KY Division of Behavioral Health
Goal of Webinar:
This Webinar will provide information on trauma-specific services and supports that clinicians/providers can utilize to strengthen individuals who have experienced trauma.
Please disseminate registration information to your employees. This webinar is for direct service staff and supervisor
If you missed the Webinars:
Archived TIC Webinars:
1) April 22: Trauma and Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Abuse Problems – Archived Webinar: http://chfs.adobeconnect.com/p4w7s5jc0v5/
2) May 13: Trauma-Informed Skill Building – Archived Webinar: http://chfs.adobeconnect.com/p3il9exh7b4/
A couple of notes about the Archived Webinars:
If the video doesn’t match the audio restart adobe connect.
- Trauma is pervasive. National community-based surveys find that between 55 and 90% of us have experienced at least one traumatic event. And individuals report, on average, that they have experienced nearly five traumatic events in their lifetimes. The experience of trauma is not the rare exception we once considered it. It is part and parcel of our social reality.
- The impact of trauma is very broad and touches many life domains. Trauma exposure increases the risk of a tremendous range of vulnerabilities; mental health problems like posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, excessive hostility, and generalized anxiety; substance abuse; physical health problems; interpersonal struggles; eating disorders; and suicidality, among many others. Trauma thus touches many areas of life not obviously or readily connected with the experience of trauma itself. This broad impact makes it particularly important to understand the less evident links between trauma and its sequelae.
- The impact of trauma is often deep and life-shaping. Trauma can be fundamentally life-altering, especially for those individuals who have faced repeated and prolonged abuse and especially when the violence is perpetrated by those who were supposed to be caretakers. Physical, sexual, and emotional violence become central realities around which profound neurobiological and psychosocial adaptations occur. Survivors may come to see themselves as fundamentally flawed and to perceive the world as a pervasively dangerous place. Trauma may shape a person’s way of being in the world; it can deflate the spirit and trample the soul.
- Violent trauma is often self-perpetuating. Individuals who are victims of violence are at increased risk of becoming perpetrators themselves. The intergenerational transmission of violence is well documented. Community violence is often built around cycles of retaliation. Many of our institutions-criminal justice settings, certainly, but also schools and churches and hospitals- are too frequently places where violent trauma is perpetuated rather than eliminated.
- Trauma is insidious and preys particularly on the more vulnerable among us. People who are poor, who are homeless, who have been diagnosed with severe mental health problems, who are addicted to drugs, or who have developmental disabilities – all of these groups are at increased risk of violent victimization.
- Trauma affects the way people approach potentially helpful relationships. Not surprisingly, those individuals with histories of abuse are often reluctant to engage in, or quickly drop out of, many human services. Being vigilant and suspicious are often important and thoroughly understandable self protective mechanisms in coping with trauma exposure. But these same ways of coping may make it more difficult for survivors to feel the safety and trust necessary to helpful relationships.
- Trauma has often occurred in the service context itself. Involuntary and physically coercive practices, as well as other activities that trigger trauma-related reactions, are still too common in our centers of help and care.
- Trauma affects staff members as well as consumers in human services programs. Stressors deeply affect administrators, clinicians, and support staff working in human services. Not only is “secondary” or vicarious” traumatization common but direct threats to physical and emotional safety are also frequent concerns. Being asked to do “more and more with less and less” becomes a pervasive theme underlying work experiences that may threaten to overwhelm coping abilities.
- Human Service Systems become trauma-informed by thoroughly incorporating, in all aspects of service delivery, an understanding of the prevalence and impact of trauma and the complex paths to healing and recovery.
Creating Cultures of Trauma-Informed Care:
A Self-Assessment and Planning Protocol
By Roger D. Fallot, Ph.D. and Maxine Harris, Ph.D.
Online National Resources
ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) Study
Homelessness Resource Center (SAMHSA)
National Association for State Mental Health Program Directors
National Center for Trauma-Informed Care
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
The Anna Institute