Building Trauma-Informed Practices in the Child Welfare System
Inherent power imbalances and adversarial approaches can create difficult conditions for promoting psychological safety for parents with young children involved in the child welfare system. Child Protection Services (CPS) is simultaneously charged with providing resources and support to parents, while also maintaining the power to remove children from their care. Due to this dynamic, parents may feel unsafe asking for help because of the potential consequences. Historically, many of the government agencies whose purpose is to provide support have instead caused harm, which has created greater rifts and distrust among the people they were intended to help. In addition, many challenges at the systems level, including high staff turnover, lack of psychoeducation and training for staff on managing vicarious trauma, high caseloads, and lack of supports for front-line caseworkers and other professionals, have further exacerbated the problem.
The following strategies were drawn from discussions at meetings in each of the six counties where Strong Starts has a presence to help overcome some of these barriers and promote psychological safety for system-involved parents with young children as best as we can. These strategies are intended for professionals who work with child welfare-involved families. While many of these strategies can be applied broadly across disciplines, they should be modified as needed according to one’s role and relationship to the parent.
