Dr Kasia Kozlowska
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist/Researcher
Westmead Children’s Hospital
Jeanette Ninnis
Counsellor/Social Work Practitioner
STARTTS
Lachlan Murdoch
Deputy CEO, Panel Moderator
STARTTS
Certificate of Completion
To be issued with a Certificate of Completion you need to view the recordings by clicking on the modules listed under ‘Course Content’ below. You will need to watch the recordings in full to be issued with a certificate. If you prefer to watch individual recordings only, then click on the links for the individual recordings in the ‘Course Description’ below.
Course Description
Refugee survivors of torture and trauma often experience multiple losses and complex prolonged accumulated trauma. They can have complex presentations that are often misdiagnosed in general clinical settings. One of the complex presentations STARTTS sees, particularly in the Yazidi community, is functional seizures (non-epileptic seizures) which can be anxiety provoking for clients and challenging for the treating clinician. These functional seizures are not caused by abnormal electrical discharges. Instead, they arise in the context of chronic or severe stress in the resettlement context. Unlike epileptic seizures, which can be dangerous, functional seizures are not. In this Clinical Master Class, held on 14 November 2022, Dr Kasia Kozlowska, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, a clinician researcher and the author of Functional Somatic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents: The Stress-System Approach to Assessment and Treatment, shared her expertise on functional seizures including research, clinical implications and treatment, and gave practical strategies on how to help clients. Jeanette Ninnis, a social work practitioner and an experienced STARTTS counsellor, illustrated STARTTS’ work with a case study of one of her female Yazidi clients who presented with severe functional seizures.
The slide PDFs are available for Jeanette Ninnis’ presentation in the Materials tab above. Dr Kasia Kozlowska did not provide a copy of her slides.
Recording 1: Dr Kasia Kozlowska, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist/Researcher, Westmead Children’s Hospital. Recording link: https://youtu.be/JH17qdgZBtM
Recording 2: Jeanette Ninnis, Counsellor/Social Work Practitioner, STARTTS. Recording link: https://youtu.be/H7GZO6ysEXs
Recording 3: The Q&A panel discussion facilitated by STARTTS’ Deputy CEO, Lachlan Murdoch. Recording Link: https://youtu.be/l31NZSwfukQ
This webinar was recorded on 14 November 2022. © STARTTS
Duration: 82 minutes.