How to include families in trauma-informed care

CrossCurrents

 

Dr. Caroline O’Grady, an advanced practice nurse at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and Karyn Baker, executive director of the Family Outreach and Response Program at CAMH, offer these tips for working with families:

• Listen to family members’ concerns about the situation and validate them.
• Be sensitive to families as being victims of trauma as well and provide referrals so they can get help.
• Treat families as collaborators and partners instead of a nuisance.
• Empower families by educating them, and acknowledge their own expertise about their loved one.
• Teach families that clients need to be listened to as well, and if they don’t want their family involved right away, the family will be directed to services to help them.
• If any kind of restraints are used, families need to be debriefed afterwards, especially if they witness it.
• Families need to be told the protocols and processes that will be followed, the reasons for them, and what to expect next.

 

 

 

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