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Trauma-Informed Counselling & Therapeutic Support

Therapeutic support for children and adults living with the effects of trauma - built on safety, choice and pace rather than on retelling what happened.

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“Trauma-informed” has become a phrase that appears on almost every service website in Australia, usually without any explanation of what it changes in practice. It should change a great deal.

Trauma-informed counselling starts from a different question. Not what is wrong with this person, but what has happened to them, and what is their behaviour doing for them. A child who explodes at the smallest correction, an adult who cannot sit with their back to a door, a young person who disappears the moment a conversation gets close — these are usually adaptations, not defects.

What Trauma-Informed Practice Actually Means Here

Safety comes before content

Nothing therapeutic happens in a nervous system that is braced. The first work is always a predictable frame, a steady practitioner and a person who knows what will and will not happen in the room.

You are never required to disclose

You do not have to tell us what happened in order for us to help. Retelling an event in detail is not a prerequisite for therapy, and forced disclosure can do harm.

Choice and control stay with you

Trauma removes control. Therapy should not repeat that. You decide the pace, what is discussed, what is left, and when to stop.

Behaviour is read as communication

Particularly with children. Before asking a child to change a behaviour, we work out what the behaviour is protecting them from.

The whole context counts

Housing, income, immigration status, culture, disability, ongoing safety concerns. Therapy delivered as if none of that exists rarely holds.

Who We Work With

Children who have experienced or witnessed family violence
Children and young people affected by abuse, neglect, frightening events or sudden loss
Children in kinship, foster, reunifying or otherwise disrupted care arrangements
Adults carrying childhood trauma that is now affecting parenting, relationships or work
Adults who have experienced family violence, and those rebuilding after leaving
Families from refugee and migrant backgrounds carrying pre-arrival and settlement trauma
People whose trauma sits alongside disability, chronic illness or caring responsibilities

Trauma shows up differently in children. Adults often describe intrusive memories and avoidance. Children more often show regression, sleep disruption, aggression, clinginess, stomach aches, school refusal or a flat withdrawal that gets mistaken for “being fine”. This is why our work with children is delivered through play interventions rather than through talking alone.

How We Work With Trauma

Stabilise first. Sleep, routine, regulation, safety at home. Nothing else is durable without it.
Build capacity to settle. Practical regulation skills for children and adults, and for the parents supporting them.
Work with the material at the client’s pace — through play, sand, story and narrative approaches for children, and through conversation and externalising work for adults.
Rebuild the story. Trauma tends to leave a person defined by the worst thing that happened. Therapy works towards a fuller account.
Support the people around the person. Parents and carers get their own sessions. Carrying a traumatised child is heavy work.

If you or a child is in immediate danger, call 000. For 24/7 support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, or Safe Steps on 1800 015 188. Our counselling service is not a crisis or after-hours service.

Culturally Responsive Trauma Work

What counts as trauma, how it is spoken about, and whether it can be spoken about at all is shaped by culture. We work with families from a wide range of cultural and language backgrounds, including African and CALD communities, and with families whose trauma includes displacement, migration and settlement. We do not assume a Western therapeutic frame is automatically the right one, and we will say so when a community, faith or family-based response would serve you better alongside what we offer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to talk about what happened?

No. Trauma-informed practice explicitly does not require disclosure. Plenty of useful work happens without an event ever being described in detail, and that is especially true for children.

How long does trauma work take?

Longer than a short course of general counselling, usually. Single incidents in an otherwise stable life can resolve relatively quickly. Trauma that is ongoing, repeated or from early childhood takes time, and we would rather tell you that at the start.

My child does not remember it. Do they still need support?

Possibly. Young children can carry the physiological and relational effects of events they have no narrative memory of. If their behaviour, sleep or relationships changed and have not recovered, it is worth a conversation.

Can you work with the parent as well as the child?

Yes, and we usually recommend it. A regulated, supported parent is the single largest factor in a child’s recovery.

Is this the same as a mental health treatment plan through my GP?

No — that is a separate Medicare pathway to a registered psychologist or other eligible provider. We are a community-based social work counselling service. If a GP mental health care plan is the better route for you, we will tell you.

Do you provide crisis or after-hours support?

No. We are not a crisis service. For urgent situations please use the numbers above, and call 000 if anyone is in immediate danger.

Explore Our Other Support Services

Most people we work with combine two or three of these. Mix and match whatever fits your plan.

Ready to talk about your supports?

Tell us what you need and we will walk you through the options — no obligation, no pressure, and a real person on the other end.

Get In Touch 0402 366 629

Trauma-Informed Counselling & Therapeutic Support