RC Trauma Informed Service Children Home Society of Florida Analysis

When a critical incident occurs, it can feel like an emotional earthquake to the survivor, disrupting his or her overall functioning. In cases of prolonged trauma (e.g., childhood sexual abuse or war), there is no immediate “clean-up” effort, resulting in prolonged exposure to trauma. In other cases, such as natural and human-made disasters and acts of terrorism, there are often large-scale responses to intervene immediately following the event. The impact of crisis, trauma, and/or disaster on the mental health of the survivor is dependent upon the type of critical incident, the available resources, the actions of the responders, the physical and emotional state of the survivor, and the survivor’s support systems.

Traumatic experiences can impact and alter an individual’s perception of themselves, their world, and the people around them and can disrupt the victim’s biological, cognitive, and emotional functioning as well as their identity, relationships, and social interactions.

As service providers, it is imperative that we implement care and services that follow the key assumptions, tenets, and principles of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) and approaches. 

In week one, we explored the concept of trauma-informed approach and services as outlined by SAMSHA and Elliott, et. al.(2005). For this Assignment, your group will identify several agencies within each of your communities, preferably an agency that you have previous experience working (e.g. previous field placement, employer, etc.) and then as a team select which one of the presented agencies your team will evaluate.  After you all have selected the agency setting which your team will evaluate, then discuss in the paper the extent to which the key assumptions and principles of trauma-informed approach/services are reflected in the services provided by the agency. Address the following five areas:

The Assignment (6- 8 pages):

Set up a team Zoom Interview with an employee of the agency and provide a summary of what you all learned about the agencies services from the interview. Here is the interview guide to use: (Trauma-Informed Assessment Questionnaire.docx)Actions

 During the interview explore the following: 

the agency’s mission, vision, services provided, and primary clientele served (this too may be information you garner from the agency’s website). 

Explore with the interviewee, the extent to which the agency practices trauma-informed approaches, services or care with their clients:

Ask if the interviewee or agency use the three pillars of TIC (Bath, 2008).

Explore each of the key assumptions and principles as discussed in the SAMSHA (2014) pamphlet; and

• the 10 principles discussed by Elliott et al (2005)

in your write-up explore if/how well the agency applies each in their service provision.

You may find it helpful in the paper to present this data in table format with a brief narrative below the table. 

Discuss the barriers to creating trauma-informed services in this agency. 

Within the paper and from your point of view, discuss ideas you have for improving awareness of the key assumptions and principles that are not well implemented in the agency and discuss recommendations you would make to address the barriers you listed above?