TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE IN HIGH STRESS ENVIRONMENTS: SCOPE, CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Abstract

Trauma is an intense form of stress characterized by overwhelming experiences accompanied by a lack of safety, agency and helplessness when exposed to a significant perilous event or series of events (either real or perceived). Unhealed traumas may result in re-traumatisation, triggering memories of the past trauma and reliving trauma all over again in the present moment as if it is happening now. Further, the potential risk for re-traumatisation increases with trauma survivors’ exposure to high-stress environments. Globally, individuals, communities and societies' exposure to traumatic stress is quite common, causing horrendous impacts on biopsychosocial and spiritual domains across life and generations. As a result, to foster basic needs of safety, connection and regulation among trauma survivors in non-clinic settings, Trauma-informed care(TIC) is framed with the basic assumption to 'do no harm' through re-traumatisation, ensured employing of psychoeducation and training for service providers. However, fulfilling these assumptions relies on practical implementation and improvisation of TIC over a period of time across various contexts and levels. Therefore, in this chapter, the authors discuss the scope of TIC, the challenges in its implementation and offer future recommendations.