Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed care seeks to understand and recognize the impact of (often historic) trauma on patients, families, and staff.  When one acknowledges that trauma is a common experience for people, especially marginalized communities and individuals, we can better understand how people communicate and respond to challenging situations. Alina Luna explains the potential impact of trauma in the following video.

Celeste Morales, CARE’s Senior Director of Research and Development, elaborates on trauma-informed care in this series of videos.

The goal of being trauma-informed is to be able to integrate knowledge about trauma into the way you practice, the way you treat clients and staff – as an organization and as an individual provider.

It is important to recognize people as whole beings versus just ‘your next appointment’ or ‘your next client.’ Remembering that each person who walks into the door of your facility – whether clinic or shelter or other – has had life experiences & experiences in medical practices or places where they’ve gone for help is crucial.

It is also important to note that many health care practices and providers have contributed directly to racialized trauma – whether intentional or unintentional. This leads to centuries of the lack of trust and distant relationships between the health care providers and community members.

Without the trust between veterinary staff and clients, we lessen the ability to perform ideal and needed care on our pet patients.

If we look at clients as individuals, with life experiences, we may see a reflection of trauma based on their behavioral reactions.  Thinking in this manner, we can start to make a shift in how we think as the providers and how best we can help that person.  We then become less stressed about the client’s behavior and become more empathetic.

Trauma-informed care seeks to prevent retraumatizing individuals by adopting a trauma-informed approach to care, acknowledging and standing out against the historical and current traumas experienced by clients and staff – especially in communities of color.

“The reason why they went into this field [is because]their vision is to
help people heal, and connect with them in that process, and
Heal themselves and have joy in that process”
– Anonymous