October Group Supervision

Trauma-Informed Care - Socially-Engineered Trauma

Our 2nd Tuesday group is meeting October 11th at 1:00pm

Our 3rd Thursday group is meeting October 20th at 6am

Our 3rd Thursday (2nd) group is meeting October 20th at 10am

Our 2nd Friday group is meeting October 14th at 9:30am

“While many social workers understand that a history of trauma impacts client’s current functioning, many workers do not trace those traumas back to their rooting in oppression and inequality. Consequently, they may approach, assess, and interact with their clients as though the individual and family contexts are the primary contributors to that client’s current situation.”

So if we’re not balancing micro and macro; current state with historical trauma; we are, in essence, perpetuating this historical oppression and further harming our clients.

One example of placing responsibility on the individual person/family/community, rather than placing responsibility on historical systemic oppression and continued cultural blindness to that oppression is when we look at suicide for populations of color. For example, if look at suicide of an indigenous person in the United States, solely from the surface level lens of their current socioeconomic status, their current family system, their education level, and so on, we place “onus” for suicide on that person, their family, and their immediate community. Rather, if we understand suicide, especially for indigenous persons, in the context of historical trauma and cultural white supremacy, then we see suicide as the long-standing far reaching continuation of genocide in this country.

Here’s an article that takes a close look at historical trauma and social injustice as a mandatory foundation of social work practice. Socially-Engineered Trauma and a New Social Work Pedagogy. This article is well-worth a full read through, for the sake of our meeting, at least pick a section to read and bring with you a takeaway for the group (then make sure you take time later to read the whole article). We’re looking at deepening our understanding of trauma-informed care, so read until you find something that broadens your lens.

What you will need to bring:

• A review of the article above and questions, thoughts, takeaways

• You!

• A case, scenario, ethical dilemma related to this topic.

I look forward to seeing you all there!