Healing Families, Helping Systems: A Trauma-Informed Practice Guide for Working with Children, Youth & Families

This guide is concerned with advancing understanding and action about trauma-informed approaches that support program and service delivery for/with children, youth, and families. A trauma-informed approach is a system-wide approach that is distinct from, yet linked to, the delivery of trauma-specific treatments and interventions.

This guide has the following objectives:

• To identify trauma-informed approaches to supporting children, youth, and families, from the academic and non-academic literature and from the experience of those delivering child and youth services (child protection, youth justice, child and youth mental health, children with special needs, early years services, and family, youth, and children in care services and adoption services).
• To raise awareness among those delivering child and youth services of evidence-informed approaches to trauma-informed service delivery.
• To increase capacity amongst service providers delivering child and youth services to better serve children, youth, and families impacted by violence and trauma, and thereby improve outcomes for those engaged with these services.