Trauma informed care needed across sectors

Understanding life-changing trauma that can affect people’s behaviour is a key to delivering more effective care, say nursing tutors Helen Bingham and Tara Malone.

The WITT tutors say the recent release of the report on the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care has highlighted the urgent need for training in trauma informed care across a wide range of health and support agencies.

The pair developed and have taught the Trauma Informed Care micro-credential at WITT – a unique programme in Aotearoa – for the past four years.

In this time, they have delivered the programme to an increasingly diverse cohort, from health professionals to education, justice, corrections and policing staff.

Tara says the Abuse in Care report “confirms my belief that trauma informed care should become mandatory training for anyone working in health, social services, justice and education contexts. This includes all educators - early, primary, secondary, tertiary, the Ministry of Social Development, probation, foster carers – the list is endless.

Body/mind connection

• Trauma informed care recognises the intrinsic link between the brain and body.
• Trauma includes multi-generational impacts of colonisation.

“Trauma impacts our mental and physical health,” Helen says. “Research shows that if you’ve experienced trauma, you’re more likely to experience depression, anxiety and addiction as well as a heart disease, diabetes, cancer, shorter life expectancy.”

“It’s recognized internationally that trauma experienced both in the first 2000 days of life [from conception] and or at any stage in life can have an impact on brain architecture and function.”

Knowledge of trauma’s impact can bring a profound shift and lead to a deeper, more compassionate understanding of a patient/student/client's needs. And it's key to identifying approaches to treatment that really work for that individual, Helen says. 

Research in this area started around 40 years ago but current health care practice doesn’t yet capture all that has been discovered, she adds. Interactions and interventions are based on understanding biological science and recognises that the body experiences trauma.

“We were asked by the mental health unit [at the Taranaki Base Hospital] to do a package for them around trauma informed care – and that’s where we started. So, we developed the micro credential for nurses at the local hospital. It’s now attracted people from different places – we’ve had police, people from the justice system, education, physios, and other professionals are coming, because once you understand what’s happening in somebody’s brain you can then make some choices about how you’re going to work with them.”

Cultivating compassion around trauma

Understanding the impact of trauma can challenge and change a professional’s way of practice, say Helen and Tara, who presented a session on Trauma Informed Care at the Te Manawa Taki Regional Addiction Workforce Symposium held in Taranaki recently.

“Students notice more about the patients when they’re out in practice,” says Helen. “Their compassion comes through because they understand that person’s not bad, they’ve had experiences that have led them to how they are today.”

“The attitude of ‘what is wrong with you’ changes to ‘what has happened to you’”.     

Helen and Tara have co-authored a research paper titled Trauma-informed care and workforce attitudes among healthcare professionals, which will be published in the Kaitiaki Nursing Research Journal in December 2024.

Their research set out to understand if an educational intervention, in which people with experience of mental illness and addiction share their stories with nursing students, resulted in those students expressing empathy and compassion.

Pictured: Nursing tutors Tara Malone and Helen Bingham