Trauma informed
The Scottish Government and partners have a shared ambition to develop a trauma informed and responsive workforce across Scotland, to support the resilience and recovery of all children, young people and adults affected by trauma.
East Lothian Council has made a commitment to embedding the five principles of trauma informed and responsive practice, which are safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment into all the services that they provide.
It is recognised that people can be affected by trauma at different life stages. To respond to this our staff need an understanding of trauma and how this affects people. We offer trauma informed training to all staff across the council so they can develop the knowledge and skills required to do this.
Trauma is often defined as "an event, a series of events or a set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening". It can be something that happens once, such as assault or sudden bereavement, a serious accident, or a complex trauma that takes place over a prolonged period of time, such as child abuse, or different forms of violence including domestic abuse. Trauma can be experienced at any stage or stages in a person’s life, and they can then find it difficult to trust people and can find it hard to get on in life and be safe. It can also make it difficult for them to seek help.
Trauma is more common than most people think. It’s estimated that around 60% of the UK population has experienced trauma in their lifetime, for more vulnerable groups of people, the figure is even higher.
Being ‘trauma informed’ means that our staff will be able to:
- recognise where people are affected by trauma and adversity
- respond in ways that prevent further harm by thinking about what will make the people that we work with feel safe
- empower the people that we work with to have control and take an active role in what happens to them
- be clear about what will happen