed refinements.
Engagement: Participants will analyse authentic classroom scenarios and adaptable strategies for application in their own settings.
Keywords: Trauma-aware practice; neurodiversity; student engagement; relkational pedagogy; whole-school approach
Contribution Format: Practice reflections
Biography
Mitzi Sneesby is Head of Campus (Years 7–10) at Berengarra School in Melbourne, where she leads trauma-aware practice in a specialist setting for students disengaged from mainstream education. A qualified P–12 teacher with a Graduate Certificate in Trauma-Aware Education, she brings 10 years in government schools and 8 years at Berengarra, including leadership roles. Her earlier career as a scientific researcher informs her data-driven, evidence-based approach.
Sneesby embeds trauma-aware strategies across the school day, including predictable routines and structured check-ins that promote safety, reduce cognitive load, and support neurodiverse learners. Her work focuses on integrating wellbeing and curriculum to improve engagement and outcomes.
As a parent of neurodiverse children, she brings lived insight to her leadership. She has also delivered professional learning for educators, with participants reporting increased confidence in recognising distress and applying practical classroom strategies.
Ms Kaya Lyons
Director / Specialist Paediatric OT
Active OT for Kids
Emotional Regulation: The embodied journey of containment & curiously learning
12:20 PM - 1:05 PMAbstract
Background:
When children experience safety, the mind operates as a curious and adaptive network, integrating cognition, emotion, and action. The body—through sensation, rhythm, and movement—is central to creating this sense of safety and supporting engagement in learning and relationships. Trauma disrupts this mind–body flow, often limiting access to grounding, curiosity, self-regulation, and connection in educational contexts.
Aim:
This workshop aims to explore how embodied grounding and sensory awareness can restore conditions of safety that support curiosity, learning, and relational connection for children impacted by trauma.
Relevance to Trauma and Education:
In schools and learning environments, trauma commonly presents as difficulties with attention, behavior, emotional regulation, and social engagement. Cognitive or behavior-focused strategies alone may be ineffective when the nervous system remains dysregulated. This workshop emphasizes the body as a primary entry point for trauma-responsive education, offering practical approaches that align with children’s neurobiological and developmental needs.
Description and Engagement:
The workshop conceptualizes the body as a container for sensation and emotion and examines how embodied, sensory-based practices can reopen pathways to learning and connection. Participants will engage in experiential activities that cultivate sensory awareness, grounding, and rhythm, deepening understanding of how embodied experiences foster safety, regulation, and adaptive engagement.
Contribution to the Field:
By integrating principles from multi-sensory learning and trauma-informed practice, this workshop contributes an embodied framework that bridges learning and healing. It offers educators and practitioners practical, experiential strategies that position the body as a critical mediator of safety, curiosity, and meaningful educational participation.
When children experience safety, the mind operates as a curious and adaptive network, integrating cognition, emotion, and action. The body—through sensation, rhythm, and movement—is central to creating this sense of safety and supporting engagement in learning and relationships. Trauma disrupts this mind–body flow, often limiting access to grounding, curiosity, self-regulation, and connection in educational contexts.
Aim:
This workshop aims to explore how embodied grounding and sensory awareness can restore conditions of safety that support curiosity, learning, and relational connection for children impacted by trauma.
Relevance to Trauma and Education:
In schools and learning environments, trauma commonly presents as difficulties with attention, behavior, emotional regulation, and social engagement. Cognitive or behavior-focused strategies alone may be ineffective when the nervous system remains dysregulated. This workshop emphasizes the body as a primary entry point for trauma-responsive education, offering practical approaches that align with children’s neurobiological and developmental needs.
Description and Engagement:
The workshop conceptualizes the body as a container for sensation and emotion and examines how embodied, sensory-based practices can reopen pathways to learning and connection. Participants will engage in experiential activities that cultivate sensory awareness, grounding, and rhythm, deepening understanding of how embodied experiences foster safety, regulation, and adaptive engagement.
Contribution to the Field:
By integrating principles from multi-sensory learning and trauma-informed practice, this workshop contributes an embodied framework that bridges learning and healing. It offers educators and practitioners practical, experiential strategies that position the body as a critical mediator of safety, curiosity, and meaningful educational participation.
Biography
Kaya has long recognised that resilience is rooted in a child's ability to connect inwardly. As a specialist OT in childhood trauma, she has seen how adversity can unsettle regulation and erode a sense of security. Through guiding thousands of children and families, Kaya has observed the healing potential of cultivating inner awareness as both a stabilising and empowering skills.
Her insights are informed by both her professional experience and her role as a loving mother of three, walking alongside her own children through life's challenges. This dual perspective inspires her to create playful, practical resources and services that foster connection, offering children, caregivers and professionals alike the opportunity to feel acknowledged, supported, and strengthened.
Kaya’s experience has led to being the director of Active OT for Kids & Camp Reset alongside being a mentor, international speaker, author & workshop facilitator.
