TRAUMA INFORMED CARE
It is estimated that 90% of the population has experienced some form of trauma over their lifetime. This trauma lives within our cells. It has also been proven that the trauma gets passed on to the next generation. This essentially means that it is likely that 100% of us are carrying around cells that contain trauma information. Because of this we choose to follow guiding principles of trauma-informed care, which are:
- Safety – Throughout the organization, staff and the people they serve feel physically and psychologically safe.
- Trustworthiness and transparency – Organizational operations and decisions are conducted with transparency and the goal of building and maintaining trust among staff, clients, and family members of those receiving services.
- Peer support and mutual self-help – These are integral to the organizational and service delivery approach and are understood as a key vehicle for building trust, establishing safety, and empowerment.
- Collaboration and mutuality – There is true partnering and leveling of power differences between staff and clients and among organizational staff from direct care staff to administrators. There is recognition that healing happens in relationships and in the meaningful sharing of power and decision-making. The organization recognizes that everyone has a role to play in a trauma-informed approach. One does not have to be a therapist to be therapeutic.
- Empowerment, voice, and choice – Throughout the organization and among the clients served, individuals’ strengths are recognized, built on, and validated and new skills developed as necessary. The organization aims to strengthen the staff’s, clients’, and family members’ experience of choice and recognize that every person’s experience is unique and requires an individualized approach. This includes a belief in resilience and in the ability of individuals, organizations, and communities to heal and promote recovery from trauma. This builds on what clients, staff, and communities have to offer, rather than responding to perceived deficits.
- Cultural, historical, and gender issues – The organization actively moves past cultural stereotypes and biases (e.g., based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, geography), offers gender responsive services, leverages the healing value of traditional cultural connections, and recognizes and addresses historical trauma.
At Private Womb, we practice autonomous trauma informed care. What does that mean?
That means that if you don’t want us to touch you at all, we won’t. We honor you governing your own body and teach you whatever you’d like to know about prenatal care. If you don’t want a cervical or vaginal exam, we won’t do it. We respect your right to say, “no” AND to be heard!
We will warn you that we have had friends and family members of some of our clients reach out to “turn us in” because, in their eyes, we are uneducated. We forgive those people because we are aware that they have most likely been de-sensitized by what happens in the man-made baby delivery system that occurs primarily within the hospital setting and sadly, within some homes.
We are saddened by the high number of people who have been de-sensitized when it comes to the – all too often – assault on women and babies that occurs as part of the man-made baby delivery system.
We are fighting to help show the world that birth IS NOT what happens in the man-made baby delivery system and that birth CAN bring healing when the family receives autonomous trauma informed care. The things we do not do are not things we do not know how to do. Instead they are the things we know to be traumatizing and re-traumatizing therefore we know enough to know what not to do. These are the things that keep humankind stuck in violence and fear.
We are also not fully opposed to what hospitals can provide, we know when medical help is needed and we seek it appropriately. Again, we are saddened by the high number of people who do not know how to use medical technology appropriately.
We know we are dealing with human life which is why our clients experience HUMANE autonomous trauma informed care.