Child welfare systems that are trauma-informed are better equipped to recognize the impact of early childhood trauma on children’s development and are better able to provide services that address children’s safety, permanency, and well-being. The following resources help administrators and managers implement changes in policies and procedures and work collaboratively with other service providers to make child welfare systems more trauma informed. Because trauma intersects with culture, history, race, and language, trauma-informed systems must also be culturally responsive to the needs of the diverse children, youth, and families they serve. Systems of oppression, such as the overrepresentation of children of color in foster care or intergenerational poverty, are often sources of trauma for underserved populations. Eliminating racial and cultural disparities in services requires child welfare practitioners to infuse community voice, understand the lived experiences of the children, youth, and families they work with, and confront disparities in the system. Child welfare professionals should adopt an approach focused on healing and resiliency that acknowledges the multigenerational effects of historical and racial trauma. On this page, find information about implementing trauma-informed practices with cultural humility and building trauma-informed child welfare systems. Resources include State and local examples.
Addressing Historical Trauma and Preparing the Child Welfare Workforce [Video]
Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development
Discusses historical grief and trauma and the importance of preparing the child welfare workforce to more effectively work with families.
Advancing Trauma-Informed Care Within and Across Child-Serving Systems
Brennan, Guarino, Axelrod, & Gonsoulin (2020)
Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Presents a guide, in partnership with the American Institutes for Research, for child welfare agencies and community partners to develop a multisystem, coordinated response to child trauma. The guide concludes with recommendations for practice improvement.
Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit
National Child Traumatic Stress Network (2020)
Guides caseworkers and supervisors in implementing trauma-informed language and practices into organizational culture.
Creating Trauma-Informed Systems
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Provides explanations for the importance of trauma-informed child and family service systems and includes resources.
Culture and Trauma
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Explores how trauma intersects with culture, history, race, gender, environment, and language and explains how trauma-informed child welfare systems acknowledge the compounding impact of structural inequity and are responsive to the unique needs of diverse communities.
Healing-Centered and Trauma-Responsive Care Across Child Welfare For Better Youth Engagement
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau
Children's Bureau Express, 24(2)
Discusses how agencies can improve engagement of child welfare staff and young people in the child welfare system experiencing burnout and traumatic stress by focusing on access to trauma-responsive and healing-centered care.
How Can Investigation, Removal, and Placement Processes Be More Trauma-Informed?
Casey Family Programs (2018)
Describes how the processes of investigation, removal, and placement into out-of-home care are traumatic events for children and families and how child welfare agencies should explore ways to minimize trauma.
Incorporating Racial Equity into Trauma-Informed Care
Center for Health Care Strategies
Explains that racism is trauma and offers practices that agencies can incorporate to focus on racial equity to enhance trauma-informed care.
Recommendations for Trauma-Informed Care Under the Family First Prevention Services Act
National Child Traumatic Stress Network (2020)
Details provisions in the Family First Prevention Services Act that require trauma-informed approaches in casework practice and provides recommendations for better understanding Family First.
Trauma Informed Child Welfare Systems—A Rapid Evidence Review
Bunting, Montgomery, Mooney, MacDonald, Coulter, Hayes, & Davidson (2019)
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(3)
Reviews various implementation strategies designed to create trauma-informed practices at State and local child welfare agencies.
Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered Approaches
Casey Family Programs (2022)
Explains the importance of trauma-informed child welfare systems that provide healing-centered support for children and families. The website also shares resources on how to develop an approach focused on healing and resiliency that acknowledges the multigenerational effects of historical and racial trauma.
Trauma-Informed Innovative Practices: Insights From Children’s Bureau Discretionary Grantees on Addressing Trauma in Child Welfare
Murphy & Ingoldsby (2020)
James Bell Associates
Highlights common approaches, successes, and lessons learned from 20 Children’s Bureau discretionary grantees that received funding to identify and support children in the child welfare system who are impacted by trauma. The report highlights the grantees’ activities and innovations across five core programmatic components: universal screening, functional assessment, child- and system-level monitoring, service array expansion, and data-driven implementation.
State and local examples
Assessing Trauma-Informed Care and Community Voice in Central Texas’ Child Welfare System (PDF - 537 KB)
Texas Network of Youth Services (2022)
Outlines barriers to integrating trauma-informed care and community voice in child welfare and provides recommendations that include training on trauma-informed services, improved data sharing across systems, and the need to better integrate community voice.
Building a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System: A Blueprint (PDF - 39,162 KB)
Supreme Court of Texas Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families (2019)
Presents strategies for developing a trauma-informed child welfare system. The report covers topics such as culture, collaboration, youth and family voice, training, and more. The training section highlights the importance of trauma-informed training that is high quality, culturally competent, and reflected in organizational culture.
From Aspiration to Implementation: A Framework for Becoming a Trauma-Informed and Responsive Commonwealth (PDF - 1,128 KB)
Massachusetts Childhood Trauma Task Force (2020)
Presents a framework that lays out five guiding principles for establishing a trauma-informed and responsive approach to child welfare services, including safety, transparency and trust, healthy relationships and interactions, empowerment, voice, choice, equity, anti-bias efforts, and cultural affirmation.
From Trauma-Aware to Trauma-Informed: Delaware’s Journey to Become a Trauma-Informed State 2018-2019 (PDF - 8,806 KB)
Family Services Cabinet Council & Trauma-Informed Delaware (2020)
Highlights the progress made in Delaware to prioritize and infuse trauma-informed practices into child welfare and related systems, offers recommendations for implementing trauma-informed approaches, and provides action steps that child welfare systems in other States can use as a model for change.