Dentistry students and practitioners across Australia will now be equipped with the skills they need to recognise and respond to patients harmed by domestic and sexual violence thanks to a range of industry-leading tools developed by James Cook University.
Officially launched last week by experts from JCU’s Dentistry and Social Work fields, the educational videos and related documents cover several role-playing scenarios, the use of trauma-informed care, legal and ethical considerations, working with First Nations Australians, and how to avoid unintended consequences when providing assistance to victim-survivors.
JCU Dentistry adjunct associate professor Felicity Croker said that as a significant number of JCU students had treated patients with indicators of domestic and sexual violence (DSV), additional skills were needed to deal with those scenarios.
“One of the things we hope has come out of the launch of these resources is that we’ll also be able to bring on board the clinical supervisors, dentists in practice and make it available to other dental schools,” A/Prof Croker said.
“JCU had the first embedded domestic and sexual violence program in a dentistry course in Australia because students found that when they went on placement, they were seeing patients who had experienced DSV and were unsure how to respond.”
The JCU program now extends to third year dentistry students onwards and is also used by JCU-affiliated dental practitioners, with the Australian Dental Council having since made it a graduate requirement that all students have competency in recognising, assessing, and responding to domestic and family violence.
“We want students and practitioners to be able to listen in, make some risk assessments, and build the perfect tools to address DSV where necessary, but dentistry can be a really triggering experience for survivors of trauma,” JCU social work senior lecturer Dr Ann Carrington said.
“Once they’ve made the appropriate referrals that the patient may ask for, the next step is then considering what that does for their practice with the patient and how can all parties work together in a way that minimises the possibility of further traumatisation.
“It’s really about helping students and practitioners see how they can do that.”
Dr Carrington said the resources also covered trauma-informed practice, which takes into account the potentially triggering nature of victim-survivors having to recount their experience and gives advice on how students and practitioners can address the matter sensitively moving forward.
