Impact of Complex Trauma on First Line Responders

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Registration is available online only for this virtual Conference 

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BPS Members: £24

Non-BPS Member: £36

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Programme

10:00: Welcome and Introductions, Mia Pal- North West Branch Chair

10:05: Sarah-Jane Lennie, Lecturer in Policing Organisation and Practice, Department of Policing Organisation and Practice, Faculty of Business and Law

10:40: Professor Cherie Armour, Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology, Queens University Belfast - Veterans Trauma

11:25: Break

11:30: Kate Brassington, Coaching Psychologist and Trauma-Informed Coach, Zest Coaching & Consulting S.A.R.L.s - Veterans Trauma

12:05: Professor Jane Louise Ireland, Chartered Forensic Psychologist, Chartered Scientist, Accredited EMDR Therapist - Forensic Considerations

12:45: Lunch Break

13:15: Dr Michael Paterson OBE, Former Police Officer and EMDR Europe Accredited Senior Trainer  - Workforce Trauma

13:55: Imogen Sturgeon-Clegg - Military Trauma

14:40: Break

14:45: Professor Dominic Murphy, Academic Clinical Psychologist - Military Trauma

15:20: Sally Pearse, Strategic Lead, Sheffield Hallam University – Educational Trauma

16:00: Break

16:05 Karla Dolinsky, Registered Clinical Counsellor and Trainer and Clinical Supervisor with Complex Trauma Institute - Aviation Trauma

16:40 Sarah Gamble, Professional Development Lead, BPS

17:00: Close

Contact

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Speakers

Professor Cherie Armour

Cherie Armour is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at Queens University Belfast. Professor Armour is Research Director for the school and Director of the Research Centre for Stress Trauma and Related Conditions (STARC). Cherie has published extensively on Traumatic Stress with a particular interest in occupational groups that are at increased risk of experiencing trauma and traumatic stress outcomes (e.g., military, police, and emergency service workers). Professor Armour is regularly invited to speak at events across the world and has several prestigious research awards. Cherie leads an extensive programme of externally funded research employing several postdoctoral research associates.

 

Kate Brassington

Kate is a Coaching Psychologist and Trauma-Informed Coach and researcher running a private online practice based in Luxembourg. 

With private and executive clients around the world, she also supports limbless UK military veterans through the charity BLESMA. 

Her work is person-centred (not focused on a particular type of trauma) using techniques from fields such as polyvagal theory, somatic coaching, and Internal Family Systems, to help clients understand, accept, and work with their past experiences (rather than on them) to move beyond survival and make life better. 

In short, she helps people ease suffering and get the fun back! 
 

'To ease suffering and get the fun back'. A role for coaching psychology support for First Responders after Complex Trauma?'

If Complex Trauma exposure in First Responders is not simply an event, but a long process of trauma exposure and trauma responses, can specialist coaching offer ways to help individuals re-build their lives from the inside out? Is it possible to repair broken trust in other people, institutions, and even yourself, to move forward?
Kate explores emerging ways in which the agile and responsive field of Coaching Psychology could help clients work WITH their trauma, towards a better life, without working ON it. Balancing the line between coaching and therapy, she brings to life ways in which trauma-informed practice can pay exquisite attention to the voices of survivors and sufferers, as well as bringing the latest from leading research, to offer effective evidence-based practice. She shares a real-life case study, and practitioner-eye view, on regulating the nervous system. Healing is rarely linear, indeed it can often seem more like a wearying spiral, but salutogenesis (self-healing through what is "right" with you) is possible. Kate offers insights of how such Coaches could act as Expert Companions along this often lonely road, helping people ease suffering and get the fun back.
 

Karla Dolinsky

Karla is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who works in Private Practice based in Victoria, Canada. She also serves as a Trainer and Clinical Supervisor with the Complex Trauma Institute in York, England, which works in collaboration with the University of York. Karla's areas of practice are Complex Trauma, Loss & Grief, and Challenging Relationships. Karla is trained in EMDR Therapy and has sought advanced training in EMDR to work with Trauma and Dissociation. Karla also has specific training to work with First Responders. Her contact work with First Response and with Aviation Incident Response has offered Karla unique insights into these multi-layered worlds.

