Toxic Stress and Intervention Strategies (Legacy)

Prerequisites:

• Introduction to Community Social Pediatrics
• The Seven Principles of the Rights of the Child

Duration: 90 minutes
Recognized by: 1 training hour recognized by…

• L’Ordre des travailleurs sociaux et des thérapeutes conjugaux et familiaux du Québec
• Médecins francophones Du Canada

Description

Increasingly research in neuroscience is focusing on the impact of stress on child development. It is showed that prolonged activation of stress response systems can disturb the development and architecture of the brain and other systems in the body. This can lead to delays in development, detrimental effects on learning and an increased risk of developing certain diseases and cognitive problems in adulthood.

Children living in vulnerable situations often experience strong, frequent and prolonged adversity. Their response to the stress caused by this adversity can become toxic and prevent them from developing to their full potential. The goal of CSP is to identify, reduce and/or eliminate these sources of toxic stress or their underlying risk factors. Identifying and understanding these sources is therefore essential to the practice of social pediatric professionals: it enables them to make sense of the child’s difficulties and then implement effective care and services.

Objectives

• Understand the links between stress and brain development
• Describe the impacts of stress on brain development, global development and the health of children in situations of vulnerability
• Recognize the sources of toxic stress for children in situations of vulnerability
• Recognize the levers used in CPS to reduce and/or eliminate sources of toxic stress for children in situations of vulnerability

Training team