Trauma-informed practice: What is it and how do we *actually* integrate it in our work at Violet Co?
By: Amanda Matthews, Karen Iles and the Violet Co team
This post deals with sexual assault and sex, gender and race discrimination and might be triggering for some readers.
“For survivors of sexual assault, the first thing that we need is to feel safe. Whether you a client speaking to a lawyer, are a student talking to your friends about your experience, or telling your manager at work about an incident with a client, like all survivors, we need to feel like our trauma is identified and acknowledged from the beginning and that every decision is made with the impact of our trauma as front of mind. This is what it means to feel seen and heard.” Amanda Matthews, Paralegal Violet Co
The concept of Trauma-informed practice is getting a lot of attention - and rightfully so! It is widely considered best practice for providing the highest level of care and support for services that are tailored to survivors of sexual assault as well as other types of violence. As legal practitioners and victim-survivor advocates we aspire to work in a client-centred way. We help our clients achieve justice - in whatever way that looks like for them.
We work with businesses, organisations and individuals
Violet Co works with businesses and organisations who are looking to strengthen their approach to responding to sexual harassment, sexual assault, gender or race-based discrimination. We weave trauma-informed, survivor-centred approaches into our work. In providing solutions to our clients we can apply transformative (or restorative) mediation, workplace capacity and capability, trauma-informed workplace investigations, and employment law.
Working with individual victim-survivors, the Violet Co team assumes that our clients have experienced trauma. We integrate trauma-informed approaches into all that we do. We recognise how important it is for our clients to feel safe, heard and believed, and to be fully informed of all of their options to enable empowered, informed, decision making.
What is Trauma-Informed Practice?
The Buffalo Centre for Social Research reports that Trauma-Informed Practice ‘assumes that it is more likely than not that a client has experienced trauma’. Trauma-informed Practice is a response that recognises, respects and responds to the multilevel impacts of trauma.
The Blue Knot Foundation report that there are six core principles of trauma-informed practice:
Basic knowledge of the impacts of stress on the brain and body
Consistent emphasis on safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment (emphasis on doing with rather than for or to)
Consistent emphasis on the way in which a service is provided (i.e. the `how’ as much as the `what’; the context in which services are delivered, not just what the service is)
Consistent emphasis on what may have happened to a client, rather than what is `wrong’ with client/s
Recognition that `difficult’ behaviour and/or `symptoms’ may be the product of coping mechanisms and attempted self-protection in light of prior adverse experiences. If not seen through the lens of trauma, client behaviour is `often and inappropriately labelled as pathological, when [it] should instead be viewed as adaptations a person has had to make in order to cope with life’s circumstances’
A `strengths-based’ approach which acknowledges people’s skills, notwithstanding the enormity and effects of overwhelming experiences with which they may be struggling (`Recognising and promoting resilience is also a fundamental component of effective trauma-informed work’)
“Becoming trauma-informed means being attuned to all aspects of a service and how it is delivered (i.e. formal and informal; from policy and procedure, to first contact interactions and the manner in which clients are engaged.” Blue Knot Foundation
Importantly, trauma-informed practice is client-focused
Justice can be client-centered, directed and transformative. We work from a strengths-based approach. We know that all victims/survivors demonstrate profound resilience in the face of the often enormous and overwhelming trauma they have experienced. We work alongside our clients to illuminate their personal strengths and the options most comfortable and appropriate to their unique circumstances. The same goes for our work with businesses and organisations - we build out options and solutions together based on an understanding of a victim/survivor centred perspective.
To be client-focused and working in a trauma-informed way by its very nature means to be invested in ‘doing no harm’ - avoiding re-traumatisation.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that trauma-informed practice refers to “recognising trauma signs and symptoms and the potential paths to recovery and integrating our realisation into policies, procedures, and practices as a response to actively resist re-traumatisation.” This goes for our work with individuals just as much as it speaks to the work that businesses and organisations can do to transform their approaches.
Why do we choose to actively integrate trauma-informed approaches, philosophies and practices into the way we work?
It is about keeping people who have experienced trauma safe, and about achieving the best outcomes for them.
For businesses or organisations it is about keeping your team members collaborating with Violet Co safe while at the same time working together to embed a victim/survivor centred perspective into your workplace and organisational responses.
As a social enterprise focused on working with, and for, women and Indigenous peoples, we integrate these principles into our day to day work. As women, and for a few of us at Violet Co, Aboriginal women, we need to apply a trauma-informed approach for ourselves!
