Many health practitioners and psychologists believe that domestic violence is one of the essential parts of community service work for families. Domestic violence does not directly influence the victim alone according to various psychologists. It equally has an effect on the children youth who witness such occurrence. It is therefore critical that any program for DV victims recognizes the indirectly affected. DV has trauma impact on children and the adults together. According to Burrows (2014), to help in the healing of the children and youths affected by domestic violence cases, programs implemented should adopt trauma-informed approaches, advocacy, policies, and theories.
Based on the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) description, a trauma-informed child and family service system is a service program in which all the people involved recognizes and responds to the effects f traumatic stress as a result of domestic violence to the people directly affected. For instance, children, family, the service providers, and the caregivers among others. According to Burrow (2014), the program and the agencies involved must be able to create trauma awareness through knowledge and skills. These must be infused into the program by creating and following certain organizational cultures, policies, and practices. The people involved in such programs should seek to collaborate with the domestic violence – children and family – using the appropriate means, most probably scientific to help in the recovery of the affected. This paper sees to identify a trauma-informed care intervention approach for domestic violence victims.
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Carrying out Needs Assessment
According to Pennel, McLeroy Burdine, and Matarrita-Cascante (2015), for any program to work in a community, a need assessment is paramount. Therefore, creating a trauma-informed care therapy program for victims of domestic violence would require a need assessment. Panel et al. (2015), indicate that there are two approaches to conducting a need assessment: Quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods represent the results of needs in numbers. They reply to how many people, how often and other number oriented research to determine the need for a community program. Mostly it is used for comparison. A qualitative method, on the other hand, does not yield any form of numerical results. The approach involves asking the community members directly about the issues affecting them. It depends on getting responses directly from the community members. In fact, most policymakers value the approach when trying to get the right information (Panel et al., 2015)
Doing need assessment for creating a trauma-informed care therapy program for victims of domestic violence in a community, therefore, the qualitative method could be critical. To conduct a needs assessment for trauma-informed care therapy program some approaches of qualitative methods employed could be doing individual and group interviewing and through observation. Interviewing may will involve using structured questions or unstructured conversations. This will assist in obtaining information about the traumatic conditions of the individuals or a group of people. Observation also could be a way of conducting need assessment for trauma-informed care therapy program for victims of domestic violence. This could be done by watching the situations and interactions in the communities and families.
Evaluating the Program Outcomes
According to various community service specialists, however, say when creating a program like trauma-informed care therapy program for victims of domestic violence in a community cannot be successful without evaluating the outcomes. According to McKenzie, Neiger, and Thackeray (2016) outcome measurement is step by step approach to determine if the program has realized its intended results. Two main tools could be used to determine the outcome of the program: Qualitative and quantitative tools. For a trauma-informed care therapy program for victims of domestic violence, qualitative methods could be the best solution. This is because when obtaining outcomes for such a program, the results could be how much the lives of the individual, the families, and children have changed. Quantitative tools might not be handy in such a program. Other intended outcomes could be id the program has made a difference in the lives of the families and the victims for the better. This could still be done by observation or by interviewing.
Recommended Trauma-informed Care Intervention for Domestic Violence Victims
According to Burrows (2014), trauma-informed care therapy program recognizes that responses such as constriction expressed by the victims are traumatically related. Burrows says that various intervention programs are based on psychosocial, educational empowerment principles. These programs have been in the public setting for quite a while. However, out of the possible approaches, and according to the National Centre for Trauma-Informed Care (NCTIC) indicate that the best one is the sanctuary model for the victims of domestic violence.
According to NCTIC, Sanctuary is a general approach that helps children and families that have experienced damaging impacts of violence or abuse either domestically or through other means consequently experiencing forms of trauma. The intervention program uses residential treatment settings for the affected. These could be homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters aimed at helping children and youths affected by domestic violence. Boom and Sreedhar (2008) says that the approach is more efficient because it promotes positive cultures of open communication, social responsibility, emotional intelligence, and growth. Burrows (2014) adds that such cultures are essential for recovery of any affected domestic violence victim, most importantly children. Boom and Sreedhar also indicate that the trauma-informed care intervention is reliable and valid because it is based on forming a sanctuary hence creating a sense of belonging.
According to Boom and Sreedhar, the approach has worked for many communities and could be the best intervention. A study conducted by Hopper, Bassuk, and Oliver (2010) based on the quality of children who had gone through domestic violence trauma indicated upon the completion of the program the children life had changed, and those who had left their homes were ready to go back home. This is an indication the outcomes were measured qualitatively.
References
Bloom, S. L., & Sreedhar, S. Y. (2008). The sanctuary model of trauma-informed organizational change: Reclaiming children and youth , 17 (3), 48.
Burrows, R. G. (2014). Art Therapy and Trauma: An Approach to Healing with Victims of Domestic Violence (Doctoral dissertation, Seton Hill University).
Hopper, E. K., Bassuk, E. L., & Olivet, J. (2010). Shelter from the storm: Trauma-informed care in homelessness services settings. The Open Health Services and Policy Journal , 3 (2), 80-100.
McKenzie, J. F., Neiger, B. L., & Thackeray, R. (2016). Planning, implementing & evaluating health promotion programs: A primer . Pearson.
Pennel, C. L., McLeroy, K. R., Burdine, J. N., & Matarrita-Cascante, D. (2015). Nonprofit hospitals’ approach to community health needs assessment. American Journal of Public Health (ajph) .
