Trauma-Informed Care: Progressive Mental Health Care for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This chapter focuses on one of the most important developments in European mental health care in recent decades—Trauma-Informed Care. It begins by exploring the nature and epidemiology of trauma. Following this, the chapter examines assessment of trauma and then considers the ten principles of Trauma-Informed Care services. The chapter then concludes by looking at the Psychiatric/Mental Health (P/MH) nursing responses within Trauma-Informed Care models. The acknowledgement and acceptance of Trauma-Informed Care in mental health-care policy, practice, research and, to a lesser extent, education, at least for some, is considered to be perhaps the most significant development in European mental health care in recent decades. Such models accentuate the need for mental health-care practitioners, including P/MH nurses, and the organizations that they work within, to recognize and accept the prevalence and pervasive impact that trauma can (and does) have on the lives of the clients they work alongside (SAMHSA 2015, 2016). Further, such models posit the need for mental health services to adapt and become even more trauma-sensitive and trauma-responsive.