Hosted by Blue Borage – Friday 14 November 2025
Symposium Wrap-Up
Thank you for being part of our first Seven Conversations Symposium. It was a significant day. People joined from different time zones and came in and out as life allowed, and each person brought something that added to the depth of the conversations.
Some of you couldn’t be with us, and I hope the recordings and transcripts offer what you need when you’re ready to engage with them. The presentations, Q&As and summaries carry a lot of substance, so in many ways they speak for themselves. Still, I want to acknowledge those who completed the reflection survey or reached out afterward. Your feedback helped clarify what mattered most on the day.
Who Was in the Room
We welcomed people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the United States.
The mix of voices was rare, and it shaped the quality of the conversations.
Here’s the simple breakdown:
- Survivors and lived-experience participants: 46%
- Parents and family members navigating current or historical disclosures: 9%
- Practitioners and clinicians across child protection, harmful sexual behaviour, mental health and family therapy: 22%
- Researchers and academics: 4%
- Professionals and educators seeking to understand and respond better: 19%
The Top Themes from the Day
From everything participants shared during and after the event, a few themes came through clearly:
- The feeling of being in safe place with others from around the world! A place where people understood. A sense of recognition after years of silence and isolation.
- Relief in hearing others speak out loud about experiences that mirrored your own, whether as a survivor, a parent or a practitioner working at the edges or in the trenches of this issue.
- A steady thread through the day around safety, trust and shame, and how these shape families, disclosures and recovery.
- A growing awareness of the legal realities around sharing our stories publicly – slander, defamation and the risks of social media – and the importance of speaking with a clear outcome in mind.
- Useful, uncomplicated tools that helped make sense of things — downloadable flyers, the family ledger, language for shame, outcome-focused conversations and practical ways to navigate complexity.
- A clearer view of the wider landscape of sibling sexual trauma, how common certain patterns are and where prevention and change may begin.
- The healing impact of survivors and parents listening to one another, hearing words that reflect their lived reality, often easier to do outside one’s own family.
- A sense of possibility — that recovery is not only psychological but also physical, supported by the mind–body insights shared by Ryan and Matt, and that we don’t need fixing.
- Hope — that stories can be spoken, that long-held burdens can ease and that communities like this can grow.
About the Symposium
Seven Conversations began as a simple idea: to create a space where survivors, families and professionals could learn alongside one another without hierarchy or pressure.
Anyone there chose to show up to understand SSTA more for their work with families, to make change, or for individuals within families affected to learn more of the whole picture – both from clinical and lived experience perspectives.
12-hours was an experimental timeframe to accommodate live attendance across the world, with recordings and transcripts made available for parts of the day that weren’t practical for some.
The day moved between presentations, guided discussions, stories, research, practical tools and thoughtful reflection.
It was our first time offering a full-day event of this kind, and what we learned all the way along the path, will guide the shape of future Blue Borage offerings.
The Shape of the Day
Seven Conversations was a global online symposium exploring the many layers of sibling sexual trauma and abuse. We brought together lived-experience voices, parents, practitioners, researchers and advocates. Conversations moved between personal insights, clinical perspectives, legal considerations, the mind–body connection and the everyday realities families face after disclosure.
The detailed recordings, transcripts and resources from the day are now available only to registered participants, for privacy considerations and to protect presenters’ work.
Our Conversations
Conversation 1 – Parent Perspectives
A look at what families learn, risk and carry after disclosure, and why their voices matter.
Conversation 2 – Whole-Family Responses
A clinical view of how families navigate the aftermath and the patterns that repeat across generations.
Conversation 3 – Shame and the Family Ledger
An exploration of shame, how it moves through relationships and ways to talk about it.
Conversation 4 – Lived Experience Q&A
A spontaneous conversation shaped by the questions and reflections that surfaced throughout the morning.
Conversation 5 – Legal Realities of Truth-Telling
A plain and practical look at defamation, slander and responsibilities when sharing lived experience publicly.
Conversation 6 – The Mind–Body Connection
A gifted teaching on how trauma sits in the body, and how integration and recovery can begin.
Conversation 7 – Rebuilding from the Ruins
A reflective conversation about identity, relationships and the ripples disclosure creates in families.
Bonus Workshop – Conscious Choice
A practical step-by-step session on moving from reactivity to clarity using outcome-focused thinking.
Participant Access
Recordings, transcripts and resources from the day are now available through the private pages created for this event. Registered participants can access them using the event passcode sent to you by email.
Looking Ahead
Thank you to everyone who joined us. Your care, honesty and presence made the day what it was. Future Conversation Café sessions and events will be shared on Eventbrite and through Blue Borage updates.