All children who participate in the Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention are asked to complete a checklist of twenty-two different trauma types that they may have experienced in their lifetime. Having an understanding of the type and extent of trauma histories their clients have had enables our clinicians to better tailor their services.
We recently revisited this assessment in order identify the most common types of traumas our clients have experienced. The first thing we noticed was that on average, they report having endured nine different types of trauma. That is quite remarkable, given that their average is right at twelve years of age.
For our families, the six most commonly reported traumas (in order of frequency) are:
– Unexpected death of a loved one
– Significant serious illness
– Community violence
– Having a family member arrested
– Experiencing bullying
– Sexual abuse