About the Australian
Child & Adolescent Trauma, Loss & Grief Network
The network aims to promote understanding of child and adolescent trauma, loss and grief.
You can use the network to:
- find out how to best assist children and adolescents, and to link with others
- access best available information, resources and education/training opportunities.
The network focuses on:
- bringing together stakeholders in the areas of practice, policy and research related to children and adolescents with experiences of trauma, loss and grief
- supporting local and national networking and linkages between people responsible for, or working with, children, adolescents and their families
- offering the best available knowledge, information and resources to support service providers, researchers, educators, trainers, policy makers and advocates.
The network addresses the mental health impacts of multiple losses and potentially traumatic experiences. These experiences can include:
- the death of a parent or other loved one, family break up,
- child abuse and neglect, assault or severe bullying,
- homelessness, family violence,
- serious accidents, injuries or chronic illness,
- disasters, terrorism or other major incidents,
- and other adversities within families and communities.
It offers key resources to help people involved with, or who have responsibility for, children and adolescents and those who are interested in the impact of psychological trauma, loss and other adversities as they affect young people. It also provides an online forum for communication and sharing of information and expertise among professionals and community workers; as well as people involved in research, policy, education and training and other interested members of the community. The network will:
- draw together knowledge, information and expertise
- provide and disseminate up-to-date and relevant information
- facilitate and enhance networking and linkages between stakeholders from different backgrounds
- develop, review and collate resources in partnership with key groups
- through its members, provide advice and support to organisations.
Need for a network
A national consultancy process in April/May 2007 explored the feasibility and need for this network. The consultation process identified a considerable number of existing services focused on a range of issues related to child and adolescent trauma, loss and grief.
To date, no single organisation has both linked stakeholders as well as developed resources specific to children, adolescents and their families suffering trauma, loss or grief experiences. There are considerable benefits to be gained from enhancing linkages and collaboration between stakeholders and their access to resources and training opportunities. The network was identified as a flexible and dynamic structure to bring together stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and areas of practice to meet on the common ground of trauma, loss and grief experiences of children and adolescents and to look towards the commion goal of improved outcomes for children and their families.
The'earlytraumagrief' website
This website contains information for practitioners/service providers, policy makers/managers, educators/trainers, researchers, child and family advocates, and parents, other caregivers, young people and interested member of the community. Its content is informed by a panel of experts in the fields of child and adolescent trauma, loss and grief.
earlytraumagrief was selected as the name of the website for the Australian Child and Adolescent Trauma, Loss and Grief Network. It refers to young people (infants, children and adolescents aged from 0-18 years) experiencing trauma and loss. It also highlights the need to promote positive mental health and wellbeing early in people’s lives and for an early response to psychological trauma, loss and other adversities. For ease of expression, we refer to 'children and adolescents' and 'children' interchangeably throughout this website.
