Already traumatised people can be further traumatised when engaging with services and needing to answer lots of questions. This workshop equips workers with practical strategies in conducting interviews in a culturally safe and trauma-informed way, and responding to the person’s distress.

Content includes:

Recognising and understanding trauma
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Impacts of trauma on the brain and memory
Establishing safety and trust
Engaging effectively and building rapport
Structuring the interview
Questioning skills
Navigating the challenges of memory and checking for understanding
What to do if someone becomes distressed/has a panic attack/dissociates
Empowering people through providing information and allowing choice
Identifying supports
Closing a session sensitively

Who should attend?
Relevant to anyone who needs to get information through asking questions, via a formal interview or more informal means, from people who are suffering from some type of trauma, in order to provide appropriate assistance and support services.

Our Trainer - Rafik Tanious
Counsellor/Trainer, STARTTS

Rafik Tanious has worked across the social ecologies of education, mental health and social services with children and young people for the past 30 years both locally and internationally. He has extensive field work experience working with children and adolescents with refugee backgrounds in case work, education and counselling. Rafik has a continuing interest in trauma recovery, anti-racism, and youth identity formation and has developed racial literacy, and racial resilience programs for young people with refugee experiences and produced anti-racism films on Cabramatta for the NSW Premiers department.

Rafik has also been employed as a consultant and trainer with universities in supporting the mental health of international students, developing orientation programs and inter-cultural learning frameworks and facilitating cross cultural parenting programs. He has worked as an adult educator at TAFE NSW in the community services and health faculties and holds post graduate qualifications in counselling, education and film production with an interest in promoting children and young people’s rights, recovery, and facilitating opportunities for young people and children to tell their own stories of survival and healing. Rafik currently works at STARTTS as a counsellor and trainer.

Workshop delivery
STARTTS workshops are delivered by trainers experienced in the trauma field. They are interactive and normally include small group discussions via breakout rooms, case studies, self-reflections, videos and other types of activities. This workshop is delivered via Zoom. The Zoom link will be included in the registration confirmation email and the reminder emails.

Certificates and handouts
A PDF of the slides will be emailed to you a day before the event. A certificate of completion will be emailed to you the day after the event.

CPD points – 6 CPD hours
This workshop adheres to the continuing professional development standards of most professional bodies. Please check the CPD policy of your professional body.

Note that there are 5 Early Bird Tickets available for purchase 2 months and earlier before the workshop date.

Terms and conditions
Payment of the registration fee is online by credit card and a receipt/confirmation will be automatically emailed to you. An administration fee of $30 applies to all cancellations made more than 14 days the day before the start of the event. Registration once paid cannot be cancelled 14 days or less the day before the start of the event, regardless of personal circumstances. Registration can be transferred to another delegate only if STARTTS is informed of the name change. Registration cannot be transferred to another workshop. The concession price is for full-time students, seniors and the unemployed. A photocopy or pdf of a valid concession card must be forwarded to the STARTTS training team upon registration. Registrations will not be confirmed until full payment is received. The deadlines for the early bird and standard prices cannot be extended. Sometimes STARTTS will need to change the trainer of a particular workshop. The STARTTS Training Team can be contacted at stts-training@health.nsw.gov.au or (02) 9646 6700.

Contact the host of Trauma Informed Interviewing, 6 May 2025

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