debor016

I had a delightful experience this past week. I attended a Focus Group called together through the Connecticut CONCEPT grant. This is a federal grant that Connecticut has received to make the system of care more trauma-informed. This focus group was to question providers about their thoughts on the ways in which the system of care was trauma-informed, and how it could be improved. The Focus Group consisted of about 15 providers, among whom I only knew a couple. What was so moving is that when the questioner asked questions around agency practices that were trauma informed, almost all the agencies started talking about Risking Connection â . The providers spoke of using Risking Connection â as their main staff training vehicle, and requiring it for all staff. They described how RC had changed the way they operate with regard to clients. They spoke so enthusiastically about how important their participation is to them. Another thing that was important to me was that when the questioner ...

I have written before about the development of a siege mentality in treatment programs (10/06/15). In that blog I described trauma-based thinking and its effects on both the clients and the staff. I also wrote a blog post on 9/11/10 entitled When Chaos Breaks Out in which I examined how to address a program that is in trouble. I would like to revisit these issues in a systematic way here. In this post I would like to specifically address the situation in which a program has become demoralized and overwhelmed, and is just trying to make it through the night. Programs in this state rely excessively on the use of force, restraint or intervention teams. Structure and programming are lost. The staff are in a state of fear, and just move from one crisis to another. The staff are often responding to their fear of what could happen if this situation got worse, not what is happening at the moment. The clients are not feeling safe, and thus are acting more aggressive.   For both the staff a...