Trauma-transformative practice: from paradigm to learning
Jan 2026
Written by Angela Weller Sharon Duthie
“Trauma-transformative practice is an act of heart, to try to lift its influence to a significant level.”
This story describes the journey of trauma knowledge and the evolution of thinking at Australian Childhood Foundation. This has led to a new paradigm of knowledge and its application to a series of training workshops being offered by the Knowledge Mobilisation and Practice Division. These workshops offer an exploration of trauma-transformative practice, as well as an experiential application of the theory to practice in therapeutic work with children and young people.
The foundation has always committed itself and its work to approaches that hold children, their rights, and safety at its heart. We have always known that abuse and violence rock children to their very core and have believed that it is in relational investments that children can heal and feel safe.
A new chapter in trauma work
In 2016 our late CEO Joe Tucci and Janise Mitchell asked an important question and published a blog titled – What comes after trauma-informed practice?
This writing acknowledged that the field had been working with the rich ideas that neuroscience had offered for many years. We had learnt from science how constant threat becomes embedded into children’s brains and bodies, and that children attempt to seek connection and safety through survival-based behaviours.
Soon after, Trauma-transformative Practice as a new paradigm began to include a theory of change that relied upon an expanded knowledge base. One that included our understandings from neuroscience along with the wisdom of cultural knowledge, lived and living experience, and with a strong focus on the relational basis of healing.
Trauma-transformative practice developed and is comprehensively described in The Handbook for Trauma-transformative Practice (2024) edited by Joe Tucci, Janise Mitchell, Stephen Porges, and Ed Tronik. This was not written with a focus on children, but it is an approach that integrates a deep understanding of the impact of trauma on children with insight into their unique needs.
Redefining trauma
It includes a powerful and re-imagined definition of trauma –
“It is described as a visceral force that resonates through time, clamping those who have experience it in moments of their past that are re-enacted and relived in the present, perpetually seeming to reshape their identity, their relationships, and their future.”
It also includes a definition of trauma that is multi-layered, importantly describing the difference between interpersonal and identity-based trauma as experienced through racism and discrimination. Trauma-transformative practice understands that a multi-dimensional approach is required for the unique and multiple layers of trauma that some victim-survivors have survived.
Transformation as change
The framework describes a theory of change through transformation. The process supports victim-survivors to have their pain acknowledged, believed, and understood, connecting them to safe and restorative relationships. Healing is also nurtured through connection to land, culture, and spirituality.
Trauma transformative practice holds hope and compassion as a central resources and outcomes of this commitment.
“Compassion, love, and hope are deeply woven into its very fibre. It is these qualities that give it the best chance to succeed in changing practice, organisations, and systems in their efforts to serve the needs and interests of those victims and survivors of historical and ongoing forms of oppression and violation”
It calls on us to develop shared and mutual ways of working, proposing that we “organise ourselves around purposeful intentional change utilising therapeutic intent.”
Core dimensions of practice
Trauma-transformative practice is based on core dimensions of practice that are both discrete but inherently integrated to best support victim-survivors through relational safety and healing. These include the need to respond to shame, be receptive to grief, focus on meaning, orient to compassion, be dedicated to safety, and inspire hope.
These dimensions have been integrated into a framework of intervention that can be applied to practice with children, families, communities, and systems around children. In applying these, the network of relationships around a child is strengthened as the very basis for change. The framework at its heart is relationally integrative, strengths-based, and aims to support everyone working with children to hold therapeutic intent.
“An inclusive set of co-ordinating constructs that aim to transform the ways that practitioners, organisations, and systems function collectively with therapeutic intent to address the complex and reverberating effects of trauma so that it becomes less influential in the lives of victims and survivors of interpersonal violence which will reduce the pain and suffering they experience over time.”
To bring this framework to life, we are offering new experiential workshops: Trauma-transformative practice with children and trauma-transformative practice with families. These sessions bridge knowledge and practice through creativity, reflection, and shared learning. Participants have described the approach as both inspiring and deeply practical, helping them rethink how healing happens in the lives of children
“A great session and loved the “applications” embedded throughout the session. Very informative and thought provoking, lots of practical ideas to take into practice.” – Training participant, 2024.
Expanding our knowledge with new conceptual maps often releases innovative resources for vulnerable children, young people, and their families. They support us to be committed to an ever-evolving understanding of what underpins our practice.
Trauma-transformative practice invites us to be excited about this “act of heart” in our continued commitment towards transformation in the world of children and those who support, love, and care for them.
To explore upcoming workshops or enquire about customised training, visit our training page here: https://learn.childhood.org.au/trainings/
