Early Interventions to trauma: an examination of crisis support delivery, trauma clinician skill development, and potential applications for child welfare apprehension and placement

Abstract

This advanced practicum thesis presents a Master of Social Work student’s journey toward becoming a more skilled trauma clinician. It also serves as a forum to consider opportunities to limit or reduce trauma potentially suffered by clients through their engagement in my current field of social work practice, child welfare. This practicum was completed with the Victim Crisis Unit (VCU), a division of the Ottawa Police Services. The Victim Crisis Unit is devoted to providing emergency service provision to Ottawa residents exposed to trauma or criminal victimization. Three primary goals were developed for this practicum experience. The first goal was to gain, through experiential learning, the ability to practice ethically sound, effective, Early Intervention (EI) techniques targeted at mitigating the negative effects of victimization and trauma. The second goal was to make an overall improvement to my capacity as a trauma clinician by developing my therapeutic presence, client-engagement, self-awareness, and professional self-care through learning about mindfulness research and practice. My third goal was to reflect on the combination of my research and experiential learning in order to present a critical analysis of the potential applications of EI techniques for child welfare practice, most specifically, how they might make the process of bringing children into care more trauma- informed and less damaging.