Trauma and social work: The learning and insights of looking through a 40-year personal lens

I will present an outline of a basic framework of stress and trauma. Drawing on experiences and Insights from the various social work settings that I have worked in, and things I have learned, I would hope to present practical and understandable learnings. A quick but thorough overview of stress will set the understanding on what trauma is. A quick overview of a debriefing tool, the Mitchell model, will teach a supportive and effective tool to the participants to help with self-care. I will define and "flush out" what trauma is, and offer my thoughts and wisdom often learned the hard way. I plan on talking about my experience with some very helpful supportive trauma tools like EMDR and logosynthesis. Depending on the timelines I may also offer an experiential component, and do a short guided visualization utilizing my Tibetan singing bowls which I use in my therapy practice. The purpose is to have people experience the link between the mind and body and illustrate how the mind is a very important tool to use in coping with stress and trauma. The Tibetan bowls offer a unique and very relaxing experience, often of profound depth.

My objective is to have participants take away a much clearer understanding of trauma and its role in all they do in social work whatever the context. I will offer insights I have gleaned from years of practice. The debriefing framework is a practical tool which will be shared for application as individuals in social work as well as with their team.

Speaker: Ken Osbourne

Ken Osbourne is an experienced therapist who has worked full time in a wide variety of settings with people of all ages and needs since early in 1979.  He has an undergraduate degree in psychology and sociology as well as a Master of Social Work degree. 

Ken worked as a trauma debriefer from the morning of the Swiss Air crash. Over the last 40 years, he has worked in child welfare, psychiatric social work, palliative care, and more.

Ken is now operating his own individual psychotherapy practice in Bedford.