Brain Development and the Effects of Maltreatment on Development
Program Description
Participants will learn how brain cells network with other brain cells through one’s life
experiences and how deprivation of those experiences impact on the child’s development.
Maltreatment, stress or trauma also has a major impact on the child’s functioning and
development. Participants will gain information to help them understand the behaviors of
children, particularly when they have been maltreated and/or diagnosed with attention
deficit disorder, conduct disorder, borderline personality disorder and childhood bipolar
disorder. Odds are often stacked against a child who has experienced maltreatment,
stress or trauma in their life. Resiliency is a concept that may provide the hope
practitioners can use to build a network of protective factors around the child so their
life’s outcomes can be successful.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this workshop, participants should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
Explain basic brain development in infants, school-aged children and
adolescents;
Describe the relationships between brain development and child maltreatment,
stress and/or trauma;
Define resiliency and identify risk and protective factors in a child’s live to
build success into their outcomes in life.
Target Audience
All health care, mental health and human service professionals including psychologists,
counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, DSS professionals and
educators.
Contact Hours
6.0 hours
Program Agenda
Available upon request
Faculty
Kathy Johnson, MS was formerly a Clinical Assistant Professor at the School or Social
Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jordan Institute for Families, Family
and Children’s Resource Program where she developed curricula and trains child welfare
workers statewide. Ms. Johnson has experience as a teacher for the hearing impaired and
as a child protective services and adult protective services investigator. She conducted
abuse and neglect investigations in child care statewide; worked as both an adult and CPS
policy consultant for the NC Division of Social Services; and was a criminal justice
expert and instructor for the NC State Bureau of Investigations, where she trained SBI
special agents and other law enforcement officers regarding investigations and forensic
interviewing in child sexual abuse and child pornography cases. Ms. Johnson is a
certified criminal justice instructor; a certified suicide intervention instructor; past chair
of the Intentional Death Committee, NC Child Fatality Task Force; past president of the
North Carolina Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. She served on the
American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children Board of Directors. Presently,
she is on the Board of Directors for the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford and on the
Board of Directors for the Yahve Jire Children’s Foundation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.