“Trauma” is a broad term for an event or series of events that cause a person to feel threatened or fearful. Trauma includes physical, sexual, emotional, and financial abuse along with a broad range of social abuses including bullying, name-calling, exclusion, and neglect. The effects of trauma are wide ranging and can lead to psychosocial challenges, complex l behavioral health concerns, and chronic health issues. Trauma, however, isn’t always considered as the root cause of an individual’s health or behavioral issues.
Trauma Informed Care defined as “An organizational structure and treatment framework that involves understanding, recognizing and responding to the effects of all types of trauma. Trauma Informed Care also emphasizes the physical, psychological and emotional safety of individuals, families and service providers and can be applied in all settings.”[i]
The Center for START Services provides online and in-person training and recently hosted a facilitated practice group on Trauma-Informed Care in an effort to increase knowledge of trauma and trauma-informed approaches within systems of care across the country.
Suggested resources & further reading:
https://gucchdtacenter.georgetown.edu/TraumaInformedCare/
https://www.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma-interventions
http://disability-abuse.com/survey/survey-report.pdf
http://hogg.utexas.edu/trauma-informed-care-and-idd
About the Center for START Services
The Center for START Services aims to improve the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and behavioral health challenges by engaging systems of care to adopt the START (systemic, therapeutic, assessment, resources, and treatment) program model. START is an evidence-informed model that improves service outcomes for individuals with IDD and behavioral health challenges by increasing capacity in systems of care and employing person-centered approaches to assessment, crisis intervention, and treatment.
[i] Traumainformedcare.org
