Self-Reflection Puts Trauma Informed Advocacy First

In order to fully embed trauma-informed services philosophy at member domestic violence and sexual assault programs here in New Hampshire we formed a cohort of advocates representing eight different programs who share their experiences and knowledge about building trauma-informed programs and using the principles when working with survivors.  This is the first in a series (I hope) of posts written by members of the cohort.  Thank you, Tina E.!

Self-Reflection Puts Trauma Informed Advocacy First

As a shelter manager for a domestic violence agency, I recently had a very difficult experience turn into a learning opportunity for clients, an intern, as well as for me.  As we know, working on such an intimate level with women in crisis can be challenging, painful, and even rewarding, but ultimately it tests our ability to practice what we preach, trauma informed advocacy.

A recent change in our household dynamics shifted our shelter from a fairly peaceful environment of two families supporting each other, both far along in their journey of establishing safety and independence, to a contentious and somewhat unsafe situation.  A new resident arrived with her children and began confronting others in an aggressive manner and discussing inappropriate topics with teens in the house.  This was upsetting and definitively a trigger to our current residents.  Her mannerisms and demeanor were offsetting even to staff, putting us in a place of carefully promoting discussions of safety and healthy conflict resolution while tempering feelings of distrust or frustration. 

In our house meetings a conscious effort was made to encourage the more intimidated client to share her concerns and requests regarding her children.  We discussed the type of households families may come from and the fear and domination victims face when wanting to be heard, but emphasized that this was a safe opportunity to build positive communication skills.  Although the one resident was able to show a marked change in her ability to display healthy boundaries for herself, the newer resident appeared impassive, somewhat arrogant and claimed no responsibility for any of the actions described by the other residents.  Despite the lack of resolution, it provided a format for practicing appropriate assertiveness for clients and even a chance for staff to role-model this when the client pointedly confronted staff.

The teachable moment came at a subsequent house meeting, at which I will own my mindset with regards to our residents.  I was impressed with the client who was speaking up for herself and was concerned the aggressive resident was displaying power and control behaviors.  Honestly, I felt protective of the one client and expected more negativity from the other.  Although I truly believe I remained professional, I know that this preconceived notion did not take into consideration the “whys” for the behaviors in the first place.  During this next meeting I recognized an increased confidence in the client standing up for herself, but noticed that the tone of the meeting had become accusatory.  With five adults in the meeting and the power in the room shifting, I carefully looked at things from our new resident’s perspective and wondered if I was at all being led by any biases.  After one resident became more vocal, displaying her frustration, I took the opportunity to ask everyone to consider some things.   I requested first that rather than taking someone else’s behavior personally, we assume that the actions are not intended to be hurtful.  Secondly, we can recognize that our new resident came into an already established household.  Most importantly, I stressed that we really knew nothing about her story, her fears, her concerns and where she was in that moment of her journey.  We ended up discussing how coping mechanisms to trauma may include having control over her own life in whatever way a victim can and one person’s survival skills may look very different than another’s.

This conversation opened up some amazing dialogue and the fact that our residents found some common ground was a positive moment for all.  However, I know the most fundamental aspect of this was truly modeling the trauma informed perspective.  My acknowledgement that no matter how compassionate I believe I am, putting aside my presumptions to see each client as an individual victim of trauma is the key to the best practice of advocacy and that there is always room to grow.