Trauma Informed Care – NICNE Community of Practice
Rockford, IL – Today, Alignment Rockford ventured to the Unitarian Universalist Church for the NIU Center of Nonpofit Excellence Community of Practice for Case Managers. This session we learned about how trauma affects children and adults. Lori Poppen from Children’s Home and Aid and Mary Ellen Commare from Youth Services Network led a presentation on trauma, and how to remain trauma informed.
As we service the Rockford Public Schools, it’s important for us to remember that the needs of one student may be very different then the needs of another, and the factors that cause a student to act out or misbehave can have deep roots, causing a student to be misunderstood. This video, which was presented at the session, shows how a person’s anger (child or adult) is sometimes a manifestation of how they deal with trauma in their lives, past or current.

Although this is a simplification, trauma can and does manifest itself in different emotions that may not seem related to its trigger. If we begin to understand the perspective of the students, then we can better prepare them to learn and in part, ready them for the future as adults.