Understanding the Effects of Childhood Trauma Through the Child's Voice

An experiential workshop that moves beyond knowledge and into felt understanding.

When you meet me, you see a version of me, but you don’t yet know my story. You notice my behaviour, my silence, my prickly edges, and you make sense of me in the best way you can.

In this workshop, as you step into my world, I will show you what it feels like to be me and how everything you see on the outside is shaped by what I carry on the inside.

I will explore:

• How trauma affects and impacts my nervous system and continues to shape how I relate to myself and others.
• How I am wired for survival and protection and why connections can be so difficult for me.
• Why I don't need fixing, how I need you to sit in my darkness, and why.
• How you can see, understand and connect with the child behind the behaviour.

You will have space to:

• Observe and consider your reactions to the parts of yourself that emerge throughout, and how these may show up in our shared space.
• Develop a deeper understanding of how my voice is key to us navigating my healing, and how this insight can help you build connection.
• Reflect on the importance of the therapeutic relationship and how our own patterns of relating can present and play out on our journey.
• Consider how the work and therapeutic relationship may change depending on whether you meet me as a child or as an adult in therapy.

What you will take away:

• A trauma lens framework for understanding behaviour and the unsaid, and what that communicates, that you can bring into your sessions, classroom, or home.
• Ways to recognise your own instinct to fix, rescue, rush or avoid those heavy moments and how to sit alongside instead, whilst separating your own responses.
• A clearer understanding of how our nervous system and trauma responses show up in the room, and how to adapt your approach in the moment.
• Ways to understand when you are wired for survival and protection, why relationships can be hard to form, and how to be rather than do.

Workshop Information to join 

When: Saturday 7th November 2026, 9.30am – 4.30pm

Format: Live, interactive, experiential workshop delivered online via Zoom.

Cost: £120. Spaces are limited to allow for deeper exploration and reflection.

CPD: 6 hours, certificate included.

A training box will be posted to you ahead of the day.

Who this training is for:

Therapists, Social Workers, Adoptive Parents, Foster Carers, Teachers and other professionals working with complex trauma, whether directly with children or with adults exploring their own inner child in therapy.

Facilitator: Karen Ludkin MBACP
A trauma-informed therapist and the founder of Calm the Waves Counselling & Training. Whether she's working with a child, a parent, or an adult reflecting on their own childhood, her focus is the same: understanding how early experiences of trauma shape us, and supporting the journey towards connection and healing.

She brings a relational, attachment-focused approach to everything she does, from one-to-one therapy to training other professionals. She is a DDP Level 1 & 2 informed practitioner, and her workshops centre on a simple but powerful idea: when we truly listen to the child's voice, whether that's the child themselves, or the inner child within the adults we work with, it changes how we understand behaviour and how we connect.

Karen's training days are designed to be felt as well as understood, so you leave with something that stays with you in practice, not just notes on a page.

My Voice, My Words, Our Journey.