I’m sooooo excited this week! In my email was great news I believe will help hurting kids and their families. A Trauma Informed Care victory for students in Pennsylvania schools.
I’m thankful for all the hard work of legislators who pushed Trauma Informed Educational Practices into law. This article says state Rep. Christina Sappey penned the bill which was recently signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf. While there are governmental laws recently put into place for TIC, this new law provides guidelines for schools.
While it feels like I beat my own little trauma drum with my family, clients, colleagues so often my little ones even have trauma informed care (TIC) acronym jokes. I do this because I believe it’s important. Some people sometimes even get annoyed as they begin to practice TIC when I remind them of the patience and self-care required in trauma healing.
This PA legislation just the beginning but it is encouraging. It will take hard work but we need to move forward this educational agenda to help hurting children and youth who are often misunderstood.
What is Trauma Informed Care anyway?
Many people ask:
“What does that trauma stuff mean anyway?” or my favorite,
“You’re just coddling those kids, they need to get over it…I did!”
As a counselor I often feel more like a trauma translator. Helping people realize there are other solutions. What I appreciate is when caregivers and service providers need solutions and become curious enough to ask:
“What difference does it make if we try trauma informed care?”
Trauma Informed Care in practice may promote a significant difference in a child’s life.
It may support their emotional healing and enhance their developmental growth.
Let me ask you.
What does it feel like when you feel people actually “understand” what you are saying? When they “get” you? How does that motivate you to communicate more with them?
Let’s be honest. We as people typically enjoy feeling loved, appreciated, and listened to. Although grace is an oversimplification of TIC, it is the heart behind the philosophy. Plus,there is a ton of neuropsychology brain science and neurobiology data supporting the practice of TIC to heal ACES. ACES are the adverse childhood events researchers use to describe those significant challenging things that happens when someone is a kid. Explaining ACES and the science behind trauma healing is another story and not critical to begin.
Implementation of Trauma Informed Care (TIC) is Definitely a Journey
After explaining some of the science briefly, I help the caregivers and service providers slow down long enough to find out “what happened to the child” before responding aggressively to their angry outbursts. Loving them anyway before requiring necessary consequences. With my own six kids, I definitely get tons of practice. Learning to apply TIC is a character-building journey for the caregiver.It may also require us to investigate why we respond the way we do.
Research is showing us how effective TIC can make educational practices more effective… slowly. I know it will take a “minute” to trickledown in schools. The school wide implementation process can be daunting and take years. Motivated individuals however can equip themselves on how to provide Trauma Informed Care to those they support and educate.
For now let’s celebrate that PA is catching up. Yayyyy!
