In order to understand self-care as a child and youth practitioner, one first needs to understand the effects of trauma have on the children and youth.  Eavan Brady advises of three types of traumatic events: experiencing or witnessing a serious injury, imminent threat of injury or death to self or others, and/or lastly a violation of self (pp3).  In Perry’s work: Effects of Traumatic Events on Children, An Introduction, it highlights the internal responses that a child experiences when experiencing the effects of a traumatic experience. The child can experience a dissociative state or a hyperarousal state, both created to cope through the traumatic event (Perry, 2003 pp4), which explains that the post traumatic experience the children will relive the traumatic experience over and over again, which then weaves a complex web of memories of the trauma (Perry, 2003 pp 5). The child then relieves the experience over and over with all the senses of their body and often stay in an aroused state long after the trauma (Perry, 2003 pp7).  These children experience impulsiveness, hyperactivity, or can be withdrawn to depressed (Perry, 2003 pp9).  So, looking at the children that come across a child and youth practitioner’s path most, if not all, have experienced some for of trauma, whether prolonged or incidental and it is noted in the thesis Secondary Traumatic Stress: The Hidden Trauma in Child and Youth Counsellors that 98% of Child and Youth Practitioners who were surveyed had worked with a child or youth that had experienced trauma (Bloom, 2004 pp38)  These children’s life events then become ours, as we empathize and treat the symptoms, which are often labelled as behaviours.

The following is a summary of six articles that discuss the trauma effects of care professionals:

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The Cost of Caring. Secondary Traumatic Stress and the Impact of Working with High-Risk Children and Families, By Bruce D. Perry

Perry discusses how trauma situations can cause the organization as a whole to crumble under the ongoing pressures as staff are not able to continue to cope and manage the pressures that are brought onto them (Perry, 2014 pp 4).  The article further discusses the profound benefits of debriefing after a traumatic event, and how this helps with coping and supporting one another (Perry, 2014 pp6). A theme throughout Perry’s work is the feeling of a worker’s hopelessness when faced with the challenges of caring for children, but the outside demands supersede their best efforts.  P