*Photo credit: Neil Nakahodo/The Kansas City Star

Traumatic events, either witnessed or experienced during childhood, can alter brain biology and leave lasting effects on physical, mental and behavioral health. A Kansas City Star article details how trauma changes the brain in a way that keeps victims in fight or flight mode. Hospitals and organizations throughout the Kansas City region, including KVC, are working to transform the city into a trauma-informed community that recognizes and addresses underlying trauma so children’s behaviors, emotions and futures can be changed.

Trauma-informed care involves understanding, recognizing and responding to the effects of all types of trauma. Instead of just asking patients about their physical ailments, doctors have started using this framework to ask a different set of questions about their patient’s childhood experiences. Mental and physical illness, as well as behaviors (substance abuse, eating disorders, criminal activity) have strong links to previous abuse, neglect and other traumas.

KVC Health Systems is currently in its fourth year of a five-year study, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to measure the effectiveness of trauma-informed and trauma-focused services in residential and community-based services. KVC therapists, social workers and foster parents have been trained in Trauma Systems Therapy (TST), an evidence-based model for treating traumatic stress in children and adolescents. TST trains individuals about the fundamentals of brain science and how traumatic childhood experiences can alter brain biology.

Kelly McCauley, Director of Evidence-Based Initiatives at KVC, shared how traditional care methods involved medication and therapy to modify behavior. Children continued to emerge deeply troubled, signaling something in their treatment was missing.

“The focus became the depression or the anxiety, but the trauma aspect was being overlooked.” -Kelly McCauley

Children in Kansas state care have drastically reduced their need for medication since KVC introduced trauma-informed methods. By looking at the world through the trauma victim’s eyes, caregivers can identify triggers that cause mood or behavior changes. Therapists, social workers, foster parents, and even birth parents have the ability to replace negative associations with positive ones.

Click here to learn more about the efforts to transform Kansas City into a trauma-informed community.