[dog huffs, barks, jingles] - Alisha Fox: Stop.
What is wrong with you?
Come on!
Yeah, good girl.
- Elizabeth Hudson: Trauma-informed care is about a culture change.
It's about shifting the way we understand behavior
and how we respond to it.
- Saldaña: I think if people knew about trauma-informed care,
I don't think I would have gone through as much.
- Narrator: An understanding of trauma's impact
on physical and mental health
first emerged more than 20-years ago.
In response, trauma-informed care
has emerged in the decades since.
- Chuck Price: How do we start, you know, asking
every single time we're working with families
that question,
the trauma-informed question
of switching the lens
from, you know,
"What's wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?"
- Narrator: Trauma-informed care expert Elizabeth Hudson
says this so-called "switching the lens"
results in a perspective shift
allowing teachers or caregivers to recognize
why a child might be acting out or shutting down.
- Hudson: What becomes hard is
when the behaviors push people away
or turn people off.
- Narrator: Tammy Fry says after her mother died
and she was removed from her father's care because of abuse,
her anger would erupt.
- Fry: I got charged with battery
and then, I spent
most of my years in detention.
- Hudson: One of the big shifts in perspective
is being able to see the behavior
as a communication.
- Narrator: Communication as the expression of trauma.
But with trauma-informed care, the point is
to not blame or shame people for their behavior.
- Caregiver: You want to fix my hair? - Child: Yeah.
- Grove: We know that one of the hallmark symptoms
of kids trying to sort of work their way through
that overwhelming stress for some of them
is to stare blankly at the chalkboard.
- Fox: Yeah.
- Narrator: An experience familiar to Alisha Fox.
- Fox: But, there's ways to deal with it now.
- Grove: And the teacher's approach is critical.
If I approach her and I say, "Hey!"
[knocking] and maybe startle her further
by banging on the table,
I'm actually potentially going to make it worse.
If I'm more careful and informed
about how I approach her,
I might actually help her relax and settle down
and make it better.
[energetic kids holler, laugh] - Hudson: But what we know about many of these kids
is they have had to adapt to the stress in their life
by, in many ways, shutting down
when it comes to relationships
because relationships have been the hardship
and they have caused the danger and the lack of safety.
- Saldaña: I built this wall where it was like,
after a young age, I knew that it was only me.
[brushing sounds]
- Narrator: When Reyna Saldaña was removed from her home
because of abuse
she was placed in a succession of facilities.
But when she was 12 years old,
she says a riding mentor
made a critical connection.
- Saldaña: I didn't really have anybody until I met her.
I went out there, originally,
not because I wanted to ride horses,
but because I got in trouble with the law
and I had to do community service.
She let me know that, like,
there are things about me that she loved,
that I could love,
that I just had to understand myself more.
- Narrator: Trauma-informed care experts
say safe and trusted human connections
are the key to healing and behavior change.
Connections like those Alisha Fox came to develop
with her grandmother and aunt.
- Grandmother: She's a keeper, aren't you, Bella?
- Hudson: We know it's the relational dance with other people
that is going to build their neural capacity
to have stronger relationships.
- Fox: Good dog!
- Grove: One of the kind of insidious and lesser-known impacts
of kids who experience trauma
is often it's their source of identity.
Their families that are-- that are hurting them.
How do you make sense of that?
- Fox: I was just trying to survive until I got older
and you become more knowledgeable
about relationships and things like that.
And then, I finally was like,
"Well, this doesn't seem right."
- Narrator: The trauma-informed care model
emphasizes physical, psychological, and emotional safety.
- Grove: With enough grown men and women who help you,
who provide safety,
who provide regulation or relaxation,
eventually, you can at least establish a competing truth.
And then, you've at least got a fighting chance.
- Narrator: That fighting chance
comes from developing resilience.
Research shows the number one factor
for children who develop resilience
is having at least one stable and committed relationship
with a caring adult.
- Fox: Once you make connections like that,
you're strong enough to tell your story
and you deserve a better life
than what you're living right now.
- Narrator: Resilience also comes
from learning how to self-regulate,
especially when overcome by anger.
- Saldaña: As soon as I start to feel an emotion like that
and then process it away from people
and, like, collect myself,
helps me be able to go back
and then approach the situation at a different angle.
- Narrator: Caring adults can show children
how to regain the calm within themselves.
- One of the main things
that we can do for kids and families in these situations
is allow ourselves
to be at peace and balanced during our interactions.
- Grove: The idea that the possibility of another alternative exists
is the beginning prospect of hope
and we see those stories all the time.
Kids, families, adults,
even now a growing number of communities
who are feeling the effects of saying, "Huh?
"There's a whole new truth.
"There's a whole new possibility:
"Maybe all humans don't hurt.
"Maybe I can relax and take some relational risk.
Maybe I can feel safe."
That really is the essence of what
the outcome of trauma-informed care is all about.