Comprehensive Solutions to Complex Challenges Across New Zealand

TACTIC - Team Around The Child Trauma Informed Care

Developing a comprehensive understanding of trauma and what this means in the home, school and community.

Practical ways for the caregivers and professional to develop skills, strategies, and confidence, when supporting the young person with complex needs. Strategies included are evidence based.

Childhood trauma impacts a child’s cognitive, behavioural, emotional, and social development, as well as their physical health. In order to ensure a successful outcome, we design a holistic treatment plan that considers all areas.

Trauma

Major advances in brain research show us the effects of early attachment trauma on brain development and enable us to expand our awareness of these adverse experiences.

We might consider that the effects of early childhood trauma are more severe because of the developmental periods and the impact on the developing brain.

Research on the consequences of early traumatic events helps us to define new criteria for attachment trauma and offers us directions for early identification and enables a more accurate treatment.

By raising awareness among both caregivers and clinicians about attachment trauma, prevention strategies and tailor-made treatment might increase and create new therapeutic opportunities.

Our multidisciplinary team works with children and young people of all backgrounds that have experienced trauma including:

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Neurological Conditions (Cerebral Palsy Traumatic Brain Injury)
Traumatic Backgrounds
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Global Development Delays
Developmental Coordination Challenges
Specific Learning Disabilities

When addressing trauma we look at three main areas:

Trauma that occurs in utero,
Traumatic experiences that occur during development (developmental trauma) and
Trauma and attachment.

Life experiences have a profound effect on how the brain develops and organises itself.

As a result of trauma, various adaptive responses are formed, such as physiological hyperarousal and dissociation.

Following trauma, the more a child is in a state of hyperarousal or dissociation, the more likely they are to have neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Adaptive states can be harmful if they persist. Our team’s aim is to intervene at these critical times by combining Occupational Therapy and Sensory Integration Therapy with psychotherapy in order to assist children in regulating their emotions.

Usually, once the child is in a regulated state, they are able to increase attention and decrease distraction, decrease anxiety, promote self-motivation, increase communication, and enhance self-esteem.