Practice Area 1 – Working safely with trauma
Trauma results from a one-off event, series of events, or a chronic set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual, family or community as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening. Trauma is often experienced as intense physical, emotional and psychological stress reactions. A traumatic experience may have lasting adverse effects on a person’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing.
Given the extent of childhood trauma in the community, a trauma-informed approach is invaluable to all your work interactions. Being trauma-informed means that your responses are grounded in an understanding of trauma and its impacts. Working safely with children, young people, adults and their families affected by the trauma of child sexual abuse is a central foundation of your work.
For many victims and survivors, the traumatic impacts of child sexual abuse will be complex and enduring. Child sexual abuse can also co-occur with other childhood abuse-related trauma such as domestic and family violence, childhood physical and emotional abuse and neglect, intergenerational trauma, and trauma related to war and displacement.
It is important for you to remember that everyone’s reaction to traumatic life experiences is different. Some people recover well with the help of family and friends and do not experience longer-term impacts – particularly when they are believed and provided with a sensitive and compassionate response to disclosures of child sexual abuse.
The Minimum Practice Standards identify being trauma-informed as a core value underpinning each minimum standard. Embedding a trauma-informed approach in your organisation can improve service provision for victims and survivors of all ages.
The Healing Foundation – a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation that provides a platform to amplify the voices and lived experience of Stolen Generations survivors and their families, identifies trauma-aware, healing-informed practice as a strengths-based approach to healing. This approach emphasises physical, psychological, and emotional safety for people seeking help and also for you as a worker. Being strengths-based offers opportunities for people affected by trauma to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.
A trauma-informed approach uses a trauma lens, which means:
- understanding that a help-seeker may be affected by their experience of trauma
- shifting language and focus from ‘what is wrong with the person’ to ‘what has happened to the person’
- building awareness of how behaviours of a help-seeker may be affected by their experience of trauma.
Commonly agreed principles of trauma-informed care from the evidence are:
- a focus on safety
- the importance of peer support
- the centrality of trustworthiness and transparency
- collaboration and mutuality (sharing of feeling, action or relationship)
- empowerment, voice and choice – a victim and survivor-centred approach.
The experience of trauma often affects the way people seek help and support. Many people continue to live in fear, feel unsafe, and may find it hard to trust you or your service. It is understandable that many victims and survivors find it hard to disclose or seek help.