The Many Facets of Mental Health Support in Aviation

When I first looked into working as a Mental Health Therapist in the Aviation Industry, I was unaware of the complexity and variety of the work that can be embraced. I work with Blake Emergency Services, one of the leaders in the industry responding to Aviation Incidents. My presentation for this Conference will discuss the approach to the work in addition to the vast range of scenarios and clients we may encounter. We work with our Blake Emergency Services team who attend to crashes, as well as the many clients who contract the company to attend when things go awry in a multitude of ways. This presentation will help you see flying from a very different perspective.

Sarah Gamble

Sarah Gamble is a Professional Development Lead at the BPS who manages the development of a range of high quality training opportunities for BPS members and beyond. After graduating with a BSc hons Psychology degree in 2010, Sarah has pursued a career in project management and is PRINCE 2 trained. Since joining the BPS in 2 years ago, she is pleased to combine her qualifications and working experience in the role. As well as leading the BPS webinar and workshop programme, Sarah has developed and launched a number of courses including an autism series, 'Inclusive Leadership' and most recently 'Trauma-informed practice to support people who have experienced trauma'.

Professor Jane L. Ireland

Professor Jane L. Ireland, Forensic Psychologist, Chartered Psychologist, and Chartered Scientist.  Professor Ireland holds a Professorial Chair at the University of Central Lancashire. She is Violence Treatment Lead within High Secure Services, Ashworth Hospital and an EMDR Europe Accredited Clinical Supervisor/Consultant. She is elected academy fellow of the Council of the Academy of Social Sciences, fellow of the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA) and was a member of the REF panel for Psychology and Psychiatry (2017, 2021). She holds three visiting/honorary professorships at Abo Akademi University, Finland, Charles Sturt University, Australia, and Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. Professor Ireland is currently academic lead for the Ashworth Research Centre (ARC), an NHS centre for forensic clinical research, based within Mersey Care NHS Trust. She also leads the University of Central Lancashire Psychological Support Hub, which specialises in trauma therapy, including for forensic clients being managed through probation services. Professor Ireland publishes widely in the area of forensic psychology, with in excess of 150 publications and several handbooks, with her more recent publications focusing on multi-study work in forensic areas, including trauma.

'First Responding' with forensic populations: Understanding the complexities for staff working in secure services

This paper will commence with an outline of the complexities in working with forensic populations in the area of trauma, before noting how the concept of a 'first responder' is a broad one. In secure services, this represents those who could be first to respond to disclosures of abuse and/or to incidents that occur in such services that could themselves produce a trauma response in staff. The paper will capture the challenges staff face in terms of responding to such clients, how disclosures should be managed and how staff should be aware of their own well-being. It will illustrate the importance of theory – including the Information Processing of Trauma Model and the Perception Action Model of empathy, alongside concepts such as moral injury and emotional labour. Some reflections for moving forward are outlined, which include an expectation of challenges for staff and a more preventative approach that accounts for the mechanism(s) through which a staff distress response may emerge.

Professor Dominic Murphy

Professor Dominic Murphy is an academic clinical psychologist and has worked within the field of PTSD and military mental health since 2003.  In 2013, Professor Murphy established a research department at Combat Stress (combatstress.org.uk/about-us/our-research/).  He is the President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society (UKPTS), board member of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ETSSS), Trustee and Director of Research at The Forces in Mind Trust, a member of the King's Centre for Military Health department at King's College London, a member of the scientific advisory board for Chronic Pain Centre for Canadian veterans and is widely published within this with over 150 publications.  

Exploring the needs of treatment seeking veterans and female veterans

The majority of research in the UK has focused on the general military or veteran population.  The aim of this presentation will be to describe the needs of two clinically relevant sub-groups of this wider population.  The first of these will be treatment seeking veterans.  To do this, data will be presented from a study that surveyed a nationally representative clinical cohort of veterans.  Mental health presentations will be compared between clinical samples of veterans and the wider military population, with a particular focus on PTSD and Complex PTSD.  The second group are female veterans.  Data will be presented to explore the unique needs of female veterans and the relationship between military sexual trauma and PTSD.

