debor016

Jenna’s mentor just called and her therapist, Eileen, is talking to the mentor before transferring the call to Jenna. But she can hardly hear what the mentor is saying because Jenna is banging on her door. “That’s my call!!” Jenna yells. “Stop talking with her!” This feels like the last straw to Eileen. Can’t Jenna just give her a minute? Jenna is always so demanding. Whatever she wants, she wants it now. She asks for the same thing over and over. If there is a delay, she becomes angry and starts calling Eileen belittling names. This makes Eileen less interested in doing whatever Jenna is asking for. Whenever Eileen is involved with one of the other girls, Jenna interferes. She doesn’t have any friends because she is just as demanding and bossy with her peers. Really, Eileen has taken Risking Connection© training and has been inspired to understand her client’s behavior as trauma related. This has helped her respond to Marcelis’s cutting, and Tenisha’s running away. But this constant o...

Foster parents are a precious resource in our child welfare system. They offer traumatized children what they need most: a loving family. The best thing that could happen to a child who has been wounded is to live with a family that loves him, accepts him, and sticks with him. Foster parents come into their role from all walks of life and for every possible reason. Every family constellation is represented. Some foster parents are relatives of the child, or have known him in some previous capacity. Many have experienced their own traumas and see providing foster care as their way to give back. Being a foster parent to a trauma surviving child is quite different from being a staff in a treatment facility. You are in your own home, and there is no immediate backup. You may have other members of your immediate family present, such as your biological children. You are trying to integrate the child into your actual life, your extended family, your neighborhood, your favorite activities. Chi...

We are beginning to implement some of Bruce Perry's new brain science on one of our units. This is a document I prepared for staff on that unit. You are the most important source of change for this child. You can create this change through your every day relationships. Your most essential job is to change that child’s expectations of relationships from: Relationships bring me pain and can’t be trusted to: Relationships bring me pleasure and can help me get what I need. You do this by providing pleasurable experiences for the child, and participating positively in these activities. Since “what fires together wires together” the child will begin to associate pleasure with adults. You make it possible for the child to get better at feeling happy, safe, noticed and connected by providing opportunities for him to feel this way, offering him opportunities to practice feeling good. You have the chance to build the child’s brain and increase his bodily regulation by involving him in rhy...

I received a call last week from a woman who is a relatively new CEO of one of the agencies we have trained. She had discovered that her agency had a policy that clients once discharged are not allowed to have contact with the agency for two years. She asked if this seemed consistent with trauma informed care. My answer is no. Why did we all have these policies once? The time frame may have differed… six months, a year… but contact and return visits were forbidden for some period of time. It was explained to me that contact was not allowed in order to help the clients form new relationships. If they had contact with their former treaters this would block the new relationships in their next setting. We don’t apply these odd ideas to ourselves or our own children. If you start a new job are you forbidden to talk to anyone at your previous job? When your daughter goes to college do you forbid her to talk to any of her childhood friends, or to her family, in order to encourage the formatio...