Session 3A
Tracks
Track 1
| Friday, October 30, 2026 |
| 2:00 PM - 3:35 PM |
| Plaza Ballroom, Plaza Level |
Overview
Plaza Ballroom
Speaker
Miss Siobhan Wilson
Owner/founder
Our Pixie Friends Pty Ltd
Masterclass - Rethinking Trauma-Aware Practice: What Young People Wish Adults Understood
2:00 PM - 3:35 PMAbstract
Aim
To extend trauma-aware education beyond awareness into meaningful classroom practice by translating lived experience into practical approaches that improve how educators respond to behaviour.
Background
Despite growing awareness of trauma, a gap remains between understanding and responding effectively.
Children experiencing trauma are often misunderstood, not because educators lack care, but because the internal experience driving behaviour is not always known. Without this insight, well-intended responses can unintentionally increase anxiety.
This session is grounded in the lived experience of 17-year-old Siobhan Wilson, offering rare insight into what sits beneath behaviour and why adult responses have a profound impact.
Relevance
This session supports educators and school leaders to move beyond awareness into meaningful, trauma-informed practice across early childhood, primary, and secondary settings.
Contribution
Participants will gain:
• A deeper understanding of behaviour through a lived-experience lens
• Practical strategies to strengthen emotional safety, connection, and engagement
Description
This masterclass bridges the gap between trauma awareness and classroom practice, reframing behaviour from something to manage to something to understand. Drawing on lived experience, it translates real experiences into practical approaches educators can use immediately, highlighting how everyday interactions can either support safety or increase confusion and anxiety.
Spanning early childhood to adolescence, it provides a clear framework to respond more intentionally, reduce escalation, and support engagement.
Engagement
Participants will:
• Work through real-life classroom scenarios
• Identify helpful and unhelpful responses
• Apply practical strategies to common challenges
To extend trauma-aware education beyond awareness into meaningful classroom practice by translating lived experience into practical approaches that improve how educators respond to behaviour.
Background
Despite growing awareness of trauma, a gap remains between understanding and responding effectively.
Children experiencing trauma are often misunderstood, not because educators lack care, but because the internal experience driving behaviour is not always known. Without this insight, well-intended responses can unintentionally increase anxiety.
This session is grounded in the lived experience of 17-year-old Siobhan Wilson, offering rare insight into what sits beneath behaviour and why adult responses have a profound impact.
Relevance
This session supports educators and school leaders to move beyond awareness into meaningful, trauma-informed practice across early childhood, primary, and secondary settings.
Contribution
Participants will gain:
• A deeper understanding of behaviour through a lived-experience lens
• Practical strategies to strengthen emotional safety, connection, and engagement
Description
This masterclass bridges the gap between trauma awareness and classroom practice, reframing behaviour from something to manage to something to understand. Drawing on lived experience, it translates real experiences into practical approaches educators can use immediately, highlighting how everyday interactions can either support safety or increase confusion and anxiety.
Spanning early childhood to adolescence, it provides a clear framework to respond more intentionally, reduce escalation, and support engagement.
Engagement
Participants will:
• Work through real-life classroom scenarios
• Identify helpful and unhelpful responses
• Apply practical strategies to common challenges
Biography
Siobhan Wilson is a 17-year-old international public speaker, four-time published author, and founder of Our Pixie Friends, a social enterprise supporting children and young people experiencing trauma, mental health challenges, and neurodiversity. Drawing on her lived experience of complex trauma, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorder (NVLD), Siobhan provides a rare and powerful perspective that bridges the gap between theory and real-world practice.
She delivers professional development and training to educators, healthcare professionals, and community organisations, translating lived experience into practical, trauma-aware strategies that can be applied immediately. Siobhan is also a youth and disability advocate, a Queensland Family and Child Commission (QFCC) Youth Advocate, and has contributed to research and program development with the Black Dog Institute.
Through her work, Siobhan is recognised as one of Australia’s leading youth voices in trauma-aware and neurodiversity-informed practice, helping adults better understand and support young people.
