Blog

The recent court case concerning the use of restraint in a Northern Territory school reminded me of the need for criteria to determine the justification for a restraint.. The use of physical restraint in schools exposes both staff and students to significant risk. For...

In my last post, I outlined the process for forming a parental alliance with a “Struggling Parent” to prevent their child being suspended from school. A more directive approach is required for the ‘anti-teacher’ parent ie the Softly, Softly Directive Approach. The key...

As per my last post, the first step to preventing suspensions from school  is to form a working alliance between the school and the parents. In this post, I outline the process for forming an alliance with a ‘struggling parent ‘. In my next post I will outline the...

A recent Sunday Age article argues that ‘soft suspensions’ contributes  to youth crime or at least inhibiting rehabilitation of young offenders.  In this post I want to look at the reasons for soft suspensions are occurring and what we can do to reduce...

I was recently conducting a trauma informed training program for teaching staff at a Special Assistance School. Clearly empathy is a key skill when working with traumatised young people. A participant asked: ‘can you fake empathy?’ What a great question! Like any a...

Is the trauma informed care (TIC) causing us to underestimate the resilience of our clients? Paul Meehl Paul Meehl, probably one of the most influential psychologists of the last century, would probably agree. He is famous, amongst many other things, for his belief...

Helping professionals are often called upon to make predictions. Child protection workers are asked to predict which parents will continue to abuse their children, correctional authorities are asked to predict which offenders will re-offend and domestic violence...

Steve Silverman is widely considered one of the founders of the neurodivergent movement. His book, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently (2015) has revolutionised how we think and engage with people with an...

As a psychologist I know only too well the toll suicide takes on families. Suicide of a loved one is perhaps the most tragic of tragedies that beset a family.I recently attended Spectrum three-day training program on Metallisation Base Therapy (MDT). I had previously...

The road to hell is paved with good intention and those good intentions led to Victoria to setting the age of criminal responsibility at 10 years. Here is what happened! Young people (YP) are incarcerated for two reasons. Firstly because they commit serious offences...

The ‘person focused’ or the ‘person first approach’ encourages professionals to refer to people with mental health issues as ‘a person with a [specific disorder]’. Thus person with diagnoses of autism or schizophrenia are not l referred to as being ‘autistic’ or...