Real change doesn’t always begin with grand gestures.
Sometimes, it starts quietly—in the dark—with something as simple as sleep.
For children and families living through trauma, sleep is often the first thing to disappear… and the last thing to return.
Studies estimate that over half of individuals exposed to trauma experience long-term sleep disruption—a finding echoed across both PTSD and childhood adversity research (El-Sheikh & Sadeh, 2015; Germain, 2013; Gregory & Sadeh, 2012.)
In children, poor sleep is strongly linked to emotional dysregulation, behavioural challenges, and cognitive difficulties (Gregory & Sadeh, 2012; El-Sheikh & Sadeh, 2015).
Sleep care changes this trajectory.
A New Paradigm for Trauma Recovery
At the Sleep & Dream Foundation, we’re not just delivering programs.
We’re building a new model—one that recognises sleep as a biological gateway to healing.
We’re pioneering a movement to place sleep at the heart of trauma-informed care. Because when sleep is restored:
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Children start to thrive.
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Mothers return to themselves.
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Families begin to reconnect and rebuild.
Science supports this.
REM sleep plays a vital role in processing emotional memories and reducing fear-based responses—essential functions for trauma recovery (van der Helm et al., 2011; Germain, 2013).
Emerging evidence also shows that children who get adequate sleep are far more resilient, even amid adversity (Barrett et al., 2025).
Where We’re Headed
We’re currently transforming women’s shelters throughout Australia into sleep-supportive sanctuaries.
Next, we’ll expand this vision into foster care, orphanages, refugee communities—wherever sleep is most urgently needed.
We partner with frontline organisations, adding a gentle but powerful layer of care that strengthens both the people they support and the staff who care for them.
This is about supporting something fundamental.
Without sleep, we stay stuck in cycles of stress, exhaustion, and emotional strain.
But when sleep is restored, it opens the door to something greater: Clarity, capacity, connection and healing.
It’s a vital step in the journey to recovery—and to becoming a strong, internally resourced human, especially after surviving painful, life-altering experiences.
Sleep care doesn’t just improve symptoms.
It creates the conditions in which healing can take root—and where rebuilding becomes not just possible, but sustainable.
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References
1. Barrett, E., Coote, T., & Grummitt, L. (2025). Sleep duration in adolescence buffers the impact of childhood trauma on anxiety and depressive symptoms. BMC Public Health, 25, Article 437. Read the study
2. El-Sheikh, M., & Sadeh, A. (Eds.). (2015). Sleep and development: Advancing theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 80(1), 1–215. Read the monograph
3. Germain, A. (2013). Sleep and REM sleep disturbance in the pathophysiology of PTSD: The role of extinction memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 112, 17–23. Read the study
4. Gregory, A. M., & Sadeh, A. (2012). Sleep, emotional and behavioral difficulties in children and adolescents. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 16(2), 129–136. Read the study
5. van der Helm, E., Yao, J., Dutt, S., Rao, V., Saletin, J. M., & Walker, M. P. (2011). REM sleep depotentiates amygdala activity to previous emotional experiences. Current Biology, 21(23), 2029–2032. Read the study