A Professional Community
Welcome to the Australian Childhood Foundation’s Professional Community. We’re glad you’re here!
Learn MoreAbout the Community
We are deeply committed to ensuring that approaches that are drawn from and translate critical areas of knowledge and evidence, in particular, the neuroscience of trauma and attachment, cultural wisdom and research about what works. For over 30 years, we have joined you in forming a community of professionals that share a similar view about the value of such knowledge to a range of sectors involved with children and young people.
As Australia begins to return to normal, children remain at the heart of everything we do
For over 30 years we have supported children and families through times of uncertainty and crisis. Find out how we are continuing to support children during the challenge of COVID-19 and find downloadable resources to help children reduce stress and anxiety.
International Childhood Trauma Conference 2024
4 August - 9 August 2024
Melbourne Convention Centre
Thank you to those that joined us at the 2022 International Childhood Trauma Conference.
Watch our event highlightsTrauma Aware and Trauma Responsive Practice in Education
Trauma Responsive Practice in Education brings together our experience over the past 20 years in training and supporting teachers, other school personnel and early years professionals to engage in trauma responsive practice with children and young people in a range of learning settings. More than 40 000 educational professionals have taken part in these programs.
Centre for Excellence in Therapeutic Care
In 2018, we established Australia’s first ever intermediary organisation dedicated to therapeutic forms of care for children and young people. The Centre for Excellence in Therapeutic Care has been funded by NSW Department of Communities and Justice and is run by the Australian Childhood Foundation in partnership with Southern Cross University. Its function is to support the evolution of the newly reformed Intensive Therapeutic Care system being rolled out in NSW. The Centre integrates up to date research evidence with cultural knowledge, practice wisdom and the voices of young people in care to produce reports, practice resources and training to support the provision of high quality, evidence-informed therapeutic care. Since then it has also begun to work in other jurisdictions including ACT and Tasmania.
Our Deputy CEO – Janise Mitchell – is also the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Therapeutic Care.
Join Our Professional Community
Register your details here and we will send you regular e-newsletters and free resources about working with children, young people, families and their networks. It is the easiest way to not miss out on news, training, tools, blogs and research from the Foundation.
Help us continue supporting children in isolation
The Foundation remains completely committed to supporting children to heal from the trauma of abuse and violence. It is more critical now than ever to stay connected with these children and we can only do this with your support. We understand that everyone is deeply feeling the pressures of COVID-19 but if you can support us, we would be truly grateful.
What are the overarching principles underpinning our practice with children and families?
Learn MoreWe believe that safety is an intrinsic right that can never be diminished.
We believe that wisdom about child development is at the core of effective practice.
We believe that loving, secure and strong relationships hold the essential resources that children and young people need.
We believe that the nature of children’s experience of violence sets the parameters for how they give meaning to it.
We believe that children and young people’s experience of culture is the way they know their place in their family, their family and their community.
We believe that knowledge drawn from interpersonal neurobiology is a critical lens through which support for children, families and communities needs to be framed.