You may have heard it said that trauma is not caused by what happened, but by how we respond to what happens, internally. This is true, but I think it is incomplete. It panders to the desire to put something incredibly complex into a few words or a short sentence. The shortest way I can think of to formulate what is really meant, is as follows:
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Reforming Child Protection Systems, Globally
Currently, child protection reform is generally understood as a move from residential to family-based alternative care and a need to build strong gatekeeping mechanisms. Moreover, many see it as something that needs to happen ‘over there, in the global South’, because ‘over here’ the system works, it just needs some fine-tuning and minor improvements. In this fine-tuning, the increasing trend of adding on trauma-informed practices is seen as a breakthrough and major improvement (don’t get me wrong, I’m not disputing that this is certainly a lot better than not having them). I have come to view this very differently.
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