Trauma-Informed vs Trauma-Focused?: Differences and Similarities

foreign [Music] my name is Dr Scott jacomucci I'm the director of the Phoenix Center for experiential trauma therapy in Media Pennsylvania I am a expert in trauma-informed care and a trauma therapy practitioner educator and researcher today I wanted to take a moment and make a video here about the difference between trauma-informed care and Trauma focused care I feel like the term trauma and form gets thrown around a lot and uh a lot of people aren't using it in the in the way it was intended to be used I feel like we need to have a common language when we're talking about the services that we're offering and really understand what these words mean on a fundamental level so uh this video is going to focus on separating comparing contrasting differentiating trauma-informed services and Trauma Focus Services if you wanted to do a deeper dive into what trauma-informed care is I encourage you to check out some of the other videos on my channel here there's a video on the six trauma informed principles from samsa there's a video on the four r's of trauma-informed care and a video on the 10 agency domains of trauma-informed care so when we talk about trauma-informed care compared to trauma focused care the primary difference is what the focus of the treatment is so trauma focused services are focused on treating trauma complex trauma PTSD and Trauma related issues whereas trauma informed care describes the process by which we provide any type of service or the processes by and policies practices that govern any agency or organization so trauma focus is limited to services that are specifically addressing and treating trauma PTSD cptsd whereas trauma-informed can be applied anywhere in any agency even in non-clinical senses like universities or even Pennsylvania put out a policy I think it was two three years ago at this point declaring that they were going to move towards becoming a trauma-informed state so any system or organization can Implement trauma-informed principles but only agencies that are directly providing services or treatment related to trauma and PTSD can provide trauma focused services so this is the primary difference you could think of trauma informed as being more focused on the process by which we provide services or the process practices policies that govern an agency whereas trauma focused is more about the actual content and nature of what the goals and the treatment is focused on the presenting problems within the services that are provided so uh for example a addictions Treatment Center is not inherently providing trauma-focused Services although I might argue that all addiction treatment is also trauma treatment but at least on the surface a substance use Treatment Center is not providing a trauma focused service unless they have a separate trauma group or or trauma focused lectures or treatments within the the center the center of as a whole is not trauma focused however the center as a whole could Implement trauma-informed care policies principles and practices and operate as a trauma-informed agency even though their primary objective is not to treat trauma their primary objective and goal mission is about treating addiction and substances similarly a university could adopt trauma-informed care principles policies and practices but their goal is about educating students not about providing trauma-focused Services of any kind so this is kind of the fundamental difference between trauma focused trauma-informed Services trauma informed is about the process by which we provide services trauma focused is is describing the content of the services being focused on trauma PTSD so um these two really need to go hand in hand like we can't be providing trauma focused Services trauma therapy trauma treatment programs without also doing it in a way that's trauma-informed I think uh Sandy Bloom has a really poignant quote about this where she says something to the effect of trying to provide trauma therapy or trauma treatment without integrating trauma-informed care principles into the organization is like throwing seeds into a desert hoping that the plants will grow at the the context the environment isn't conducive to the type of environment or setting that we would need to effectively and ethically provide drama-focused services so it's really important that agencies organizations leaders are committed to implementing trauma-informed care and it's not something that is only relevant Irrelevant for therapists or doctors or professional direct service providers trauma-informed care principles fundamentally need to be adapted and integrated at every single level of an organization every aspect of an organization and in every single Department even non-clinical Departments of an organization so trauma-informed care is really relevant for all organizations even for organizations that are not in providing social services or working in the health or Human Services Department uh Fields these principles really describe and embody what it takes to be a healthy organization uh every organization is composed of humans and in every organization whether you realize it or not some of your staff are trauma survivors and and some of your customers are trauma survivors probably your most difficult most difficult customers might actually be folks who are struggling with the pain the hyperarousal the flashbacks dissociation avoidance that comes with PTSD and that comes from trauma and so understanding trauma-informed principles and implementing them in any agency can really improve the quality of the service provided to your community and customers but also the the level of workplace well-being and mental health for your staff so trauma-informed care is relevant for all agencies there was actually a new guidance published by the surgeon general's office United States surgeon general's office about guidance for workplace well-being and mental health which reflects a lot of the same principles outlined in trauma-informed care and in another video on this channel I cover some of the guidance published at the end of 2022 by the surgeon general's office for healthy workplaces if you're interested in that I encourage you to check out that video so trauma informs care is more than just a buzzword to be thrown around it's really something that requires action self-reflection ongoing evaluation and feedback and it's not some it's not a kind of status to achieve and throw on a website and marketing for sure after watching a YouTube video about trauma-informed care or after hiring a consultant to come do a training event once for your staff it's really a a way of being it's a philosophy that guides everything that we do in an organization uh it's a commitment to being uncomfortable a commitment to critical reflection on our policies and practices a commitment to growth a commitment to our staff and a commitment to our community and clients a commitment to continue embodying embracing implementing trauma-informed care and the state of Art state of the art when it comes to trauma-informed treatments ideas really continuing to stay up on our understanding of trauma and how it impacts Us and how we can heal from it or create spaces where we're not harming re-traumatizing or triggering people and this research base is constantly evolving so it really requires an ongoing commitment to stay up to date on it so if you are working if you're an agency leader trauma-informed care is really an important thing to look into and consider committing yourself and your organization too if you're a therapist a practitioner an activist an educator trauma-informed care is also really relevant for guiding you in how you're practicing how you're teaching how you're providing services trying to teach without providing trauma-inform without implementing trauma-informed principles could lead to re-traumatization in the classroom trying to lead Community groups or trying to be an activist without embodying and understanding trauma and its impact and trauma-informed principles might mean that you could unintentionally re-traumatize the community that you're working with or re-traumatize the activists that you're working with who are usually part of the community that's been impacted being a therapist then providing therapy treatment advocacy case management without implementing trauma-informed principles is prone to error we might cause more harm than good so it's really important that we're embodying these six trauma-informed principles I cover them in depth in another video so I'm not going to go into them in depth here but just an overview we have safety as the first trauma-informed principle then we have trust and transparency as a second third one is about peer support fourth one is about collaboration mutuality the fifth trauma-informed principle is about voice choice and empowerment and the sixth and final drama informed principle has to do with issues of identity looking at historic gender and culture issues in addressing them head on so these six trauma-informed principles are really the foundation of trauma-informed care and these six principles are really applicable not only for how we think about our relationship with our clients our community but also how we think about our relationship with our colleagues our staff our leaders our supervisees every human being in the agency so the there's really a parallel process that needs to be considered and how we're implementing trauma-informed principles trauma-informed care in the way we're providing services but also in the way the organization is structured and the relationship between staff and Leadership so there's a lot more we could say about trauma-informed care and I have a book coming out in March 2023 focused on trauma-informed principles which might interest you I encourage you to keep an eye out for that if you wanted to learn more about it I encourage you to check out some of the other videos in the channel here which go into a more in-depth view in this video I wanted to keep it simple to differentiating trauma-informed and Trauma focused services so if you wanted to be alerted whenever new videos on the channel are published posted you could hit the Subscribe button here and uh encourage you to write in the comment section about what you learned from this video what you found helpful or what you think I may have missed or forgot to say in this video because that happens sometimes maybe often too also if you have ideas for future videos if there's topics or information you'd love to see covered in future videos go ahead and put that in the comments as well and I really do hope that you find this video helpful in your work and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Phoenix Trauma Center & Dr Scott Giacomucci

Views: 3,797

Keywords: trauma-informed, trauma-focused, trauma therapy, trauma informed, trauma treatment

Id: YHvDkPf2wco

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 05 2022