Trauma-Informed Care in Child Welfare: An Imperative for Residential Childcare Workers

Abstract

Context: Rates of traumatization among residential child welfare professionals are alarmingly high. The well-being of these professionals is associated both with their intention to stay in their jobs and outcomes of children in their care. Several risk factors threaten the well-being of child welfare professionals, including primary and secondary exposure to experiences with the potential to provoke posttraumatic stress reactions.
 
 Objectives: This manuscript details experiences empirically shown to have potential negative impacts on professional well-being, discusses why these impacts are of particular concern for residential childcare workers, and describes the types of organizational cultures and climates that appear to mitigate these negative impacts.
 
 Implications: Trauma-informed care at the organizational level is proposed both as a means to reduce harm to child-welfare professionals and promote the rehabilitation of children within the child welfare system.

Residential Out-of-Home Care Staff Perceptions of Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach: The Sanctuary Model

“…In addition, residential care workers identified Supervision as a tool used successfully to discuss, plan, share and acknowledge how staff are implementing The Sanctuary Model; and, with a specific focus on staff safety and wellbeing, Trauma Theory was identified as the backbone of direct care with young people in residential care. The need for adequate supervision, where staff are provided a safe space to debrief has also emerged in previous research (Brend & Sprang, 2020 ; Eastwood & Ecklund, 2008 ).…”

Experiences of Becoming Emotionally Dysregulated. A Qualitative Study of Staff in Youth Residential Care

“…The concept of co-regulation is an integral part of the TIC perspective on fulfilling the needs of traumatized adolescents. As observed by Brend and Sprang (2020), the practices embedded in TIC may both address and reduce distress among staff. However, in their article, they referred to secondary traumatic stress, whereas our study focuses on emotional dysregulation in general, and ensuring that general TIC practices that are crucial for organizational and cultural systems of collegial support may serve to integrate the various aspects of TIC (see also Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2019;Bloom, 2013;Brend & Sprang, 2020).…”

“…Some staff members have also perceived that superiors do not listen to their input or value them as employees (Decker et al, 2002). Several studies have noted that the context of this type of work implies an elevated risk of burnout, secondary trauma, and compassion fatigue (Brend & Sprang, 2020;Kind et al, 2018;Lakin et al, 2008;Seti, 2008;Tullberg & Boothe, 2019).…”

Implementing trauma-informed care through social innovation in residential care facilities serving elementary school children

“…It may be that a lack of specialized knowledge and training about the impacts of traumatic experiences on children, exacerbated by the stress and fatigue endemic in residential treatment centre work (Bloom, 2005), result in "reactive" or "controlling" interventions such as restraints and seclusion (LeBel et al, 2010;Roy et al, 2019). Residential childcare workers, their supervisors and managers require support to be the constantly present, caring adults shown to facilitate child development in the wake of traumatic experience (Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2018;Brend & Sprang, 2020).…”

“…This demonstrates how trauma-informed organizations are responsive to both the well-being of professionals and the children they serve. TIC is indicated for both children in residential treatment centre placement and the professionals who care for them (Brend & Sprang, 2020). For the implementation of TIC to be successful, organizations need to institute policies, procedures and practices that make their setting safe and promote positive interactions with children (Becker-Blease, 2017;Bryson et al, 2017;Gregorowski & Seedat, 2013;Jennings, 2004;Plumb et al, 2016).…”