ABOUT

CAMILA TROUGHTON

MSW, RSW, MA, LLB

I have worked with parents and their children of all ages in a number of capacities for many years, always on the lookout for good books, creative ideas, and best practices.

And, I am a collector! 

This site began as my own 'Useful Pot to Keep Things In'.

My hope is that you will dip in and find something useful too.

The categories broadly correspond to my passions, my questions and my experiences.

Grief and Loss

As a Grief and Trauma Counsellor I hope to connect children and their families with caring and informed support. How can we make a confusing and painful experience more manageable? How can we build coping skills instead of adding to the trauma? When difficult things happen to families, parents and caregivers may be in the midst of their own suffering, struggling to address their children's needs. Adults are right to recruit help from a variety of sources when supporting their children.

Success at School

As Einstein’s quote, “Play is the highest form of research” implies, we are naturally curious.  Learning involves exploration and sometimes risk. It is something we can do on our own or in collaboration with others. Play and learning are not separate.

To be able to learn at full capacity we need to be in a calm, curious and confident state.

Years ago, I was the Director of Education at a centre-based supplemental education program where we worked closely with families to develop targeted learning plans for their children. These young people were all experiencing academic difficulties, frustration and low self-esteem. Sometimes even shame and anger. Learning and school had become things to be dreaded … avoided … endured. After assessing the educational needs of the students (from beginning readers through to advanced high school math students) we designed personally tailored courses of study for each child. Sometimes children just had gaps in their learning, easily filled. But most often, children had also internalized messages that they were not capable. By challenging these beliefs with actual experiences of success we changed both outcomes and potential. Introducing and practicing organizational skills and study habits solidified these gains.

It was a process of transforming “I don’t know how to do this”

  to “I don’t know how to do this yet” .

Transforming “I am overwhelmed and frustrated and I don’t know where to start”

to “I have lots of ways to figure this out”.  

How do we ensure that learning is the delight that it can be? How do we stimulate curiosity and confidence? How do we reconnect learning and school with play and pleasure? How do we create opportunities for mastery that lead to confidence and further exploration?

There are so many brilliant teachers out there. What are they doing?

Separation and Divorce

 We know too much about the impact of separation and divorce on children not to seek out best practices and do our utmost to ease these transitions.

The principle at the heart of Canadian family law is “the best interests of the child”. When families are going through separation and divorce we need to closely examine exactly what this means, family by family.

Just as children are constantly developing, so too, the plans that we develop on their behalf, must be adaptable to children’s changing needs. Plans need to be clear, flexible and generous just when parents are feeling disoriented, hurt and mistrustful.    

High conflict situations take this to another level. Where family break-up is complicated by high levels of animosity, violence, addiction, mental illness or incarceration children are even more in need of strong and informed advocates. As a Clinical Social Worker with the Office of the Children's Lawyer (Ministry of the Attorney General, Ontario) my job was to complete in-depth investigative assessments of families engaged in high conflict custody and access disputes. While I was mandated to prepare reports for the courts, the goal was also to divert and assist families with alternative dispute resolution techniques and to develop and monitor detailed parenting plans where possible. Later, I helped to develop a High Conflict Divorce Curriculum and then undertook research with an Integrated Domestic Violence Court sorting through stories good, bad and downright ugly.

Bullying 

How do we identify, address and stop bullying?

We are born with a capacity for empathy - how do we cultivate this? How do we design environments, offer learning opportunities, and foster value systems such that bullying simply  doesn’t happen? What does it take to be willing and able to walk in another’s shoes?

As a volunteer Instructor with the Roots of Empathy Program I had the pleasure of working in classrooms at the Primary, Junior and Intermediate levels. This emotional literacy program is an international, evidence-based classroom program that has demonstrated a significant impact in reducing levels of aggression among schoolchildren by raising social/emotional competence and cultivating empathy. By bringing babies into the classroom and tapping into students’ powers of observation, this program fosters children's natural capacity for connection and sharing the feelings of others.

This program is just one way in which we can cultivate empathy in children.

Of course the next, and even more challenging question is, how do we cultivate empathy in adults?

Children's World

The natural world is not, and must not, be separate from us. I firmly believe that our children are getting too much screen time and too little time in nature. How can we create with and for our children … spaces … time … habits …and … comfort in the natural world?

I have had the good fortune to live in a community of advocates for connecting children with their natural surroundings. Together we have spent years working with children in their schoolyards on outdoor education projects that include schoolyard greening, waste reduction and energy conservation, fostering a love of the outdoors and stewardship for their very own natural environments.

Art, music, play – expression and exploration through the senses. These too are integral to the world of children. Wherever I have traveled I have sought out children’s spaces. They can be hard to find. But where we have invested time and energy in creating places for children, they are glorious.

Dealing with Feelings

Emotions are tightly wired with cognitions, physical sensations, stages of development, language, expectations and memories. That’s complex! How do children learn to identify their own emotions? To express them? To regulate them? And how can we help them?

As a parent, I know what it's like to feel perplexed, worried and eager for practical, proven strategies. But what to do when stress is overwhelming? Yours or your child’s? When there are special needs and challenges? When behaviours are debilitating? When one’s very identity is at stake? When there is a crisis? When life is chaotic? When trauma interferes with that complex wiring?

As a Parent Support Worker I have been invited into family homes to help parents struggling with these dilemmas. Together we have found ways to find calm in the storm, reconnect with their children and sustain healthier environments.

I love to learn and I love to share!

I hope that you are able to find something useful here. And please, if you want to add to this "Useful Pot" don't hesitate to get in touch!