Trauma-Informed Practice: Policy context

Adversity and trauma

By Lynn Miles, lecturer in education at Teesside University

Research suggests that by the age of 18, half of our children will have faced one adverse childhood experience and 10 per cent will have suffered four or more. These experiences include physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect, living in a household where there is addiction, mental illness or domestic violence, financial hardship or familial imprisonment.

Trauma is one of the possible outcomes of exposure to adversity. It occurs when a person perceives an event or set of circumstances as extremely frightening, harmful or threatening - either physically, emotionally or both. Some experiences can be so overwhelming for children and young people that they create a sense of terror and helplessness in the short-term, which can be triggered without warning later in life. If this trauma is not processed, ideally within a genuine, empathetic relationship, the trajectory of a child's future is likely to be significantly altered.