“The YMCA engaged the expertise of the Blue Knot Foundation in order to broaden and deepen our knowledge and understanding of the impacts of childhood trauma and how, as an organisation and as individuals, we can bring a trauma-informed approach to our support for survivors.
For our managers and senior executives, the training has brought greater insight to the theoretical underpinnings of our approach to redress and our response to survivors.
For our front-line staff, our focus has been on responding to survivors of child sexual abuse, the training has been valuable in terms of building a greater awareness of the broader issues of childhood trauma faced by many in our community. This is important not only for our staff engagement with members of our community, but also in our interactions with one another.
As we progress in this journey of providing redress and responding to survivors, our relationship with Blue Knot Foundation will continue. While we will undertake further training across the organisation, Blue Knot have also offered support in terms of our staff wellbeing, debriefing as required and also ongoing advice about how we can learn and improve our response to survivors over the longer-term. Click here to read the full testimonial.”
YMCAMelinda Crole, Interim CEO, YMCA Australia
“The 1800RESPECT counselling, education and communications teams attended the Blue Knot trauma-informed workshops. The workshops have helped improve our practice across all aspects of our service including how we develop digital resources and information to support people impacted by sexual assault, domestic and family violence.
Overwhelmingly our staff found it to be one of the most enlightening and useful trainings they had attended. We would recommend your training particularly to organisations with staff seeking to improve their understanding of how to best deal with people in crisis related to past trauma.”
1800RESPECTKeilli Browne, National Manager Communications, Marketing and Stakeholder Engagement, 1800RESPECT (Medibank Health Solutions)
“Interrelate wishes to acknowledge and affirm the important contribution made by the Blue Knot Foundation to ongoing professional development in Interrelate, through the delivery of a number of training activities aimed at increasing our capacity to provide services to clients enhanced by a trauma-informed lens.
Through these workshops and materials, staff have become far better informed, our service capacity has been improved, and Trauma Informed Practice has been embedded into our practice, groups, handbooks, and policies and procedures. Across the board, staff have found the training informative and relevant to the roles that they fulfil within our organisation.
At an organisational level, we have found the Blue Knot Foundation supportive and flexible in their offer of training workshops. Their facilitators have been knowledgeable and professional in the delivery of the workshops. The material these workshops are based on emanates from a strong evidence base and is informed by good practice principles which have assisted our staff in continuing to offer our clients the best service possible.”
INTERRELATEGraeme O'Connor, Acting CEO, Interrelate
“Blue Knot Foundation delivered a number of professional development training sessions to our team. As trauma is so common and has so many impacts on mental health, New Horizons was keen to build the trauma-informed capacity of our workers to better support mental health recovery of those seeking our help. We were aware of the reputation of Blue Knot Foundation as a training provider and have not been disappointed.
The training was grounded in an understanding of the effects of trauma on the brain and provided an opportunity for our staff to workshop ideas and strategies. The focus on their own self-care for their health and wellbeing is so important. As an organisation, we are keen to support our workforce to stay well and provide the best support to our clients that they can. The training from Blue Knot Foundation has helped give them the knowledge, tools and skills they need to inform their work and build better outcomes for our clients.”
NEW HORIZONSJudi Higgin, CEO, New Horizons
“The Centre for Restoration of The Salvation Army were developing as a new team and wanted to work from a unified framework to begin to strive towards better practice in supporting survivors of institutional sexual abuse.
Blue Knot Foundation developed a trauma-informed training package to specifically meet the needs of all team members, senior leaders within The Salvation Army and the legal team.
The training provided an understanding of the impact of trauma on the developing brain, trauma informed principles, alternate modes of practice, safety, complex trauma with a specific focus on institutional trauma and self-care and many discussions.
The presenter Dragan, perfectly blended his passion, learning and knowledge from his work, to present training that was engaging and substantive. The environment created by the presenter encouraged discussion which allowed a deeper understanding of trauma that has, and will continue to contribute to the team's development of better practice.
Since the training, the Centre for Restoration is underpinned by the principles of trauma-informed practice.”
THE SALVATION ARMYLiz Cruickshank, Director, Centre for Restoration, The Salvation Army
“Blue Knot Foundation was tasked at the beginning of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to provide training in ‘trauma-informed practice’ to counselling practitioners in organisations like Relationships Australia. As contracted providers of support to those affected by the Royal Commission, it was identified early that all our work was to be trauma-informed so that those impacted by child sexual assault were not re-traumatised by well-meaning but misguided practice.
That early training, as well as ongoing professional development training, has not only prepared our practitioners around the country to work appropriately with people who had been traumatised, but has also provided a long-standing legacy: a sector-wide understanding of trauma and trauma-informed practice. Under the leadership of Cathy Kezelman Blue Knot Foundation has made a societal difference for survivors of childhood trauma and impacted on a shift in the sector.”
RELATIONSHIPS AUSTRALIAAlison Brook, National Executive Officer, Relationships Australia
