We have all had difficult, painful experiences. Ideally, we would have the tools to navigate anything that comes our way, with love and support from caring people we trust. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Many people go through things that are beyond their ability to manage without sufficient help from other people. This might describe a traumatic event in your own life.
If you were reminded of this event every time you went to a particular place, if you felt like you didn’t have any say in what happened to you in that location, or if you were not sure that you could trust the people you encountered there, how likely would you be to feel safe and comfortable? This is the idea behind trauma-informed care. At Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health in Leland, North Carolina, we want all of our clients to feel secure and relaxed while receiving treatment, which is why we follow trauma-informed practices.
Examples of Trauma
Each person experiences difficult events in their own unique way. What one person finds distressing enough to call traumatic may be only a small frustration to someone else. There are, however, events which are often found to be traumatic, such as:
- Military combat
- Abuse – physical, emotional, or sexual
- Witnessing violence
- Unexpected deaths of loved ones
- Natural disasters
- Racism, homophobia, and other behaviors that marginalize people based on groups to which they belong
What is Trauma-Informed Care?
Being trauma-informed means taking an approach that assumes everyone has been through something traumatic and that we should do what we can to help them feel and be safe. A trauma-informed program should:
- Ensure staff are trained on signs and symptoms of trauma
- Make policies, procedures, and practices with trauma in mind
- Actively avoid making people experience their trauma again or causing them additional trauma
Benefits of Trauma-Informed Care
Being trauma-informed helps patients to get the care that they need and deserve by:
- Improving patient engagement
- Making it more likely that patients will stick with their treatment
- Improving health outcomes
- Reducing how much care patients require to get better
Examples of Trauma-Informed Care
How trauma-informed care is implemented can vary from one place to another, based on the services being offered, the people being treated, and the physical location where activities are happening, but there are general practices that can be applied across settings:
- Screening for trauma
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- Ensuring that patients know why questions are being asked
- Asking questions that will help staff recognize potential triggers and adapt treatment to the unique needs of each patient
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- Creating safety
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- Giving the patient time to build trust with the staff
- Keeping areas that patients need to access well-lit
- Ensuring that there aren’t people loitering near entrances and exits
- Keeping noise levels low
- Being mindful and respectful of a patient’s racial, ethnic, and cultural background, as well as their gender identity
- Ensuring a patient’s trauma history is kept confidential and restricted to only people who need to know the details in order to help that patient
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- Helping patients know what to expect
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- Asking patients for permission before touching them and letting them know that they have the right to refuse to be touched
- Explaining things in straightforward terms
- Explaining the steps of what will be happening next and why
- Ensuring patients have an opportunity to ask questions
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- Empowering patients
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- Giving patients the opportunity to make important choices about their care
- Ensuring patients have adequate access to utilize the options available to them
- Allowing patients access to their support system during treatment
- Listening to patient feedback about organizational processes and policies
- Allowing patients to complete paperwork containing potentially sensitive questions online, in the comfort of their own homes when possible
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- Building a trauma-informed workforce
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- Clinical and non-clinical staff, including receptionists, security guards, and volunteers should all be trained on trauma-informed practices
- Recognizing the impact of trauma on staff members and helping them to process trauma they experience, within and outside of the job
- Employing peer supports – other people who have shared experiences with the patient, whom patients might find easier to trust than clinical staff
At Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health, we recognize that the people we serve who have mental health conditions, substance use disorders, or both, are more likely than other people to have trauma in their past. Our services are trauma-informed, evidence-based, and tailored to meet the individual needs of each patient and help them begin to heal from difficult events they have experienced.
