Eighty to 90 percent of women seeking services from public mental health and substance abuse programs have experienced violence and trauma, frequently beginning at childhood, according to a September 2013 report.
The Federal Partners Committee on Women and Trauma has published “a working document” entitled “Trauma-Informed Approaches: Federal Activities and Initiatives” that stresses a “trauma-informed” approach to addressing the consequences of violence and abuse against adult and young women.
“I was shocked by the sobering statistics. Thirty-seven percent of women with disabilities have experienced violence and abuse in their lifetime, compared with 20 percent of women without disabilities,” said Kathy Martinez, assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy.
The report relies on findings made by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that sponsored a five-year study on this issue called “Women, Co-Occurring Disorders and Violence.”
This long-term study demonstrated that in addressing the needs of women regarding public health and social services, the central focus for a successful recovery must be on the trauma they experienced. New ways of responding to such trauma also were stressed, including evidence-based interventions and education counseling models.
The Federal Partners Committee supports a “trauma-informed” approach to addressing the needs of women and girls and describes efforts to reduce rates of violence and trauma as a multi-agency and multi-pronged strategy, with prevention being a key part of the plan.
The committee reported on “cross-agency” collaboration — the coordination between more than three dozen federal agencies and sub-agencies, based upon a shared concern about trauma.
“All of us have to be out there convincing folks that this is the right work to be done, and this is the right time to do it,” said Commissioner Bryan Samuels of the Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families.
The Department of Defense (DOD) Family Advocacy Program (FAP) and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (SAPRO) are now assisting women and girls by use of “trauma-specific treatments.”
The DOD’s sister agency, U.S. Department of Education, is tackling the issue by assigning the women, violence and trauma problem to its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR is responsible for enforcing Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, which has brought a significant measure of fair treatment and equal protection to both male and female students. The act prohibits discrimination based on gender, and protects against sexual harassment and sexual violence in public and private spaces and institutions.
Another major federal agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), has also adopted trauma-informed strategy in dealing with women and abuse issues. Its sub-agency, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), states as part of its mission that by learning more about the trajectories by which trauma develops, NIH wants to stimulate innovative psychological and biomedical approaches that can prevent or change these trajectories before the consequences of the trauma occur.
These initiatives and activities on behalf of major agencies of the federal government indicate that cross-collaboration is underway.
Other federal agencies showing distinct orientation toward the trauma-informed strategy include DHHS’s Office on Women’s Health (OWH), the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Corrections (NIC), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the Office for Victims of Crime, each of which are mentioned in the report.
The core finding by SAMHSA, as stated in the report’s preface, is that empowering women to tell their own stories produces both healing and a powerful force for change. SAMHSA’s influential study conducted from 1998-2003 has been the foundation of the Federal Partners Committee’s trauma-informed approach.
However, “One thing was immediately self-evident,” says Valorie Carson of Johnson County, Kansas’ Interagency Trauma-Informed Care Task Force: “No organization would ever be ‘done’ implementing trauma-informed care. Once begun, it would be a continuous process requiring ongoing reflection on practices and policies, training for new staff and boosters for long-time staff and an attentive eye on the organization’s culture to prevent returning to prior practices.”
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