Trauma-Informed Approach Integrated into Care
Youth-Friendly Practices
Many children and adolescents have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, or another type of trauma. Care team members should integrate a trauma-informed approach into pediatric and adolescent health care as needed, to open opportunities for treatment. A trauma-informed approach requires health centers to identify the signs and symptoms of trauma, acknowledge the prevalence of trauma in their patient populations, and integrate information about trauma into all health care practices.
Key Foundations
Strategies related to assessment, policy, and environment
Equipping Teams
Strategies that build clinic staff capacity
Service Delivery
Strategies to strengthen processes, procedures, and systems involved in delivering clinical services
Engaging Adolescent Patients and Families
Strategies to educate and build productive partnerships with adolescents and their families+ (These strategies recognize the important role that parents can play in relation to ASRH, even while protecting confidentiality remains a cornerstone of adolescent care).
Strategies
Key Foundations
Implementation Tips
- Form a diverse staff committee, and include adolescents when possible, such as from a youth advisory council, to discuss current and historical trends/events in the community that could lead to trauma among patients
Tools & Resources
Equipping Teams
Implementation Tips
- Engage behavioral health staff or external organizations with skills to deliver training on trauma-informed care in a manner in which staff who may have experienced previous trauma can feel physically and psychologically safe
- Keep trauma trainings to smaller groups (5-10) rather than all-staff so that it is easier to facilitate and respond to individual needs
- Establish that care team members screening for trauma must have a clear strategy in place for utilizing the information in a way that supports patients’ health, including an established referral network, and that care team members should be well trained prior to conducting any screening
- Create a comprehensive referral guide that includes a range of services that those who experienced trauma might need. Include local, state and national resources available (e.g., family therapists, hospitals that specialize in sexual assault, national sexual assault hotline) to share with staff and patients
- Provide on-boarding trauma-informed care trainings for all new staff
- Provide ongoing trauma-informed trainings for all staff (e.g., clinical staff, front desk, referral coordinators, pharmacy techs)
