Listen to this powerful video clip…click here… Quote from this site…
“No one is immune to the impact of trauma. Trauma affects the individual, families, and communities by disrupting healthy development, adversely affecting relationships, and contributing to mental health issues including substance abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. Everyone pays the price when a community produces multi-generations of people with untreated trauma by an increase in crime, loss of wages, and threat to the stability of the family.”
Trauma Informed Care is Within Reach! Quote from this site.
“Research tells us that experiencing traumatic life events can affect the way people learn, plan, and interact with others. Providing human services to individuals who have experienced trauma calls for an approach that takes into consideration their trauma histories. This guide is designed for professional human services providers to help them decide if their services are trauma-informed and how best to deliver and design those services using evidence-based, evidence-informed, and innovative practices most relevant to their needs.”
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For me, the most encouraging news for children and families in these past few years is we know how trauma impacts the way we live, learn, and interact with others. During the past 6 six years since researching and writing my books, Reconciliation: A Son’s Story, and My Journey of Healing in Life After Trauma, Part2, I have observed a huge investment on the part of communities everywhere, with great support on a national level, both public and private, to address the full impact of post traumatic stress on society. We now know trauma is a generational disease that can affect families for decades, even unborn children. The research and evidence is indisputable.
In the beginning my research and writing was limited to understanding PTSD and the effect on my own post WWII and Korean War military family experience. Although tackling a painful research project of revisiting the impact of growing up in a profoundly dysfunctional home was emotionally challenging at best, the end result was keen awareness, which led to forgiveness and healing. I have discovered in my research how the wars we fight abroad come home to haunt families and loved ones at the dinner table. We can no longer be silent as a society and allow our children to inhale the pain of their parents who suffer and expect these kids to grow up as typical healthy adults. It is not just the wars we fight that haunt us for generations, it is violence in neighborhoods, crime, alcohol, drugs, and anger that feeds more violence and dysfunctional behaviors. More seriously, these behaviors can carry forward to the next generation, over and over and over again.
We can stop the cycle of pain in its tracks by making the discussion and treatment of mental health disorders, alcohol and drug abuse as acceptable as cancer and heart disease treatment. I can say as an aging boomer whose life changed after learning about the enormously painful impact of post traumatic stress and the wide ranging implications, that seeing a trauma informed society emerge in my lifetime is a gift. It gives me peace of mind to believe that we can actually eliminate the stigma of mental illness in my lifetime.
All we have to do now is make it happen in our communities, schools, churches, and with the families most affected…often those who are less fortunate than us. Click on the trauma informed resources guide link, here…
