Trauma Informed Interviewing

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. It will also address the vicarious trauma that workers may experience when exposed to the distress and difficult content when assisting traumatised people seeking assistance for a variety of issues.

Content includes:

• Recognising and understanding trauma
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
• Impacts of trauma on the brain, memory and relationships
• Establishing safety and trust
• Engaging effectively and building rapport
• 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
• Vicarious trauma, boundaries, and self-care

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
Bicultural Practice Specialist/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.

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.