Trauma-Informed Primary Healthcare for Parents: Multidisciplinary Experiences in Rural Service Implementation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Trauma-informed approaches to service delivery increase awareness of the pervasiveness of trauma exposure and acknowledge the lifelong effects of traumatic stress on health and wellbeing. This study explored workforce experiences of trauma-informed primary healthcare for parents. A face-to-face workshop was conducted with 14 Victorian rural professionals in 2021. Local workforce survey results (n = 63) about trauma-informed care were presented to the group (50% social workers) and they discussed strategies for system implementation. Content analysis was used to develop four categories from the transcribed workshop discussion: (1) primary healthcare understanding of complex trauma; (2) primary healthcare responses to parents; (3) trauma-informed care training; and (4) community and relational strategies to foster trauma-informed care. Our findings highlighted that structural barriers relating to resource control and restrictive program design negatively impact trauma-informed approaches. In contrast, trauma-informed service delivery is enabled by collaboration and building relationships between clients, the workforce, and organisations. In discussing these findings, we draw upon notions of power: namely, discursive, epistemic, and material power, which affect equity. To ensure the client’s voice is prioritised when planning trauma-informed care, we recommend the integration of local knowledge and the embedding of community-based strategies throughout all implementation processes. IMPLICATIONS Preparation for trauma-informed care implementation in rural primary healthcare requires strategies to identify and address structural barriers. Increased use of implementation frameworks would enhance multidisciplinary innovation in trauma-informed practice and adaptation when supporting parents. Employing a typology of discursive, epistemic, and material power to implementation processes has beneficial application in social work to challenge systemic reproduction of inequity.