“Have you ever felt that change isn’t easy?” Good Shepherd Teh-Mung Home Director Chen Yu Jie talks about children adapting to the home’s surroundings, including rules and regulations, would need to take a lot of effort. Though the surroundings and environment here are safe and secure, feeling uncomfortable would also be another form of trauma. Director Chen Yu Jie shares her own experience: “After the first time I went shopping at RT-Mart in Taitung, I cried.” At that time, RT-Mart looked more like today’s PX Mart. Previously staying in Kaohsiung in a very convenient location and adjacent to Carrefour, she had always enjoyed shopping at the supermarket. After moving to another city where the supermarket is not the same as she expected, would thus bring a feeling of discomfort. Her experience of moving to another place enables her to understand the feelings of the children at Teh-Mung Home. “It is not easy for children suffering from trauma and when in an extremely unstable physical and mental condition, to live and stay in a place with people and surroundings not familiar to them.”

To help the children settle more quickly, recover from family trauma, Teh-Mung aside from using the traditional method of child counseling, uses the “trauma-informed” concept to trace the child’s life history, search for the source of trauma, slowly heal the pain from the very beginning, diminish various situations possibly caused by the trauma. Trauma-informed concept compares trauma experienced in the past to a toxin. It will be engraved into the memory in the brain and body, and affects the behavior of the child.

For the social worker, trauma-informed concept provides a new point of view for looking at the children. On one hand, the social workers interacting with the child search for the cause of trauma and on the other hand, observe the words, actions, reactions and feelings of the child towards behavioral treatment during this period of time and also deduce if such behavior is caused by trauma experienced in the past. Teh-Mung Home Social Worker Huang Phei Ying shares her experience: “This is to increase the sensitivity of workers at work, to give more attention to the children’s reactions. Am I supposed to make an assessment and conclusion quickly? Should I alter my opinion? Go back to awareness of your own work, get rid of your sense of values in the past.”

Trauma-informed care integrates conventional techniques and strategies in social work, allowing “empathy”, “tolerance”, “listening” to become skills. Communicate and understand what the child is doing. When the child behaves inappropriately, correct his behavior but it is still needed to talk and tell him that this behavior is improper. Chen Yu Jie reiterates, trauma-informed care is not throwing away conventional techniques and strategies in social work. In the past, it was one way to correct the behavior of a child. Now, one more way is added, to work from the root cause of trauma.

In the past, the Home starts from cognitive therapy, changes behavior by changing belief, helps functioning of the child’s brain. Now with the body added, heal the wounds of the child by starting from the body’s memory. This year, Teh-Mung introduces yoga, aromatherapy and breathing to help awaken the memories of the child.  Chen Yu Jie explains with anticipation: “Hopefully through reviving the memories of the body, some things may be fixed. I can foresee, after fixing the source of trauma, he does not have to struggle like this, just like stealing things or say I am sick, to earn satisfaction or attention. The things that need to be corrected will gradually become less.”