Treating Trauma With Respectful Care

WJCS’ Treatment Center for Trauma and Abuse has been a pioneer in treating sexual abuse and trauma for 35 years and during the past three years has embarked on an initiative to put the “trauma-informed” stamp on the entire agency.

What does “trauma-informed” mean? Its core principles require ensuring that our clients feel safe, emotionally and physically, in our settings; that they know what to expect, and feel they have a voice in their treatment and how it unfolds. And, that these conditions are met whether in our mental health clinics, after-school programs, group residences for people with disabilities or services for older adults.

WJCS’ transformation was largely influenced by a pivotal 2003 study that looked at 13,000 people in San Diego, CA, who during their annual physicals with primary care doctors were asked to fill out 10-item questionnaires asking about their exposure to physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, parental substance abuse and parental incarceration. 

The results were truly earth shattering. A full 67% of people reported exposure to at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), with the most common being parental substance abuse. Additionally, as people had more than one ACE, their risk for poor physical health and mental health outcomes increased.   

This upended ideas about trauma or deeply distressing or disturbing experiences. It make brought a realization that trauma is widespread and shifted the focus for people with negative health outcomes from “What’s the matter with you?” to “What happened to you?” This helped reduce stigma and shame about having traumatic experiences and normalized trauma as something that happens to many people. It also required that we should act respectfully to all people because there are trauma survivors that we know about, ones we don’t know about, and those affected by their relationships with trauma survivors. That leaves very few people remaining unaffected by trauma in some way. 

We are not so different from the people we treat and serve. We acknowledge that all of us at WJCS need to understand about trauma and traumatic reactions, and how to be kind to ourselves and the people who often come to us for a chance to address their challenges and improve their lives. We are so grateful to the Blumenthal family for giving us financial support so we can dedicate ourselves to the mission of truly becoming trauma-informed, from top to bottom.