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Trauma informed Practice

Quick guidance on Trauma informed Practice. 

Trauma informed Practice

The What Matters section now includes information about trauma-informed practice. Trauma-informed practice is closely aligned with the strength-based approach of What Matters. This way of working recognises that a person’s experience of trauma may influence their engagement with services and responsiveness to our interventions. While there is no shared agreement in Camden, or more widely across the social care sector about how to define and implement trauma-informed practice, we recognise the value of arriving at our approach as a collective.

You can read Lancs-VRN-Trauma-Informed-toolkit, the national trauma training framework and SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for Trauma Informed Approaches for long guidance.

“Trauma-informed care is a strength-based framework that is grounded in an understanding of and responsiveness to the impact of trauma, that emphasizes physical, psychological and emotional safety of both providers and survivors, and creates opportunities for survivors to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment”. 

Shelter from the Storm: Trauma-Informed Care in Homelessness Services Settings  

 

Trauma informed practice aims to strengthen relationships with people drawing on care and support to avoid repeating unhelpful relational dynamics that can emerge in helping relationships. We do this, in part, by understanding the prevalence and potential impact of adversity on people and recognising the signs and symptoms of trauma.

Building on how we understand the potential impact of trauma, trauma-informed practice incorporates a set of agreed core principles across a service that enables practice. Lasting change in knowledge, attitudes and responsiveness takes time, leadership commitment, ongoing organisational support, workforce development and community. It is not a manualised approach and requires a culture of curiosity and experiential learning.  

"There is a lack of consensus within the health and social care sector on how trauma-informed practice is defined, what its key principles are and how it can be built into services and systems”

OHID.

 

There are 6 potential principles to consider when working towards trauma-informed care and support (adapted from SAMHSA):  

  • Safety
  • Trust
  • Choice
  • Collaboration
  • Empowerment
  • Cultural consideration

 Trauma

There are many ways to describe and understand trauma. Trauma can result from a single overwhelming experience or accumulate over multiple, smaller stressful events. It occurs when a person is overwhelmed and helpless, frightened and has no control over their situation.

The brain and body automatically deploy a range of powerful strategies to help us to perceive risk and survive overwhelming events. In trauma, these strategies, once highly adaptive, get stuck in survival mode and interfere with living in the here and now. The impact of trauma will be different for each one of us. 

Watch  trauma informed reflections for a person-centred story about the impact of trauma and the importance of how relationships can help

Trauma can be categorised in several different ways: 

 

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

If you would like further information regarding PTSD, there are some useful resources to explain what PTSD is and how people experiencing PTSD can be supported:

Last updated: 05 April 2023