Take Two paving the way with AVITH best practice
Family violence
Berry Street’s specialist trauma mental health service, Take Two, recently presented at the ‘Paving the way with best practice’ Victorian AVITH Symposium.
Take Two is funded to provide two programs supporting families with adolescents where violence in the home may be occurring (AVITH) – The Wattle Project in Melbourne’s northern and north-eastern suburbs, and Restoring Relationships in the Mallee in Mildura in partnership with Mallee Accommodation and Support Program.
Take Two Director Dr Allison Cox gave a keynote presentation, 'Reframing young person violence through a neuroaffirmative lens’.
Dr Cox discussed how Autism, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions can look like PTSD, especially in early childhood. She also discussed how when it is known a child has been maltreated, it can lead to a late diagnosis of various other difficulties a child may be experiencing, as their symptoms are often attributed to trauma the child has experienced.
“Without keeping both trauma and neurodiversity in mind, it's easy to overlook the other - when the child may be experiencing both. Both impact the way the brain develops and can present with very similar symptoms.”
“Neurodiverse children experience higher rates of trauma than neurotypical children, so it’s vital we provide trauma-informed holistic care for children in our community. Early intervention is key to improving outcomes and helping these children and young people – and our community - thrive.”
Watch Allison's presentation.
Take Two’s AVITH service in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, known as 'The Wattle Project' also presented. Art therapists Kate Richards and Jessica Fitzgerald gave a presentation called ‘A Pathway to Connection: Joint painting with young people & their caregivers’. They discussed their use of the Joint Painting Protocol which has been found to support therapeutic experience and transformation in child-parent relationships (Gavron, Feninger-Schaal & Peretz, 2022; Gavron & Mayseless, 2018).
John Ayling from Take Two’s Restoring Relationships in the Mallee program, based in Mildura presented ‘Working through Blocked Care to help manage family expectations’. Using a de-identified case study of a young person living with extended family, he demonstrated how therapeutic interventions can be used to overcome Blocked Care (Hughes & Baylin, 2012) with young people using violence. Watch his presentation below.
The symposium was hosted by the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare. It was attended by approximately 200 representatives from child and family services, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, academics, specialist service providers, peak bodies, government and other organisations working to reduce adolescent violence in the home.
The Centre for Excellence has previously published best practice case studies from The Wattle Project and Restoring Relationships in the Mallee on their website.
References:
Gavron, T., Feniger-Schaal, R., & Peretz, A. (2022). Relationship aspects of mothers and their adolescents with intellectual disability as expressed through the joint painting procedure. Children, 9(6), 922.
Gavron, T., & Mayseless, O. (2018). Creating art together as a transformative process in parent-child relations: The therapeutic aspects of the joint painting procedure. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2154.
Hughes, D. A., & Baylin, J. F. (2012). Brain-based parenting: the neuroscience of caregiving for healthy attachment. W.W. Norton & Co.
Photos courtesy of Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare.
About Berry Street Take Two
Take Two is a trauma-informed mental health service with more than 20 years of experience working with infants, children, young people and families who have experienced complex trauma
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