About this Series:

This 3-part live online series (2 hours each 5:00-7:00pm AEDT on Nov 19th, 26th, Dec 3rd 2024) is designed to support Sports Dietitians and any practitioners working in the Sports environment to build a solid understanding about trauma-informed care and most specifically, our role in contributing to environments where all athletes, in all bodies, feel more safe. We now understand more than we ever have before about the ways in which chronic stress and trauma impacts the human body and mind, and anyone who works with humans is inevitably going to be working with trauma responses, whether they are named as such, or not.

This series will also be recorded if you aren't able to join live, and uploaded to this platform

Your host will be Fiona Sutherland, Director of The Mindful Dietitian and co-facilitator of the popular Trauma Informed Dietetic Care Training

Trauma is widespread in the general community and can show up in unexpected ways in all spaces, including sport at all levels. Additionally and importantly, athlete's experiences within the sport can be traumatising in and of itself, and/or perpetuate previous traumas. Dietitians and health professionals have an important role in understanding trauma and how it inevitably shows up our shared spaces, including our own trauma and chronic stress-related experiences. Understanding your role includes having a clear understanding about what trauma is and how it shows up in ways that directly impact food, eating and many different aspects of body image. There are very specific reasons why athletes specifically can be either more protected, and more at risk, of symptoms, behaviours and experiences that interrupt not only their performance, but also quality of life.

This series will be held over 3 separate 2 hour live online sessions (5:00-7:00pm AEDT on Nov 19th, 26th, Dec 3rd 2024) with opportunities to ask questions along the way. If you have already completed the Trauma Informed Care for Dietitians Course, this will expand your understanding further and zoom it in more specifically to the sports space.

Please note: This course aims to expand your awareness, insight and skills (and therefore scope of practice), but everything you will be introduced to anything will be safely within a Dietitians or non-mental health practitioners wheelhouse. We will not be covering trauma-focussed care or "interventions" specifically for trauma but will be focussing on how traumas of different types impacts the body and mind, and what we can be aware of in working most effectively with athletes.

This series will include:

• What is trauma and trauma-informed care?

• The role of the Dietitian/health professional, scope of practice

• PTSD, cPTSD (understanding diagnostic features, including overlapping features)

• Polyvagal theory and nervous system states, including an awareness of our own system    

• How specific behaviours and symptoms (that we see alllllll the time!) can offer us a clue for "what does this person need?" (and specifically how to do that!)

• How to recognise what’s happening in other people’s systems alongside their presenting food, eating and body-related symptoms      

• How to establish safety in the relationship and environment and times when cues of “unsafe” might show up in sports spaces

• Some foundational practices we can use to enhance self and co-regulation

• Advocating for Trauma-informed Care in organisations (without even necessarily using the word "trauma")

You'll leave feeling more clear and confident in being able to recognise signs and symptoms that, as a non-mental health practitioner, you'll need to be paying attention to (because they WILL show up, they already do) and importantly, what to do next. You'll also build skills in paying attention to your own system, and be able to support yourself in ways that can build attunement and reduce burnout.

20% off for SDA Members and NZ Sports Dietitians with the code SDA20