Nurturing resilience: strategies for helping children and youth manage pain

We recognise that pain in children can be complex and nuanced, and in this series of talks we will have experts present some of their work in the field of children's pain that will be of interest for a wide audience including parents, caregivers, educators, healthcare professionals, and researchers.

Talks will be followed by a panel discussion, led by UniSA's Professor Lorimer Moseley AO, and will include consumers and people with lived experience of persistent pain.

This event is co-hosted by the University of South Australia, Healthy Development Adelaide, and PainAdelaide.

CHAIR

Professor Lorimer Moseley AO , University of South Australia, Adelaide

Leading panel discussion with speakers and consumers.

SPEAKERS

Professor Jennifer Stinson, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Talk: Power over Pain: A Virtual Stepped Care Portal for Youth with Chronic Pain

Bio: Dr. Jennifer Stinson is the inaugural Mary Jo Haddad Nursing Chair in Child Health in the Research Institute, a Nurse Practitioner in the Chronic Pain Program, and Co-Director of the SickKids Centre for Pain Management, Research and Education at the Hospital for Sick Children, and a Professor at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Dr. Stinson’s clinical work focuses on working with children and youth with chronic pain and their families as part of an interdisciplinary pain team in the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine at SickKids. Her program of research focuses on co-design and development of digital therapeutics for assessment and management of pain in youth with painful chronic conditions as well as patient reported outcome measures. Dr. Stinson also focuses on interprofessional pain education, which is demonstrated in her leadership in innovative training programs (Pain in Child Health and University of Toronto Centre for Study of Pain) and Pediatric Project ECHO at which provides virtual mentorship to community healthcare providers on the management of complex pediatric pain patients.

Associate Professor Melanie Noel, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

Talk: Retelling the story of pain in childhood: the power of memory, language and narrative

Bio: Melanie Noel, PhD, RPsych is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Calgary and a Full Member of the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. She directs the PEAK (Pain Education, Advocacy, Knowledge) Research Laboratory within the Vi Riddell Pain & Rehabilitation Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Canada. Dr. Noel’s expertise is on children’s memories for pain and co-occurring mental health issues and pediatric chronic pain. She was named Avenue Magazine Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 (Class of 2017), a Killam Emerging Research Leader (2020), and holds the inaugural the Killam Memorial Emerging Leader Chair (2021-2026). Recently, she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Dr. Noel is passionate about partnering with people with lived experience to transform how we understand and treat people with pain

Professor Helen Slater, Curtin University, WA

Talk: AI isn’t just about ChatGPT (leveraging digital solutions to make young people’s pain better)

Bio: Helen Slater is a Professor in the Curtin School of Allied Health, and enAble institute, Curtin University. She is a senior clinician-researcher co-leading a research program focused on system-wide reform in musculoskeletal pain with Prof Andrew Briggs. Her work programs are focused on improving the lives of people living with chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and minimising the burden of pain on individuals and the community. Her team’s strategic consumer and health workforce capacity building initiatives reach across jurisdictions (nationally and internationally), sectors (health systems and policy, health industry and educational) and cross-disciplines to achieve this aim. The enabling role for digital technologies in supporting sustainable musculoskeletal Models of Care is a key focus. Helen is a Fellow of the Australian College of Physiotherapists (FACP), and continues to consult in the capacity of a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist.

Dr Sarah Wallwork, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Talk: Learning for life: making meaning of pain and injury in young kids

Bio: Dr Sarah Wallwork is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of South Australia. Sarah completed her PhD in 2016 with Prof Moseley (UniSA) and Prof Iannetti (University College London) in pain neurophysiology. Sarah's current research aims to make a generational shift in the way young children understand pain and injury, to promote recovery and resilience after injury, and to reduce unhelpful misconceptions about 'how pain works'.

Dr Hayley Leake, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Talk: Partnering with teens with chronic pain: Co-creating social media content on pain science

Bio: Hayley Leake is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Australia. She qualified as a physiotherapist in 2013, and completed her PhD in 2022. Her thesis explored how to optimise pain science education across the lifespan. Hayley is interested in optimising pain education for youth, by leveraging technology and co-design.