Trauma, attachment and unconscious bias
This session explores how attachment, trauma and unconscious bias influence how we behave and communicate whilst giving you evidence-based tools to raise aspirations for children and their families.
Our upbringing impacts how we view the world and communicate with it. Our caregivers and immediate support network influence our morals, and beliefs and their views shape our own. Being brought up in adversity can often mean young people have developed different methods to communicate which can feel challenging for adults to respond to and leave young people feeling unheard. This session helps you understand young people’s communication and how to shape your own to bring out the best in them.
A study was once done where teachers were told that they were teaching a class of exceptionally clever young people and taught the class believing that these children were gifted. The outcome was that the class did the best out of all the other classes in the school. The reality was that this was a class of random students and psychological study to prove the psychological concept of a self-fulfilling prophesy; a “prediction” or expectation coming true simply because the person believes or anticipates it will.
The point here is that what we believe shapes how we behave and communicate, and unfortunately for children who have been through adversity, we tend to believe they will achieve less than their peers. This is a problem because we communicate this belief to them, whether it’s verbally through pity, compassion or empathy, or non-verbally through body language, facial expressions or tone of voice. We can unintentionally be telling young people we don’t think they can achieve.
We have a duty to be aspirational, ignore our judgements and hold the belief that young people can achieve anything they want. Our experiences do not have to define us, we can define our own experiences.
As practitioners we have an opportunity to show young people they have agency, empower them to believe in their abilities and provide guidance and reassurance. This session helps you understand your unconscious bias, and beliefs and become aware of your communication so you can learn the skills to be aspirational to young people.
Learning Outcomes:
- Understand unconscious bias and how to overcome it
- Recognise how our beliefs can impact how we communicate with young people
- Learn about self-fulfilling prophecies and how young people respond to them
- Develop the skills to communicate aspirationally to young people
- Gain an understanding of verbal and non-verbal communication
