Be Trauma-Informed

Be Trauma-Informed

As a follow-up to last week’s blog, I’d like to share about the tremendous progress being made in addressing the adversity issues that occur in childhood.

In some parts of the country, entire school systems have adopted a trauma-informed approach with their students. Rather than resort to punitive measures for troublesome children who attempt to determine the level of trauma they are experiencing and make inroads in getting them help. This can be through the school guidance counselor, outside services, other agencies.

Helping children connect to sources of help, as soon as possible, can spare them the more negative long-term effects. Offering understanding and compassion, rather than negative consequences, may be the most productive use of school resources.

Many children labeled as “bad” are calling out for help. Ignoring the signs of abuse and neglect escalates the impact.

It was a grand collaboration when the first trauma-informed community came into existence. The first city in Florida to identify and adopt corrective measures was Tarpon Springs. You can read about that here:

Since then, many more have joined the movement. The citizens are conscious of these negative experiences and how they manifest and have created services to address the needs of their fellow citizens.

Some prisons have implemented trauma-informed measures to help manage their populations on top of whatever has happened in a prisoner’s childhood, as the stress of the current system manifests in their behavior. To manage the prisoner population, strategies have been developed to deescalate chaos, build social cohesion, and foster personal resiliency.

Profound work is being done for the good. The long-term goal is to heal rather than re-injure.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

June 12, 2021

Resilience

June 26, 2021