Thank you Dr Joan Haliburn for your generosity

The recent workshop on treating dissociation and complex PTSD by Dr Joan Haliburn on 7 December 2018 was an outstanding success, training close to 100 people, including 60 STARTTS clinicians. STARTTS’ clients, who are from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds, commonly experience dissociation and other post-traumatic stress symptoms as a result of their experiences of persecution and human rights violations in the context of war and organised violence. It is extremely important that STARTTS’ clinicians have the skills to be able to treat these symptoms.

Therefore STARTTS would like to sincerely thank Dr Haliburn, a Child, Adolescent, Adult and Family Psychiatrist, for her generosity in offering STARTTS a discounted training fee. Not only we were able to enhance the clinical skills of our staff; we also generated some money from the training fees that will be put into STARTTS’ crucial programs to assist people who were forced to leave their country, to recover from their traumatic experiences and rebuild their lives in Australia.

One participant said that ‘Joan presented a structured workshop that was precise in its content and delivery. It was well structured with a range of knowledge that connected many aspects of trauma’. Another said that it was ‘by far the most interesting, informative workshop I’ve attended in years’.

STARTTS would like to congratulate Dr Joan Haliburn and her colleagues for their new book soon to be released, ‘Humanising Mental Health Care in Australia’. Dr Haliburn is one of the editors and wrote one of the chapters. The book is a unique and innovative contribution to the healthcare literature that outlines the trauma-informed approaches necessary to provide a more compassionate model of care for those who suffer with mental illness. The impact of abuse and trauma is frequently overlooked in this population, to the detriment of both individual and society. This work highlights the importance of recognising such a history and responding humanely.

Please visit the Training Calendar page on STARTTS’ website for details of training STARTTS has on offer.