Child Protection Workshop – Brenda St.George

I attended the Child Protection Workshop organized by the Council of International Schools. It was one of the four repeat workshops being offered during this academic year to help get schools up to speed with the new accreditation requirements in this area. It was attended by 115 teachers, counselors and administrators from all over the world.

It was a very useful two days with lots of current information relevant to international schools.

The Keynote on the first day was: Defining and Understanding the Causes and Practices of Sexual Abusers. It was delivered by Dr. Joe Sullivan who is a forensic psychologist and the Director of Behavior Analysis & Forensic Psychology. On the second day he addressed the topics of Managing Allegations and Investigating Abuse in a School Community.

The remaining time each of the two days was split between sessions for administrators and teachers/counselors.

I attended the following:

Comprehensive Sexuality Education delivered by Susie March, a registered nurse. She discussed the importance of having a sexual education program in the school as a preventative measure.

The next session I attended was led by Jordan Greenbaum, a doctor from the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. She talked about Identifying Abuse and handling Initial Disclosures.

Another worship I went to was divided into three parts: Part One was led by Tim Gerrish, Founder of International Child Protection Advisors, and dealt with issues around Virtual Abuse: Risks and Realities. Part Two was about Inclusive Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Part Three addressed Working with Families in Diverse Cultural Settings to Discuss Abuse. I wish there had been more time for this last part as it was definitely relevant to international schools.

The final Keynote was given by Dr. Doug Walker, a clinical psychologist who discussed the Impact of Child Trauma on Learning: Describing the Long Term Impact of Abuse on Educational Outcomes and Adult Life.

The final talk I went to was on Current Best Practices in the Treatment of Child and Adolescent Traumatic Stress.

It was a great networking opportunity and I was introduced to a number of good resources, some of which I have included in a folder on Google Drive – link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16E03AZQ58WEEP7EFL7S0gKFwVhvXqFauH-b_MjXNRgg/edit?ts=583fcf90

Brenda St. George, Secondary Counsellor