Indigenous Mental Health, Complex Racial Trauma & Attachment

This workshop has now been delivered to an estimated 50,000 individuals across Australia since 1998. Dr Westerman delivers these workshops taking an approach that merges psychological theory with culturally informed practice which makes her workshops able to assist practitioners who are working with high risk Aboriginal clients. These workshops will walk participants thorugh a number of complex cases studies and provide accreditation in a number of uniquely developed, co-designed assessment and screening tools. The learning outcomes include:

• Understanding why ‘the gap’ is failing to close across Indigenous mental health; suicide prevention; incarceration; child removals and educational outcomes – a clear understanding of the gaps in best practice and how to ensure they do not continue
• Understanding cultural competency – what the research tells us – an overview of the cultural competency work of IPS.

• Participants complete the Aboriginal Mental Health Cultural Competency Profile, which generates a cultural supervision plan.

• Ensuring ‘cultural compatibility’ with clients – learn how cultural difference translates with counselling & engagement of Aboriginal clients

• Assessing the difference between culture-bound syndromes and mental illness based on Dr Westerman’s award winning paper on Culture Bound Syndromes in Aboriginal People
• Understanding the cultural formulation and manifestation of depression. Longing for Country, cultural grieving and how to incorporate resolution and healing with mainstream concepts of grief. Interventions for culture bound depression; how to develop community gatekeepers in the prevention of depression
• ACCREDITATION in the Acculturation Scale for Aboriginal Australians – measuring the relevance of culture: differentiating between “being spiritually sung”/cursed & psychosis – an applied Case Study on cultural grief
• Black Identity Formation as a model for incorporating cultural identity into treatment planning
• Self-harm and cultural ‘sorry’ cutting – the distinguishing characteristics; cultural grieving & spiritual visits versus psychosis,
• Understanding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Complex PTSD and Racial Trauma – cultural impacts on assessment and treatment.
• Cultural Attachment and understanding limitations in working with Aboriginal clients – how to address cultural factors in attachment – assessing and treating intergenerational trauma from forcible removal
• ACCREDITATION in the Acculturative Stress Scale for Aboriginal Australians – to gauge the impact of racism, marginalization, within group racism (lateral violence) and cultural identity (adjustment)
• ACCREDITATION in the Westerman Aboriginal Symptom Checklist – Youth (WASCY) and Westerman Aboriginal Symptom Checklist – Adults (WASC-A) – these tools are now DIGITAL and have a number of companion products including (1) Cultural Treatment Plans – generated from client results on the WASCY/A; and (2) Culturally and Clinically Informed Client Interviews to be used with clients following WASCY/A screening