Crm. J. 426 – Victimology and Public Policy
In-Class Exercise: Trauma-Informed Care
This is a two-part exercise that will take the entire class period to complete.
In the first part, you will work with your group to answer the attached
‘Group Questions’ pertaining to the article your group was assigned.
In the second part, the class will be reorganized into new groups of five students
drawn from the five original groups, each student representing one of the original
groups. To come to a larger understanding of trauma informed care, the reorganized
groups will answer the following questions:
1. Generally, what is ‘trauma-informed care?’ How is it different than other
approaches to dealing with those served by the justice system?
2. What are the principles of trauma-informed care? In other words, how would
we know if the practice of an organization truly is trauma-informed?
3. What is it about trauma-informed care that makes it a response to the
symptoms of trauma? In answering this, you’ll want to consider the specific
symptoms of trauma exhibited by those served by the police/legal system.
4. Why should practitioners in the police/legal system follow the principles of
trauma-informed care when dealing with crime victims? In other words, what
are the benefits of doing so?
5. Why is the implementation of/adherence to the principles of trauma-informed
care easier said than done? In other words, why might we expect those dealing
with crime victims to be unlikely to follow those principles?
Given that the reorganized groups in the second part of the assignment will be made
up of a single member from each of the original groups, it is important that each
individual be able to answer all of the questions pertaining to her or his assigned
reading.
Crm. J. 426 – Victimology and Public Policy
Group Questions: Articles on Trauma-Informed Care
Group 1: Trauma-Informed Lawyering
1. What is the purpose of this article?
2. What is ‘trauma?’ How common is it in the general population?
3. How common is trauma amongst those needing legal assistance? What legal
specialties would be most likely to serve clients that have experienced trauma?
4. What is ‘vicarious trauma?’ Aside from its more general detrimental effect, why
is it undesirable for it to be experienced by an attorney?
5. Generally, what is ‘trauma-informed practice?’ What are the hallmarks (a.k.a.
‘principles’) of trauma-informed practice? Provide examples to explain what
those hallmarks/principles are.
6. In what ways do clients’ trauma experiences affect the ways they might relate to
their attorneys? In other words, in what different ways might the client’s trauma
history affect representation?
7. What is needed for an attorney-client relationship to be effective? How does
trauma-informed practice help attorneys build such a relationship?
Group 2: Trauma-Informed Domestic Violence Programs
1. What is the purpose of this article? How was the study done to meet this
purpose? In other words, describe the method used in this research.
2. What is ‘trauma-informed care?’ What is the basic assumption underlying the
approach? Put differently, what first question should be asked of clients
seeking care from a domestic violence program?
3. What is the purpose of trauma-informed care? In other words, toward what end
is such care designed?
4. What do domestic violence programs do that makes them ‘trauma-informed?’
In other words, what were the different clusters of trauma-informed practice
principles identified in the article? Explain what those principles mean.
5. How is a trauma-informed approach different than the more traditional ways of
serving clients of domestic violence programs?
6. In what ways do domestic violence programs that take a ‘direct service
approach’ differ from domestic violence programs that take a ‘social justice
approach?’ Why would these differences be important in the ways that
trauma-informed care is provided?
Group 3: Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice
1. What is the purpose of this article? In other words, what was this article about?
2. To what extent are youth who are involved with the juvenile justice system
affected by past traumatic experiences?
3. In what ways do past traumatic experiences affect a juveniles’ reasoning that
increase the likelihood of offending and decrease the effectiveness of treatment
in juvenile justice institutions?
4. What are the four purposes of sentencing in juvenile court (as recognized by the
US Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida)? Which purpose is most effective in
reducing recidivism? Which is most in-line with a trauma-informed approach to
juvenile justice?
5. In what ways is a trauma-informed model of juvenile justice different from the
other models of juvenile justice considered in this article? Why is a
trauma-informed model better than those other models?
6. What are the principles that line-staff in juvenile justice institutions should
adhere to in order to deal with trauma-affected youth most effectively? Explain
what these principles are.
Group 4: Implementation of Trauma-Informed Care
1. What is the aim of the study reported on in this article? What methods were
followed by the authors to meet this aim?
2. What is the underlying presumption of trauma-informed care? What question
do those following it ask of their clients, and how is this question different from
the question customarily asked?
3. How ‘new’ is trauma-informed care? Is it something that social service
agencies are already doing without knowing that they are doing it?
4. What are the five basic guiding principles of trauma-informed care? Explain
what these are.
5. Do the principles of trauma-informed care apply only when dealing with clients,
or should they be applied more broadly across an agency? Why would their
broad application be beneficial?
6. How well are those guiding principles adhered to? Are some more likely than
others to be followed? Are they more likely to be applied only to clients or are
they applied more broadly across human service agencies?
Group 5: Street-Level Bureaucracy
1. What is a ‘street-level bureaucrat’? What sorts of occupations within the
police/legal system would fit within that label?
2. When did the idea of street-level bureaucrats originate and in what ways did it
change our understanding of the policy-making process?
3. What is it that allows street-level bureaucrats to have the effect that they do
upon the policy-making process?
4. What sort of pressures influence the decision-making of street-level
bureaucrats? What sorts of effects do these pressures have upon the ways that
street-level bureaucrats do their jobs?
5. What effect, if any, do power imbalances between street-level bureaucrats and
the public they serve have upon their decision-making?
6. Given an understanding of street-level bureaucrats, how reasonable to expect
that a trauma-informed approach will be taken when crime victims are dealing
with the police/legal system?