Neurodivergent-accessible Trauma Informed Practice - Designing Services That Actually Work
Tracks
Marquis - In-Person Only
| Tuesday, September 29, 2026 |
| 1:25 PM - 2:25 PM |
| Marquis Room |
Overview
Tanya Brooks-Cooper
Key Learnings
1. Identify Exclusionary Barriers: Recognise how trauma-informed frameworks exclude neurodivergent brains through information overload, text-heavy resources, time blindness assumptions, and executive function demands trauma depletes.
2. Implement Practical Adaptations: Apply six strategies—visual scaffolding, external systems, reduced cognitive switching, movement integration, energy management, accessible self-regulation. Participants receive ready-to-use templates.
3. Design Accessible Practice: Using family violence and youth work examples, understand designing for neurodivergent accessibility benefits all brains under stress. Visual risk assessments, voice-to-text documentation, pictorial safety plans create trauma-informed practice working for everyone experiencing cognitive overload.
Speaker
Ms Tanya Brooks-Cooper
Director of Training & Practice
Tbc
Neurodivergent-Accessible Trauma Informed Practice - designing services that actually work
Presentation Overview
The community sector attracts neurodivergent practitioners—we understand trauma, complexity, and marginalisation—then burns us out with systems designed for neurotypical brains. After 25 years across child protection, community services, and policy development, getting my ADHD diagnosis at 49, and managing menopause while doing crisis work, I've learned what keeps neurodivergent practitioners alive isn't resilience training. It's accessible systems.
This interactive workshop addresses a critical gap: zero integration between trauma-informed practice training and neurodivergent-affirming approaches. Standard trauma-informed frameworks inadvertently exclude neurodivergent practitioners and clients through information overload, text-heavy resources, time blindness assumptions, and executive function demands that trauma and neurodivergence both deplete.
Participants will learn practical adaptations immediately applicable to their practice contexts: visual scaffolding that reduces working memory load, external systems that compensate for time blindness, energy management strategies that honour variable capacity, and accessible self-regulation tools that don't require the executive function we're trying to restore.
Using case studies from family violence and youth work, I'll demonstrate how designing for neurodivergent accessibility creates better trauma-informed practice for everyone. When family violence risk assessments assume linear narrative recall, we use visual timelines. When crisis documentation requires remembering traumatic disclosures hours later, we build in voice-to-text immediately after sessions. When young people experiencing trauma can't engage with text-heavy safety plans, we create pictorial tools. Accessible practice isn't accommodation—it's how trauma-informed work should function.
Participants receive four take-home resources: ADHD-accessible practice checklist, self-regulation quick reference card, visual scaffolding templates, and workplace accommodation request guide. This workshop models what it teaches—visual agenda throughout, movement breaks, multiple engagement options, fidget-friendly environment.
The sector doesn't need more resilient practitioners white-knuckling through broken systems. We need practitioners supported to work with their brains, not against them. Sustainable practice is system change.
This interactive workshop addresses a critical gap: zero integration between trauma-informed practice training and neurodivergent-affirming approaches. Standard trauma-informed frameworks inadvertently exclude neurodivergent practitioners and clients through information overload, text-heavy resources, time blindness assumptions, and executive function demands that trauma and neurodivergence both deplete.
Participants will learn practical adaptations immediately applicable to their practice contexts: visual scaffolding that reduces working memory load, external systems that compensate for time blindness, energy management strategies that honour variable capacity, and accessible self-regulation tools that don't require the executive function we're trying to restore.
Using case studies from family violence and youth work, I'll demonstrate how designing for neurodivergent accessibility creates better trauma-informed practice for everyone. When family violence risk assessments assume linear narrative recall, we use visual timelines. When crisis documentation requires remembering traumatic disclosures hours later, we build in voice-to-text immediately after sessions. When young people experiencing trauma can't engage with text-heavy safety plans, we create pictorial tools. Accessible practice isn't accommodation—it's how trauma-informed work should function.
Participants receive four take-home resources: ADHD-accessible practice checklist, self-regulation quick reference card, visual scaffolding templates, and workplace accommodation request guide. This workshop models what it teaches—visual agenda throughout, movement breaks, multiple engagement options, fidget-friendly environment.
The sector doesn't need more resilient practitioners white-knuckling through broken systems. We need practitioners supported to work with their brains, not against them. Sustainable practice is system change.
Biography
Twenty-five years from Cape York to federal parliament—child protection, policy development, building community resources, securing place-based funding, teaching at TAFE, mentoring students and new workers, running my own business. I've hustled through every sector, sharing skills and navigating systems designed for different brains. Then ADHD diagnosis at 49, menopause mid-crisis work—everything collapsed. Crashing taught what succeeding couldn't: accessible practice is survival, not accommodation. Now I share what keeps me and my team alive doing this work. My offering: stop white-knuckling. Start building systems that don't require you to break yourself first.
