Effective Trauma Informed Practice in Child Protection Systems

This literature review examines the integration of trauma-informed care within child protection systems, addressing the significant impact of violence, abuse, and emotional stress on children. The review explores various social issues faced by children, including physical and sexual abuse, and highlights the importance of trauma-informed practices in child welfare. It discusses the benefits of implementing trauma-informed care, such as improved outcomes for neglected and abused children, and emphasizes the need for organizational structures and treatment frameworks that understand and respond to the effects of trauma. The review covers key principles like safety, transparency, and the recognition of trauma signs, along with different models of care, including counseling and the Seeking Safety model. It also addresses challenges in implementing trauma-informed care, such as the need for shared understanding and the lack of appropriate guidelines, while emphasizing the importance of a systematic approach and policy changes to promote effective trauma-informed care practices. The paper concludes with a call for policy makers to support and integrate trauma-informed care for vulnerable children.

Running head: Foundations of research inquiry
FOUNDATIONS OF RESEARCH INQUIRY
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Effective trauma informed practice in Child Protection systems
INTRODUCTION
According to the Report of Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 45 million children
residing in Australia have their lives impacted upon by violence, abuse and crime or emotional
stress. They are always exposed to multiple number of traumatic events like physical or sexual
abuse, loss of loved ones, bullying, exploitation, trafficking and many more (Richardson et al.,
2013). The reason for psychological trauma can be various. In order to assist these children to
cope up with the stress, the child welfare committees or the policy holders can integrate certain
strategies in the policies and practices and improving the outcomes for the neglected or the
abused children.
This provides the rationale for introducing trauma informed practice in organizations.
This paper will provide an account of the integration of trauma informed care in child protection.
It will argue over the pros and the cause of trauma informed care.
Literature Review
There is a myriad of social issues realted to children. Children being physically weaker
always remains on the weaker side of the power differences. Various types of social issues that
are faced by children are child abuse, both physical, sexual and emotional assault, childhood
violence, child labour, homelessness, marginalisation due to disease or low socio-economic
status or disease and mental health disorder, mental health disorder. Repetitive and encounter
with the trauma and stress might have real impact upon the physical, social and the social
wellbeing of a child. In relation to this Sigel et al., (2013) have stated that the trauma faced by
children in the foster care is often found to be complex. If these problems are left untreated, then

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it would affect the growth and the development of a child. The repercussions of these events can
be felt in the late life. Some of the symptoms of trauma might include development of
behavioural problems, separation anxiety, concentration issues and extreme impulsivity. These
social issue impact and influence of such children largely. It is the child hood environment that
guides the growth and development of a child.
A trauma informed practice can be referred to as an organisational structure and the
treatment framework that involves understanding, recognition and replying to the effects of all
kinds of trauma (Fratto, 2016). A trauma informed practice also emphasises on the physical,
psychological and emotional safety for both the patient and the provider. It is the trauma
informed care that uses varieties of approaches, while working with children who are being
exposed to traumatic conditions. (Garbarino, 2017).
A trauma informed practice should be able to realise the actual impact of trauma and
should be able to understand the potential ways to recovery. A TIP should be able to integrate
knowledge about trauma in to policies, practices and procedures (Garbarino, 2017). The
caregivers should be able to recognise the clinical symptoms of trauma and should be able to
resist re-traumatisation. According to Kramer et al., (2017) each children responds to trauma
differently, but the fact that distress is experiences is universal. A growing body of literature
have actually indicated the success of trauma informed child welfare system in treating traumatic
stress of a child. It is the duty of the trauma informed systems that ensures that all the
stakeholders will be able to remain engaged with families and children, with a systematic
screening of the children entering the organisation (Donisch, Bray & Gewirtz, 2016). Trauma
informed care practice involves practices needs to be structured in recovery oriented way rather
than focussing on the vulnerabilities. A trauma specific intervention moves beyond treating the

