Why is trauma-informed care important?

Trauma-informed is a buzz-word right now, but one that has significant repercussions for how we work with kids and adults in our programs, schools and churches.

Trauma-informed care is based on growing knowledge about the negative impact of childhood trauma originally based on the ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) study done by Kaiser and the CDC.  The study was groundbreaking in understanding how childhood trauma changes the brain, how incredibly prevalent it is and the physical and emotional outcomes for people over their lifetime.

Without having an understanding of how childhood trauma can impact people we can unintentionally re-traumatize individuals affecting their willingness to participate and engage with us. In addition, this lack of knowledge can contribute to poor decision-making without understanding why kids and adults behave in certain ways.