SPARK CLINIC: SUPPORTING PROTECTING AND RESPECTING KIDS
Trauma Informed Care
A traumatic event is a frightening, dangerous or violent event that poses a threat to a child’s life or body integrity. Trauma can result from adversities such as community violence, natural disasters, unintentional injuries, terrorism, racism, immigrant or refugee traumas and/or those involving the caregiving relationship such as intimate partner violence, parental substance use, parental mental illness, caregiver death, separation from a caregiver, neglect or abuse – originally defined as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
Pediatricians are likely to be the first, and often only, professionals who encounter the nearly two thirds of American children who have experienced trauma and have the greatest potential for early identification and response to childhood trauma.”
-Excerpt from the American Academy of Pediatrics
If you would like to read more about caring for children and youth who have experienced significant trauma, here are a few excellent websites and links:
Trauma Resources for Families (aap.org)
Download and share the infographics to help families and caregivers learn how to address challenges of parenting when they or their children have experienced trauma.
Safe and Sound: Helping Children Who Have Experienced Trauma and Adversity (aap.org)
This series of resources is designed to help children who have experienced trauma and adversity, by helping their parents, caregivers, and other adults in their lives understand how that early trauma may have affected them.
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
This organization is funded by the Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
HealthyChildren.org
Trauma-Informed Care: Core Mission in Child Health Systems