Creating a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System
Each year, there are more than 500,000 children living in out-of-home child welfare placements. It is well established that abused and neglected children suffer from short- and long-term psychological and behavioral difficulties. Among youth in the foster care system, it is estimated that more than half experience at least one significant psychological disorder, including depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social phobia, panic syndrome, or drug dependence. The most common sources of traumatic experiences for children who become involved in the child welfare system are abuse, neglect, and domestic violence. Many children in the child welfare system are exposed to multiple or complex traumas. What is more, children are often further traumatized by their involvement with the child welfare system itself. Common causes of such system-induced trauma include repeated, insensitive, or humiliating interviews; unnecessary ruptures of family, extended family, and community relationships; repeated changes of placement; confrontations with abusers; and court testimony. There is growing attention to the need to create trauma-informed child welfare systems that are more aware of and responsive to the needs of vulnerable and traumatized children. Most recently, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) has described services that are designed to reduce the impact of trauma on the child and family as trauma-informed services.
The above is excerpted from an article by psychologist Robyn Ingelman and is published in the most recent edition of Focal Point. It discusses the need to create a trauma-informed child welfare system and provides recommendations for future directions in the field. Read the rest of the article online and join our discussion.
Questions:
Have you ever experienced system induced trauma?
Have you ever been part of a system that delivered "services" that actually traumatized children and families?
How could systems fulfill their missions or mandates and avoid these kinds of situations?
What are the some ways the Child Welfare System can make children feel safe?
How can we best educate child welfare staff on how to work with traumatized youth?
In your eyes, what would trauma-informed services look like?
As always, we encourage you to share your views on this topic, and look forward to your responses.
Your thoughts…
Comments:
 The Child "Welfare" system often abuses and neglects children in its "care". One child from Florida was lost by the system. Many children are more abused in the system than they are at home. Children are often removed for very minor reasons, such as their parents having messy homes, by predominantly white, middle class social workers who have cultural biases. These children are often labeled as "mentally ill", often so that the system can get more money. These children are pathologized as "mentally ill" for normal reactions of children to being separated from their parents, such as feeling sad or frightened. These children are then given drugs to make them more controllable. Foster care systems, such as those in Texas and Florida, have been found administering antipsychotics to children under their "care" in off-label uses. These children did not have actual psychoses, but they were merely drugged to make them more controlable, according to a report by former Texas comptroller Carol Keaton Strayhorn. This report is titled "Forgotten Children". These antipsychotics carry the risk of permanent brain damage, according to the International Center for the Study of Psychology and Psychiatry. They have also been implicated of causing gynecomastia, an abnormal development of breasts, in young boys. Even atypical antipsychotics carry the risk of tardive dyskinesia, if you read the warnings in advertisements for ariprazole, also referred to as Abilify. Tardive dyskinesia is a Parkinsonlike condition related to brain damage induced by antipsychotic drugs, according to the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, a group of dissident mental health professionals. Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 06:16 PM
There is so much I want to say here, I will be back when I get my thoughts more clear on what I want to post, just for now want to say thank you for having this board and giving parents a real opportunity to speak out and share what we "know". Some of us are professional advocates now so we are making a place for ourselves at the table and have been trying hard to make it for a long time now. Seems to me like someone is actually listening? Thank you. Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 03:49 PM
Post a Comment:
Return to
Current Featured Discussions Page Top |
