The prevalence of children and young people who have lived through the harm of complex trauma is worrying and growing and many of these young Australians are sitting in classrooms and other learning environments across our country. During this webinar, Dr Judith Howard will introduce a trauma-aware approach to education. She will explain why this is so very important and briefly introduce how it can be done. She will also share some exciting learning opportunities provided by her university to enhance the knowledge, skill and leadership capacities in trauma-aware education for practitioners throughout Australia.

Dr Judith Howard is an Associate Professor in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at the Queensland University of Technology. She comes from an extensive career history with schooling in Queensland where she has worked as a teacher, guidance counsellor and behaviour support specialist and has held both regional and state leadership positions overseeing work in student behaviour support.

At QUT, Dr Howard oversees pre-service and post-graduate courses in trauma-aware education and has developed online courses that are reaching thousands nationally and internationally. She received a national award for university teaching in 2022 for her work in this area. She has also led development of the “National Guidelines for Trauma-Aware Education”, and is the author of two books, “Distressed or Deliberately Defiant: Managing Challenging Student Behaviour due to Trauma and Disorganised Attachment” (2013), and “Trauma-Aware Education: Essential information and guidance for educators, education sites, and education systems” (2022). Judith is also the founder and principal chair of the large, biennial “Trauma-Aware Education Conference” held in Brisbane, Australia.