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Right to Imagine

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How does trauma affect a child’s ability to Imagine?

When a child suffers trauma, they can be stripped of their ability to Imagine.

Brain development in children is directly linked to social and emotional experiences. When children are abused or exposed to trauma, many of them will experience a range of cognitive developmental issues that impact their ability to make meaningful connections and feel safe.

Children who have experienced trauma during those critical developmental periods rarely have the experience of a safe relational anchor and need to invest their energy into their survival (Brain stem) rather than being able to be present in their learning/thinking/creating brain (Neocortex which controls higher level processes such as logic, reasoning and creating).

What this means in many cases, is that some children who have experienced trauma from abuse and neglect simply cannot ‘imagine’ or ‘create’ situations in their mind.

Some children cannot even achieve the simplest of things such as playing with toys, role playing, singing, or dancing.

How Act for Kids Help:

Act for Kids’ Integrated Therapy Service is a holistic service that brings together trained teams of family coaches, psychologists, occupational and speech therapists, and other specialists to help kids learn to imagine, reclaim their childhood and reach their full potential.

We defend a child’s Right to Imagine

The right to heal from trauma and learn to play, to explore, to create.

RESOURCES:

What is Occupational Therapy, and how does it help kids to heal from trauma?

How does Speech Pathology help a child to heal from trauma?

How our Integrated Therapy model helps kids to heal from trauma.

 

The Facts:

Last year Act for Kids helped over 29,000 children and families to heal from trauma.

Children like Samantha and Caleb.

Last year, over 480,000 reports were made to child protection authorities.

Over 174,700 kids accessed child protective services. That’s 1 in every 32 Aussie kids!

Changing the lives of kids in Australia