The Need For Trauma Informed Treatment For Families In Crisis

This week, I attended the First Annual Canadian County Cos Play Convention. It was held at a Yukon business, Archery Traditions. Vendors from all over the county came to sell their wares. Young people came dressed in all kinds of costumes from anime to superheroes, medieval knights, renaissance princesses, and everything in between. The funds raised by the event were for Community Helpers, a local organization that helps Canadian County families in crisis.

A family in crisis can look many different ways. Some families are struggling financially due to rising costs, medical conditions, or job loss. Others are struggling with addiction, abuse, and/or incarceration. Often the hardest thing about being in crisis is being brave enough to ask for help.

I know I have trouble asking for help even in the little things. When you have to ask for help when in crisis it can bring a lot of shame and feelings of worthlessness and cause significant mental health strain.

Further, many of these families are living in survival mode at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid. Maslow’s Hierarchy is a psychological theory that our behavior is motivated by meeting physiological and psychological needs from simple to complex. It’s a humanist theory focused on the idea that we all want to be the best person that we can be. The theory has developed over time to be less rigid but the concept is that we move up the pyramid toward self-actualization as our needs are met from the most basic to the most complex. At the bottom of the pyramid are our psychological needs –food, shelter, clothing; the second level are safety needs – personal safety, employment, health, the third level is love and belonging – friendship, intimacy, family; the fourth level is esteem – respect, self- esteem, status, strength and freedom, and the top level is self-actualization – the desire to be the most that you can be. Families in crisis are so focused on making sure that their basic needs for food, shelter, and employment are met that they cannot focus much beyond that to provide the best home environment or to advance in their careers and as people. Maslow’s theory was an important shift in the study of psychology as it moved away from focusing on abnormal behavior to focusing on the development of healthy people. A goal of the court system, particularly when working with families in crisis, is to help them develop into physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy people. One of the ways we do that is by ensuring that those that work in the Court system are trauma informed. Trauma exposure is a life altering experience and impacts a child’s development, particularly when the trauma is repetitive and begins at a very young age. Trauma reactions can have a long-term impact on health, relationships, identity, and safety. Judges, lawyers, and advocates working in the system need to understand how trauma impacts these families. Many of the people who appear in the juvenile courts are part of an ongoing cycle of generational trauma where trauma behaviors are passed down from grandparent to parent to child. Violent, manipulative, abusive, and addictive behaviors happen repeatedly from generation to generation, and these become the norm so that no one ever sees them as abnormal. I grew up surrounded by these behaviors and have had to work consistently and consciously to avoid repeating the patterns. Desire to be better is not enough. It takes a concerted effort to break the cycles we grew up in to not pass that trauma on to others. Trauma informed screening and assessments should be given in children welfare situations as well as in the Juvenile and Family Court systems. This helps determine what services to provide to families in crisis and to reduce stress reactions in children and families. It is also important that these services are done using accurate information to meet the goals of the system and the family. In my experience, many families in the system feel targeted and that the service providers do not listen to their actual experiences, but rather that the system creates its own narrative of what has happened or what is important. This often causes families and youth to withdraw from services or not complete them because they do not feel seen, heard, or validated. There must be sharing of information across service providers – courts, schools, counselors, doctors etc. so that all providers get the full picture of what is happening in a child’s life or in the home. Working in this manner will ensure that a proper trauma informed case plan is developed. Further, many families have a desire to stay together and heal as a family. When this does not fit the narrative of the court system or child welfare these families feel abandoned and manipulated because no matter what they do they cannot satisfy the system. This in turn creates gamesmanship in court and trying to beat the system which is the opposite of what should be happening. Our court services must evolve constantly to meet the ever-changing needs of society and to also be proactive. As a practicing attorney it's heart breaking to tell a parent that I know what your ex is doing is hurting the child but the court doesn’t view that as a “substantial threat of harm” so nothing will be done. Conversely, when judges make comments like “I’ve seen worse” or “this is the worst case I’ve ever seen” it takes the hope away from the families. They don’t believe they will ever overcome the situation they’re in or of that their trauma will be validated if they discuss it. Our Court systems have to be a safe place to land for these families and not simply the place where families go to be torn apart. While there are many children removed from homes that can never go home because the abuse was so severe or the parents simply cannot care for them, the majority of them in my experience can be healed and helped if we use the right tools and approach to helping them.