Trauma Reality
A critical component of trauma is that the person’s response involves intense fear, helplessness or horror.
This issue brief defines trauma, then discusses the trauma foster kids may go through and how caregivers and social workers should be ready to help. It is part of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative issue brief series.
Initially, we believed only men experienced trauma after catastrophic wars and physical injury. By the 1960s, trauma included the abuse of women, children and adolescents. Foster care itself may cumulatively add to the impact by severing important relationships and bonds, further traumatizing kids as they are removed from family, school and community.