Trauma-informed care approaches shift the focus from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” by doing the following:
- Understanding the impact of trauma on society as a whole and possible rehabilitation routes.
- Knowing how to spot the indications of trauma in specific clients, families, and staff.
- Incorporating knowledge of trauma into practices, policies, and processes.
- Actively working to avoid re-traumatization (i.e., avoiding creating a situation that unintentionally triggers traumatic memories in patients and puts them under biological and/or emotional stress).
Additionally, there is no universal definition of trauma. Based on their clinical observations, experts frequently develop their own definitions of trauma. However, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the source of the term that is most frequently cited: Individual trauma is the result of an event, a sequence of events, or a collection of circumstances that an individual perceives as physically, emotionally, or life-threatening and that have a long-lasting negative impact on that person’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
What You’ll Learn
- Background on childhood trauma
- Implementing a comprehensive trauma-informed care approach
- Organizational practices
- Leading the transformation process within an organization
- Engaging patients in planning
- Creating a safe environment
- Preventing secondary traumatic stress in staff
- Hiring a trauma-informed workplace
- Clinical practices
- Screening for trauma
- Training staff in trauma-specific approaches
- Key opportunities for advancement
- Payment considerations
- Building awareness and competency
- Importance of healthcare community recognition of trauma
Details
Course length: 30 minutes; CEU: 0.5
Languages: American English
Key features: Audio narration, learning activity, and post-assessment.
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Implementing a Comprehensive Trauma-Informed Approach
Trauma-informed care requires both organizational and clinical approaches that acknowledge the complicated impact trauma has on both patients and providers. Furthermore, well-intentioned healthcare providers frequently train their clinical staff in trauma-specific treatment modalities. Yet, they fail to adopt broad organizational changes to address trauma.
To transform a healthcare setting, both organizational and clinical procedures must be changed to reflect the following basic concepts of a trauma-informed approach to care. Organizational changes may result in patient empowerment, provide patients with a choice in their care, and allow for collaboration among members of the healthcare team. Moreover, organizational changes foster a safe physical and emotional environment for the patient and create clear expectations for their treatment.
Creating a Safe Environment
Additionally, for someone who has already been through trauma, feeling unsafe physically, socially, or emotionally can be extremely stressful and even re-traumatizing. Therefore, establishing a safe environment is essential for successfully including patients in their treatment. Examples of promoting a physically and emotionally safe setting include:
- Keeping the facilities, entrances, and parking lots well-lit.
- Using welcoming language on all signage.
- Monitoring who is coming in and out of the building.
- Extending a warm welcome to patients and making sure they feel supported and valued.
- Ensuring that staff members have proper conflict management skills and maintain healthy interpersonal boundaries.
- Maintaining constant, transparent, courteous, and caring communication.
