What Held
What BROKE
What GREW
What the world's hardest childhoods
teach us about trauma and growth
Sunny SKIES on the other side
I once heard someone say they wished God worked like a pilot. That God's voice would cut through the noise and say, 'Hey, there’s a storm coming your way. Yeah, it’s going to be rough. But it ends. Sunny skies on the other side. I promise’.She wasn’t talking about the weather.
I've sat with child soldiers in Uganda, street kids in Pakistan and survivors of human trafficking – children who have every reason not to believe in the other side. You wouldn't have blamed them. In fact, you'd expect these children to have been swallowed whole by what happened to them.
But they weren't – something in them held. They still had hope, and they spoke about tomorrow as if it belonged to them, as if there would be 'sunny skies on the other side'.They didn’t go back to being who they’d been before. They became something else: something more, with new strengths, fresh perspectives and a renewed sense of self. They became teachers, carers, peace-builders and advocates. They hadn’t just survived what happened to them – they had grown through it.
They’d found something that carried them through the storm and kept carrying them even when it had passed. Something big enough to hold their pain and help them make sense of it.This book is about that something: about how we find it and how we offer it to children closer to home.
Who is this book for
We are trauma-informed...
We run the training twice a year. The posters go up: attention-seeking is attachment-seeking; see the child, not the behaviour; connection before correction. It sounds right. And it is right. The problem is what happens five minutes after the training ends. Because being trauma-informed is not the same as knowing what to do when trauma is eleven years old, spits in your face, tells you they don’t care if they die, and you have thirty other children and twenty minutes until assembly.
This is the book for the five minutes after the training ends.
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About the author
David Taransaud
David is a UKCP reg. psychotherapist, consultant and author. His work has taken him from some of London's most deprived boroughs to Northern Uganda, where he established an art therapy service for former child soldiers, and to Pakistan, working with street children and survivors of trafficking.
Combining decades of therapeutic practice with psychological research, his books help teachers, school leaders and mental health professionals understand trauma, make sense of children's behaviour, and respond in ways that support healing and lasting change.His published work include You Think I'm Evil, Sad Belly, and What Held. What Broke. What Grew.
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What happens to a child when
depression robs them of their
parent’s warmth and affection?
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Prefer a printed copy?
Paperback available on Amazon for £10.99
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