Trauma-Informed Care for Churches and Why it's Important
Seven times in the first chapter of the Bible, God declares everything that has been created as “Good.” With the last of the seven declarations, God sees all that he has created, including humans, and God says, ‘It was very good.” The first time something is deemed “not good” is in the second chapter of the Bible when God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” In other words, the absence of human relationship opposes that which is good. Relational disconnection is antithetical to the good life.
The cost of disconnection is so apparent in the world of foster care. We often see families and children so broken down from their experiences that relational disconnection is the norm. We see kids that have developed survival tools that help them get by in the absence of healthy relationships. Further trouble comes when these kids and families interact with institutions and organizations that expect something different from them. Schools, churches, sports clubs, and other organizations can end up re-traumatizing children because their learned survival tools now make them the “bad kid.”
Before I joined Skookum Kids staff, I worked as a children’s and youth pastor. We had a lot of foster children come to Sunday school, and I can think of times when I made life more difficult for a child because they were living out of the disconnection that they had experienced while I expected them to live from a place of healthy connection. My expectations did not match the experience and skillset of the child that I was tasked to care for, and that led to more disconnection. For example, there were times when I would ask their foster parent to pick up the child early while citing the child’s behavior; but the real issue was often my mismatched expectations and inability to compassionately redirect the child. It is so easy in situations like Sunday school, youth group, or a classroom, to miss out on helping a child develop healthy connections without the proper training.
As the Skookum Staff in Central Washington developed a Trauma Informed Care Training for the Ellensburg Police Department we began to ask, “Who else should receive this training?” With my own ministry experiences in mind, my first response to this question was churches. Specifically, people at churches that work with kids and adolescents. In the coming months, conversations with various churches began to bring Trauma Informed Care Training to youth volunteers, and our staff got busy to adapt our previous training to suit the needs of church volunteers. Skookum’s mission is to involve whole communities in the work of foster care so we love it when local pastors and church volunteers are excited about caring for children in foster care better!
Sunday, November 20th marked our first training. We had 17 volunteers at the training that learned about trauma’s impact on the brain, picked up practical tools to care for children who have experienced trauma, and practiced the new tools in interactive activities. It was a great start to our training partnership with churches and we hope to expand our reach to include even more of the Central Washington community in the work of foster care!
Interested in bringing Trauma Informed Care training to your church or work place? Reach out to info@skookumkids, I would love to make that a reality!
Written by Nick Faucett, Former Skookum Staff Member