Who is Suzanne Scott from Trauma Informed Parenting?
Suzanne Scott was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. She worked as a hair dresser and was excellent at building a bond with her clients by engaging them in interesting chats. Suzanne worked as a foster carer for 7 years. She has 2 children, including one with special needs. She registered the non-profit Trauma Informed Parenting SCIO in 2020 based on her family parenting journey to help out other parents and care takers after running it informally for a year.
What is the mission of Trauma Informed Parenting?
T.I.P. supports care givers, families, children and young adults to heal from trauma and toxic stress in order to reduce challenging behaviours.
I offer workshops for families, teachers and care givers based on Dr. Bryan Post’s Stress model. I adapted it to a style suitable for parents in Scotland and internationally. It was originally with more of an American approach which might not have resonated as well with my local audience.
I run support groups. I offer one to one sessions, usually if something just happened with the child or young adult and parents need some guidance on how to deal with it in the heat of the moment. We share information on our public Facebook. What started as workshops to help families with children suffering from a trauma turned out to be beneficial for families with children on the autism spectrum or who have ADHD.
My organisation is different than others because I experienced it. Using the Stress model made such a major difference within my own family that I wanted other families to be familiar with it and see if it would be a useful tool for them as well.
If you had to name the values which guide you as a person, which would they be?
They would be compassion, honesty and self-awareness.
What is typical of being a Glaswegian that you have adopted in your work?
I identify with the typical Glaswegian attributes of having a sense of humour, being well-connected within your community and helping others. There is a real sense of solidarity in Glasgow.
I do not relate to the notion that if something is tough to need to push on and get on with it. I believe that talking about emotions and working on the issue works better than bottling it all up.
When was the last time that you were touched by a clients’ reaction?
Every day and at every workshop! I receive lovely comments on how it makes sense and how simple it is to put it into practice. It is lovely to see how quickly people can use it. It makes my day whenever I get this kind of feedback.
Any exciting news about your organisation
We have received a community grant to offer free workshops for 3 months in the East and West Dunbartonshire areas. They are open to parents, grand-parents, school teachers, social workers, charity staff and foster carers. Some of these spaces will be offered out to the wider communities
Who would you like to connect with for your organisation?
Our goal now is to bring this information into schools for parents and teachers, and to tap into Social Work Department, Children’s Carers Teams for the fostering, adoption and kinship departments. Please connect me to key people within these groups. We always welcome donations and sponsorships. We are looking for volunteers who can help us apply for government tenders.
If you enjoyed Suzanne Scott‘s interview, you will probably like Ewelina Maria Chin’s as well!
This interview was conducted by Lucie Cunningham from Tell Them Well Communications in February 2021. Lucie is a freelance editor, copywriter and translator with over 10 years of community project management. She has lived in France, England, The USA, the Netherlands and is currently based in Scotland.