“As a survivor I’ve been a client myself. The difference in the outcomes you are able to achieve is out of this world when your lawyer, psychologist, human resources manager etc, understands trauma. You notice it. It allows you to open up, examine an issue, understand the possibilities and then make informed choices about your next steps. By having a survivor-centred perspective businesses and organisations are able to design workplace practices that are responsive. They recognise trauma as something that happens to someone, not because of who they are, what they did or a ‘problem’ they have. It allows for solutions that can transform a business, organisation, or for individuals; what justice looks like.” Karen Iles, Director & Principal Solicitor Violet Co
How does Violet Co *actually* work with our clients in a trauma informed way?
We have built into our legal and consulting practice the key elements of trauma-informed practice detailed by the Blue Knot Foundation and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
We place the emphasis on our clients safety, our trustworthiness and our clients choices to collaborate together for empowerment. We care about “how” we discuss things just as much as “what” we discuss.
Safety
Creating a physically, emotionally and culturally safe environment for our clients is the first step. At Violet Co we work with clients in the way they feel comfortable, and in the setting they feel most comfortable. We recognise that stress impacts the brain and body and it is normal to experience fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses.
We ask in advance what it is that will make our clients feel most comfortable in a meeting. It might be making sure there is a warm drink or a yummy piece of banana bread on hand, a relaxed environment, the ability to do the meeting in your most comfy daggy clothes possible (and your Ugg boots), a heat pack - you name it and we will work with you to make it happen. We send out our “Client Consultation Form” ahead of our first meeting to learn these details in preparation for consultations. This applies to our business, organisational and individual clients equally!
Trustworthiness
Building trust with our clients includes outlining our confidentiality and privacy obligations. In legal matters it will involve a client agreement so that we are on the same page about how we will work together, and to what end.
Discussing sexual assault, gender or race based violence, harassment or discrimination with clients who are managing instances at a workplace level, or have experienced it directly, is sensitive. As such we make sure we are clear about the times and places that we will come together to talk about it. We do not call clients out of the blue to speak about their matter when they are at work, on the bus or at the shops - talk about #awkward! Rescheduling appointments will only happen where absolutely necessary - we appreciate that our clients need to “get in the right headspace” and that rescheduling can compound trauma.
Choice
Autonomy and choice is crucial to self-determination. At Violet Co, we understand that justice looks different for everyone. We explore options with our clients. Ultimately, it is up to our clients what it is, if anything, that they want to do.
Options include workplace (e.g. investigation), policy, structural and strategic, disclosing/reporting, alternative dispute resolution (e.g. mediation), administrative, civil and criminal options. This way our clients can make fully informed decisions about what is best for them and their circumstances - whether they are an individual, business or organisation.
Collaboration
For us collaborative, client-centred, relationships are essential. Collaboration can provide a sense of ownership over option generation and decision making. It recognises that our clients have the lived experience - they are the experts about their business, organisation or life. We do not seek to be the expert - rather a partner, with specific skills and subject matter expertise, to assist and collaborate with to arrive at the destination.
Empowerment
We recognise and validate our client’s strengths and the work they have done already and build on them. Each business, organisation or individual is on a journey. Not everything can be achieved at once - and there are often interconnected threads. By recognising the steps that have already been taken, and by recognising the resilience that can take, allows us to build a collaborative, client-centred relationship where we hope to support empowered decision making and solutions. We aspire for our clients to become stronger through the process of working with us.
As lawyers and victim-survivor advocates, we recognise how important it is to feel safe, heard, believed, and to be fully informed of all of your options to achieve what justice looks like for you or how your business or organisation can respond. Please reach out via email to talk through how we can work together. office@violetco.com.au
To learn more about how the Violet Co team work in a trauma-informed way visit our FAQ page.
Resources
Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia and the Blue Knot Foundation have a range of resources, and training, to build understanding of trauma, complex-trauma, vicarious-trauma and trauma-informed responses and practice.
If reading this article has raised concerns for you or someone you know, please consider contacting the following:
Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia
Telephone crisis counselling and/or specialised services
NSW Rape Crisis 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ph: 1800 424 017
Sexual Assault Counselling Australia Ph: 1800 211 028
Domestic Violence Impact Line Ph: 1800 943 539
LGBTIQ+ Violence Service Ph: 1800 497 212
Lifeline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ph: 13 11 14
1800 RESPECT Sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling and support. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ph: 1800 737 732
Suicide Call Back Service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ph: 1300 659 467
Kids Helpline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ph: 1800 55 1800
Men’s Referral Service Support for men who use violence and abuse. 7 days a week Ph: 1300 766 491