A very large number of the people direct care workers support — across home care, residential care, behavioral health, and community-based settings — have experienced trauma at some point in their lives, whether or not that history has ever been formally documented or disclosed. Trauma shapes how a person responds to stress, to touch, to authority, to change, and to care itself, often in ways that can look confusing or even challenging if a caregiver doesn’t understand what’s actually happening underneath the behavior. This course introduces trauma-informed care as a practical, everyday approach rather than an abstract concept: what trauma actually does to the brain and body, the six key principles that define a trauma-informed approach, how to avoid unintentionally re-traumatizing the people in your care, and how to recognize and protect against the toll that this work can take on you as a caregiver.
