Welcome!

This blog has weekly updates regarding traumatic exposure and recovery in children, adolescents, and their families. It includes news, practical tools, and key insights from research findings.

To give you a bit of background: my interest in ‘children and trauma’ was born when I worked at the Childline, an anonymous Dutch telephone service for children. I was intrigued by children’s resilience and their perspectives on their experiences.

While finishing a MA in Human Resource Studies and a MSc in Psychology at Tilburg University, I worked as a youth services case manager, social skills trainer and university lecturer. After a short break, teaching ski classes in Switzerland, I started at the Dutch National Psychotrauma Center for Children and Youth in 2006. The center provides services to children after a range of traumatic events, including serious accidents, sudden loss of a loved one, violence, and disaster. I conducted research related to traumatic exposure and recovery in children, participated in clinical services, and set up prevention projects. In addition, I became a fire fighter at the University Medical Center, something I had wanted to do for a long time…

In September 2010, I launched the Toolkit Kind en Trauma project (Toolkit Child and Trauma; www.kind-en-trauma.nl). The booklet and website provide teachers in elementary schools with information and tips about supporting children after severe stressors and have been made available to every primary school in the Netherlands. Also in 2010, I participated in the Nationale DenkTank (National ThinkTank). Our team analyzed trust in, and authority of, the Dutch police. We collaborated intensely with the police to develop creative solutions, including input to SIRE’s successful national campaign to stop violence against first responders.

In 2011, I received my PhD cum laude from Utrecht University and paid a long visit to the Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, which combines research focus with policy development and training for professionals and communties. In the same year, I led a project at the Psychotrauma Center in the Netherlands to improve services for children exposed to fatal intimate partner violence. I’m very thankful for the recent awards of a Larkins Fellowship (Monash University), a Marie Curie IOF fellowship (EU), and a Rubicon fellowship (Dutch Research Council), which allow me to set up the Trauma Recovery Lab at Monash Injury Research Institute (Monash University, Australia).

You can also find me on Twitter: @EvaAlisic.

And here are the links to my publications and assessment measures.