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signs of trauma like mental illness and should focus on the interaction between the trauma and
the significances. The approach would provide children with a sense of hope and control and
would involve the participation of different stakeholders working with the child, including the
case workers, judges, lawyers, the birth parents and the caregivers (or the foster parents or the
kinship caregivers).
According to Steele and Malchiodi (2012), One of the useful resources sets down the
evolution in four stages- Trauma aware: seeking evidence about the distress, Trauma sensitive:
operationalizing the concept of stress within an organisation, Trauma response: responding in a
different way and making modifications in the behaviour, trauma informed: The shifting of the
entire culture for reflecting a trauma approach in every settings and work practices (Richardson
et al., 2013). Again some of the significant principles to trauma informed care are =realisation,
recognition of the signs of trauma, resisting the triggers and the factors of re-traumatisation,
Safety , credibility and transparency, association an mutuality, traditional, historical and the
gender issues (Conners-Burrow et al., 2014).
There are various types of trauma informed care services for the vulnerable children like
provision of counselling. Berger and Quiros, (2014) have stated that TSF model in a trauma
informed care setting can prove to be beneficial for children with mental health disorders. The 12
step recovery model can be useful for the children suffering from trauma. It has been reported in
a study, that the counsellors often have to recreate the incident in order to remove the patient
from the actual trauma. In doing so, a counsellor who lack formal training might re-traumatise
the child unintentionally. In the early intervention it is necessary that it is necessary to
acknowledge and validate the suffering and pain of the child Muzik et al.,(2013). A counsellor
who is insufficiently trained in the trauma informed care services might also press agenda that

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can be ultimately unhelpful, like insisting that the child forgive an abuser, or can pursue any
legal case against the perpetrator or engage in some trauma treatment, even when the child is not
ready for the steps. These efforts are inappropriate for the clients in the early recovery from
substance abuse.
Another model of trauma informed care is the seeking safety model for treating children
who are exposed to substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (Wall, Higgins & Hunter,
2016). The model emphasizes on the target goals and humanistic concepts like honesty and
compassion. This makes the cognitive behavioural therapy accessible interesting to the clients
(Wall, Higgins & Hunter, 2016). A trauma-informed care is normally client-centred. It should
acknowledge the rights of the client to refuse counselling for the trauma related issue.
It should be mentioned that the child care workers, working in the front line plays an
important role in helping a post traumatic recovery and prevention of a new trauma. Besides,
dealing with the repercussion of the ill-treatment, the frontline child welfare workers help the
victims and their families, with some of the most difficult complications like substance abuse,
mental health and poverty (Conners-Burrow et al., 2017). The child welfare system has
effectively evolved over the years, so as the teaching and the training experience of front line
workers. In a trauma informed care, the staffs needs to realise the effect of trauma over children
and their families, the potential predisposing of the trauma and how traditional delivery of
trauma care services can further exacerbate the symptoms. According to Berger and Quiros
(2014) there are a number of initiatives for promoting a trauma informed care. The National
Traumatic Stress Network has created an all-inclusive training curriculum along with the toolkits
and supplementary resources, especially targeting the frontline healthcare workers.

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There is an urgency for a systematic approach for a trauma informed care. Australia is
also the moving towards the paradigm of trauma informed for considering the health and the
human service delivery system, just like USA (Wilson, Pence & Conradi, 2013). A systems
approach to trauma informed care signifies that the implementation of the service is actually
beyond any individual practitioners, but the entire service organisation actually needs to be
modified. In Australia, a range of initiatives are implementing a cross –sectorial approach for
executing a trauma informed care.
There are several challenges in order to apply a trauma informed care. The most
identifiable challenge is to create a shared understanding and the inconsistencies in the
development of a trauma informed care. Again, it is problematic to align a particular
administrative modification to a service, without having a collaborative understanding and a
vision. Most of the social care workers do not have any idea of what actually a trauma informed
practice is used (Muskett, 2014). Additionally, there are no farmeworks and there is also a
deficit of proper information specific to an inpatient setting. The Parenting Research Centre and
the Australian Centre for Post-traumatic Health (2013, now Phoenix Australia , in their research
have found out, that although the participants working in child care center for children exposed
to stress, are accustomed with the terminologies like trauma informed care, but the workers still
don’t have an understanding of the concepts. There are lack of appropriate guidelines for
assessing the trauma.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it can be said that integration of trauma informed care practice can be
beneficial for children exposed to stresses due to various reasons. It is difficult to integrate a

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trauma informed practice in real life. Hence, it is recommended that a policy approach should be
made by the policy makers or the organizational heads to promote a trauma informed care.

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REFERENCES
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Child abuse & neglect, 37(12), 1215–1224. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.07.014
Berger, R., & Quiros, L. (2014). Supervision for trauma-informed practice. Traumatology, 20(4),
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Conners-Burrow, N. A., Kramer, T. L., Sigel, B. A., Helpenstill, K., Sievers, C., & McKelvey, L.
(2013). Trauma-informed care training in a child welfare system: Moving it to the front
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Donisch, K., Bray, C., & Gewirtz, A. (2016). Child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, and
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Kramer, T. L., Sigel, B. A., Conners-Burrow, N. A., Savary, P. E., & Tempel, A. (2013). A
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