Dr Sarah-Jane Lennie

Dr Sarah-Jane Lennie is a Chartered Psychologist (British Psychological Society) and Lecturer in the Department of Police, Organisation and Practice, at the Open University. Sarah-Jane specialises in social psychology, emotions in the workplace and the mental health and well-being of police officers.  Prior to returning to academia Sarah-Jane served for 18 years as a police officer, to the rank of Detective Inspector. Sarah-Jane is an Associate to the College of Policing, as a subject matter expert in mental health and organisational culture, and leadership.   Sarah-Jane's research focus is on supporting police officer's emotional wellbeing through the exploration of officer's lived experience and the impact of organisational culture and leadership on individual mental health.  Sarah-Jane looks at the role of stigma, emotional suppression and dissociation in the increasing cases of PTSD within British officers.  Currently she is working on projects looking at the needs of police families, perinatal mental health in policing, Self-Reflection for Self-Care for police officers and the implementation of Schwartz rounds in the British and New Zealand police.

'RESILIENCE.  WHO'S RESPONSIBILITY!'

Often resilience is considered the responsibility of the individual, and used as a bar to measure employees against, with emotional experience, expression and mental ill-health viewed as a weakness and sign of unfitness for the role.  Sarah-Jane will look at the role of organisational culture, stigmatisation of emotions and the silencing of the individual as direct contributors to dissociative behaviour and subsequential ill-health, drawing on police officer lived experience and asking the question:  How can you be resilience in an organisational culture that actively prevents healthy behaviours?
 

Dr Michael C Paterson OBE

Dr Michael C Paterson OBE is a former police officer who was injured in the line of duty and later became a clinical psychologist specialising in treating psychological trauma. He has worked clinically with many first responders and military personnel who have been exposed to more than their resilience could cope with.

Michael is also an EMDR Europe Accredited Senior Trainer who has delivered accredited training to a significant number of mental health professionals based in the north of England. He is looking forward to speaking to you.

Workforce Trauma

In his presentation, Dr Paterson will describe how different types of traumatic experiences, regardless of where they are experienced, can become locked in the brain and be triggered by harmless stimuli years later. This will be illustrated with clinical examples from Michael's work with police officers, firefighters and military personnel. As a guide for participants, Michael will describe physical, behavioural and emotional signs indicating a stress response and indicate effective therapies to help sufferers of traumatic stress.

 Dr Heather Sequeira

 Dr Heather Sequeira is founder and Director of PTSDTraumaWorkshops and developer of the PTSD Masterclass; an innovated BPS Approved Workshop for clinicians and therapists in PTSD. Dr Sequeira is an executive committee member of the British Psychological Society Crisis, Disaster & Trauma BPS Section. She has had previous input to British Psychological Society CPD, Clinical and Counselling Psychology Doctoral Training programmes, CBT Diploma Courses and BPS Conferences. Heather has current experience in NHS, in private practice and within organisational contexts. Prior to training as a psychologist, her background was in academic trauma and PTSD research. Heather conducted her PhD (University of London) in the field of psychological trauma. She held the post of Senior Research Fellow (St Georges, University of London) and published the first controlled studies in the impact of abuse on people with learning disabilities. Heather has a range of research interests and is currently assisting with a project on sleep in female veterans with trauma exposure.

Dr Imogen Sturgeon-Clegg

Dr Imogen Sturgeon-Clegg is a Consultant Counselling Psychologist working for the MOD. When she first qualified she worked with veterans of World War II and National Service in NHS Older Adult mental health services. During this time she researched the long-term effects of experiencing both evacuation and the bombing of London during World War II and wrote two papers about avoidance in conflict related-trauma and adapting trauma-focused therapy for older veterans for her Doctorate. She also developed a training programme entitled 'Trauma in Later Life', which was twice commissioned by NHS Scotland and has been delivered for a wide variety of other organisations. Dr Sturgeon-Clegg went on to work as Therapies Lead at Combat Stress, treating veterans from a variety of different eras and conflicts, and developed the six week PTSD treatment programme before moving onto assist in setting up the South Central Veterans Service as Service Lead and teaching an 8 week veterans mental health course. Dr Sturgeon-Clegg was then employed to work with the battle-injured from Iraq and Afghanistan in the Complex Trauma Service at the DMRC, Headley Court. She now works with serving military personnel as the Psychology Lead at Aldershot Department of Community Mental Health. 

Working with Serving Personnel who have experienced military trauma

In this presentation, I will share the patterns I have observed in the histories and presentations of PTSD in the populations of serving military personnel with whom I have worked as a Counselling Psychologist. I will compare the presentations of PTSD in battle-injured and non-injured personnel, and what therapeutic approaches have been the most helpful and effective for the primary presenting issues. Two people have allowed me to use their stories as illustrations.