I have a huge beef with the way we deal with at risk teens and children in our country and its time for change. Most of the children in foster care, the residential care system and in juvenile detention have come from trauma backgrounds. What does that mean?

 First, I will define trauma, so we are all on the same page here. Trauma can be defined as a deeply distressing and or disturbing experience for anyone and it is subjective. So, what is a trauma for you might not be traumatizing for me if I experienced it …necessarily! However, I am sure if we were in a house fire together and barely escaped with our lives, we may well have similar perceptions of that experience and bad triggering memories of getting out.

Researchers of neurobiology and memory are telling us in recent analysis and study of the brain that when a child becomes traumatized, especially chronically, it affects the neurological development of their brain. Just as a football injury to the head causes head trauma so to hits to the nervous system and the psycho emotional brain can cause a permanent damage as it stays hyper wired for threat and danger. How does this happen to children from trauma backgrounds?

Let us take a step back here, and do a simple neurobiology (yes that is possible lol) lesson:

So, here goes, bear with me….to observe, digest and understand our world we use the “tools” that are our five senses, touch sight, hearing smell and taste. We recognize stimuli and we then act in response to that stimulus. We scan, monitor, process, digest and make operational decisions based on what we have perceived. Through this system we create and store memories for future reference to arm us for potential future danger. So, it is all for safety to keep us alive on the planet to keep making more babies!

Memories and The Trauma Brain.

Memories our experiences are stored in the brain like sorting and storing books in order of themes on lots of different shelves. There are two main types of memory retrieval: recall and recognition. In recall, the information must be retrieved from memories. In recognition, the presentation of a familiar outside stimulus provides a cue that the information has been seen before. Therefore, we can be triggered if we see, smell, hear, or touch something that is like a particular stored bad memory.

Trauma experiences can have an enormous impact on the neurological development of the brain. Trauma, especially when very overwhelming, for example with childhood trauma, cannot be stored as a fully formed memory. When an experience is way to frightening to comprehend the brain compensates by storing it in pieces in different parts of the brain. A bit like the” glass ball “memories in the Pixar movie “Inside Out.”  God, I love that movie! The glass ball shatters into shards. Only parts of that memory will be available at any one time and those memories can spring up suddenly when they are triggered. So, you might say, experience the smell of the perfume of your abuser, or you might not like the sound of the sea as you remember nearly drowning.  We go into the fight, flight, or freeze response. Rather than this “alarm” being triggered when we really need it, we are perpetually in hyper vigilant mode just in case something nasty comes from left field, just like it did when we were kids and unable to control our environment.

This is due to the genetic neurodevelopmental changes to their brain, and/or damage to the parts of the brain involved in processing and protecting us from danger. Our body and brain do not recognise the difference. It is as real and as technicoloured as if it were happening right then and there. Thus, you may see in someone who has a trauma history, have some of these symptoms.

• Overwhelming reactive fear response to a harmless event
• Hyper alert and hyper vigilant to those around them and to the environment.
• Angry outbursts to minor triggers.
• Extreme emotional deregulation with verbal outbursts and verbal abuse.
• Damage to self (self-harm) property or others.
• Avoidance of activities or places that trigger memories of the event

I had a teen once who refused to go swimming as her mother tried to drown her as a child. She also hated needles and would not get the Covid Vaccine, I can leave the rest of this sentence to your imagination! HORRIFIC !

I remember when I was studying counselling, I met a woman who had grown up in a cult in Melbourne. She said that she had suffered extreme abuse and as a result she had developed Dissociate Identity Disorder, a rare and controversial diagnosis. The theory is that the brain has suffered so much childhood developmental trauma that it splits into compartments to cope with the experiences. She said she had “others” who were part of her personality and were there to protect her. One was a child “other”. She said that she was in the shopping centre one day with her carer and that she had “woken up” to find herself sitting on the merry go round outside Target. She was laughing as she was telling  this story, as she could see the humour in it, despite the seriousness of her condition and was also impressed that her brain could do this. It is a massive testament to the creativity and profound ability of our brains to adapt to ensure our survival!

I think often about the children in detention, in places like Don Dale Detention Centre in the NT and children in residential care across Australia and its beggars’ belief that in 2022 we do not understand the impact of trauma on a child’s brain.

So many children in state care or in juvenile detention  do not get the care, compassion, and therapy they need to heal.

I worked with a lovely teen girl who had grown up with abusive drug addicted parents and herself and her siblings were all in state care in Victoria . She used to text me every know and then when I left the state just to chat about her life and what she was doing. We had got along very well. She had a magical sense of humour and used it regularly to help her regulate and self soothe what was a very troubled mind and spirit. I admired her so much. One night she tried to take her life by drinking two bottles of Jim beam, luckily, they found her in time, and she was taken to hospital.

When I asked her subsequently what her had “resi” carers said and done, she said, and I kid you not,  they responded with, she was, “doing it for attention “.

We are beginning to see the need to re dress this issue with a trauma- informed approach starting to be rolled out with the shift in consciousness about what trauma does to the brain based on current research. Trauma-informed care shifts the focus from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” A trauma-informed approach to care acknowledges that health care organizations and care teams need to have a complete picture of a patient’s life situation — past and present — to provide effective health care . Its imperative that we get this right .

What is the difference between trauma therapy and trauma-informed care? “Trauma-specific services” and “trauma-informed care” are sometimes used interchangeably; both provide care for people exposed to traumatic stress. However, trauma-specific services are clinical interventions, whereas trauma-informed care addresses organizational culture and practice. Its a philosophy or ethos that is woven into the fabric of our interventions with traumatized children . Where do we start with a trauma informed approach to our social work? Here are some ideas:

• Relationship relationship, relationship! Building rapport and a connection with the  traumatized child is the first step.
• Empathy, compassion, and great interpersonal skills.
• Find out what interests them
• Be curious about their lives
• Talk to them like you would talk to a friend. Telling them about yourself is un unprofessional! It is part of any healthy relationship when you engage as equals.
• Recall and share funny things that happened to you.
• Ask for their advice and their opinion.
• Know when to step in and step out with supporting
• Patience, sense of humor and playfulness
• Reliable, consistent, and respectful.
• Model what you want them to see as valuable e.g., the skills of great conversation.

Children have often developed the trauma not just from events like a parent dying or a house fire, their trauma is linked to the dysfunction of their relationships. Many have found relationships that were supposed to be loving and nurturing were not, and sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, defined the context of that relationship rather than safety.

It so important that when they enter care or end up in a juvenile detention centre that they are not re-traumatized . They need the care , compassion , support and therapy to help that wounded  inner child to heal . Its time for us to ponder long and hard on that and create safe environments for our children in state care and in the juvenile justice system, otherwise we are just part of the problem and create a further problem to the community when they become adults .  Its makes socio-economical  sense as well as being humane.