Therapeutic Framework
At Strive, we recognise that providing care for children and young people is not easy and nor should it be.
The decision to remove a child from the care of their parents and placed into an Out of Home Care setting is one that Child Protective Services do not make lightly. It requires hard evidence that the child was and would continue to have been at risk of significant harm had removal not been actioned.
Sadly, by the time children are removed, they bring with them the legacies of trauma in response to the repeated and prolonged exposure to abuse.
Trauma occurs when one’s defence mechanisms are overwhelmed in response to an event/s that is experienced as harmful, threatening or overwhelming. It leads to a maladaptive internalisation of the event/s which in turn disrupt healthy development, and brain performance in regions that are related to emotions, behaviour, and executive functioning (Lizeretti, Extremera, & Rodriguez, 2012; SAMHSA, 2012; Suleiman, 2008; van der Kolk, 2014).
Trauma behaviours, also known as ’pain-based behaviours’ are often confronting. They can present it in ways that are challenging for people to understand, i.e. physical aggression. It is therefore not surprising that children in Out of Home Care experience multiple placement breakdowns, have poor outcomes in education and are significantly overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.
At Strive, we are committed to work within a trauma-informed community that acknowledges behaviour of opposition, aggression and defiance as the consequence of disrupted development in key regions of the brain that demand a responsive, empathetic approach whose support is delivered through systems of rehabilitation.
Our understanding of trauma, trauma-informed care and pathways to recovery are informed by Contemporary Trauma Theory. It is a theoretical framework that acknowledges the link between childhood trauma experiences and- impacts to mental health, brain development, disrupted attachment and a tremendous impact on future violence victimisation and perpetration, lifelong health and access to opportunity.
Trauma Theory
Childhood Trauma “overwhelms the ordinary human adaptation to life” (Herman, 1992, p. 33) and the person’s sense of control, which may lead to maladaptive internalisations of the event often resulting in the disturbance to healthy development, and brain performance in regions that are related to emotions, behaviour, and executive functioning (Lizeretti, Extremera, & Rodriguez, 2012; SAMHSA, 2012; Suleiman, 2008; van der Kolk, 2014).
Contemporary Trauma Theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding the impact trauma has on a person’s functioning, and is based on the following central properties:
Dissociation
Attachment
The disconnection between a person's sensory experience, thoughts, sense of self, or personal history; an escape from the situation when physical escape in not possible.
Re-enactment
Disrupted ability to develop healthful interpersonal relationships and to establish trust (O’Connor & Elklit, 2008; Siegal, 2010; Tarren-Sweeney, 2013).
A phenomenon in which survivors seek relationships and display behaviours that re-enact the original traumatic event (Courtois & Ford, 2016).
Long-term effect on later adulthood
Complex Trauma diminishes the basic sense of self and leads to destruction of intrapersonal and interpersonal capacities (Courtois, 2008; Herman, 1992; Lewis, 2012; Ringel & Brandell, 2012; Salovey & Sluyter, 1997; Shapiro, 2012; van der Kolk, 2014; Williams, 2006).
Impairment in emotional capacities
Emotional numbing and the breakdown of the self-regulatory system are direct impacts of trauma on the brain and on the adaptive functioning of the limbic system, the part of the brain that supports a variety of functions, including the emotional life (Badenoch, 2008; Salovey & Sluyter, 1997; Siegal, 1999; van der Kolk, 2014).
Victims of Childhood Trauma display compromised ability to regulate their moods and their emotional responses as adults, including the ability to identify emotions in self and others, to understand emotions, and to self-regulate, which may lead to dissociation and dissociative identity disorder in extreme cases of abuse (Levendosky & Buttenheim, 2010; Mészáros, 2010; Salovey & Sluyter, 1997; Schutte, Malouff, & Hine, 2011; Shapiro, 2010).
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