Trauma-informed practice to support young people experiencing extra-familial harm
This collection of video resources shares the developing findings of the Innovate Project, about how social care and other safeguarding agencies are innovating to address extra-familial risk and harm.
The Innovate Project is a four-year UK study funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) which is exploring how social care and other safeguarding agencies are innovating to address harms that young people may encounter and experience beyond the family home (including online). Find out more about the trauma-informed strand of the Project.
In these video clips, Professor Kristine Hickle and Dr. Roni Eyal-Lubling share developing findings from the Innovate Project about how trauma-informed practice is being used to support young people experiencing extra-familial risk and harm. They explore the challenges that may hinder innovation and the potential benefits of taking a trauma-informed approach.
The challenges of implementing trauma-informed practice
Professor Kristine Hickle reflects on the challenges of implementing a trauma-informed approach as an organisation. She also talks about the challenge of practicing in a trauma-informed way without organisational support and the role of senior leadership in developing trauma-informed approaches.
(Length: 10 minutes)
The possibilities when taking a trauma-informed approach with young people experiencing extra-familial harm
Dr. Roni Eyal-Lubling discusses the potential benefits when taking a trauma-informed approach in response to young people experiencing extra-familial risk and harm. She shares an example of a panel meeting that took a trauma-informed approach, and then three possibilities that trauma-informed practice allowed in the organisations that took part in the project.
(Length: 11 minutes)
Reflective questions
- How might you know if your organisation or team were responding in a trauma-informed way to young people experiencing extra-familial harm?
- What needs to change in order to create spaciousness, belonging and collective responsibility in your organisation and multi-agency system?
- In your own practice, what is the relationship between curiosity and flexibility, and your capacity to work in a trauma-informed way?
About the presenters
Professor Kristine Hickle is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Sussex. She originally trained as a social worker in the US. Her research has particularly centred on child sexual exploitation and human trafficking and she has been providing trauma-focused group interventions for victims of sexual violence for the last 12 years.
Dr. Roni Eyal-Lubling is a social worker-sociologist whose research and practice are situated at the intersection of several bodies of knowledge – youth studies, feminist social work, poverty and social marginalization, labour market participation, and intergenerational relations. Roni has substantial research and practice experience with young adults at risk, particularly marginalized adolescent girls and young women, and she co-founded the Youth Studies Community under the Israeli Sociological Association.
Professional Standards
PCF - Contexts and organisations | Professional leadership
Trauma-informed approaches with young people: Frontline Briefing (2018)
An introduction to trauma research for practitioners working with young people whose experiences (either earlier in their childhood and/or presently) may lead to complex traumatic responses across the lifespan.
Making trauma-informed practice a reality: Video learning resources
These videos focus on an organisational approach to trauma-informed practice.
What do we mean by trauma?
Dr. Danny Taggart shares two definitions of trauma from the psychologists Peter Sedgwick and Bessel van der Kolk and examines the implications of these definitions for social care practice.
Working with trauma-experienced parents in children’s social care: Video Learning Resources
This learning programme has been developed to support children’s social care practitioners working with parents who have experienced complex and/or sustained trauma. The programme is made up of 11 film chapters – each exploring a different theme and designed to be worked through in order. As you work through each chapter you will learn more about how trauma affects the people you work with.
