I want to study child trauma, with the end goal of not only working with traumatized kids but also teaching others how to respond to, recognize and 'handle' traumatized kids (e.g. cops, teachers, staffers at psych hospitals etc...). If that's the end goal, where should I start? What sort of literature is considered to be a staple in this field?
I tecommend Daniel Siegel’s work and also Bruce Perry. The ACE study by Felitti & Anda should also be compulsory reading for anyone thinking about working with trauma. My own short booklet: _Trauma & its impact: what you need to know_ might be worth your while as well. All the best!
Hi Frances,
The journals Child Maltreatment and Child Abuse & Neglect would be good to look at. You can go to their websites and just start to look at abstracts of their recent issues to get an idea of what is currently being published. The journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse would also be great to look at. It is a review journal that has a high impact factor (very influential in the field) so everything published reviews the literature in the field and you can get ideas of specific articles to read from there. Though, it isn't specific to child trauma, you can get a sense from the titles if they are focused on children.
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network website would also be great. They have compiled a ton of resources and materials that are easy to digest, have fact sheets, and also host free webinars.
Finally, though you did not ask about it, since you are at Hamline, the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development (where I received my PhD) has some very key faculty in the field who study child trauma, including my graduate advisor, Dante Cicchetti, and his colleague, Ann Masten. Abi Gewirtz and Canan Karatekin (my secondary advisor) would also be good to look at and you could even reach out to them to try to volunteer in their research labs during the summer/semester. Just go to the icd.umn.edu website and click on "People" to view their faculty profiles to learn more about what they do.
Hope this helps! Good luck.
In addition to what others have said, I suggest that you must complete an undergraduate bachelor's degree program from an accredited university. Some individuals will be able to choose counseling as a focus through their undergraduate education, but you might also consider the specialty of psychology or sociology,,,,,,all the best
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Medicine
- Epi
- Age Groups
- Children