Overview

This unit provides students with a broad understanding of how various forms of trauma impact on functioning and contribute to maladaptive behaviour. The unit will enable students to recognise the role that trauma presentations can play with clients in the forensic context, to critically evaluate the contribution of trauma to offending behaviour in individual cases, and to adapt therapeutic and correctional interventions where necessary to take account of the impact of trauma on clients.

Requisites

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
03-March-2025
01-June-2025
Last self-enrolment date
16-March-2025
Census date
31-March-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
24-April-2025
Results released date
08-July-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Critically discuss what constitutes a traumatic response and why
  • Appraise the main theories linking trauma to offending
  • Analyse the vulnerabilities that different theories attribute to trauma which have been linked to offending
  • Debate how the judicial and correctional systems should respond to trauma in offenders

Teaching methods

Hawthorn Online

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Face to Face Contact (Phasing out)
Workshop		12.00 1 week 12
Online
Directed Online Learning and Independent Learning		11.50 12 weeks 138
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Case ReviewIndividual 40% 1,2,3,4 
EssayIndividual 30% 1,2,4 
Literature ReviewIndividual 30% 1,4 

Content

  • Defining trauma
  • The impact of different types of traumatic experiences on physical, social and emotional well being
  • Critiquing evidence-based approaches to trauma treatment
  • Trauma and the forensic system
  • Evaluation of the most influential theories linking trauma to offending
  • An overview of the limitations of research into the nature of the relationship between trauma and offending

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.