Chapter 2: Trauma-Informed Partnering

Today, trauma-informed care and the parallel trauma-informed curriculum are important topics in K–12 education. However, the interest in the broader field of trauma-informed care is well over 100 years old, emerging from the study of war neurosis and shell shock early in the 20th century (Crocq & Crocq, 2000), again during World War II (Kardiner, 1941), and then gaining traction with each subsequent war as the nomenclature turned toward post-traumatic stress disorder. Gradually, trauma-informed care moved into the mental health fields reflecting growing appreciation of the widespread causes and behavioral manifestations of trauma. However, the attention in psychiatric fields was erratic. As one scholar noted,