Trauma and Social Work Practice

The mission of social work is the enhancement of social justice and well-being for all people, particularly those who are vulnerable, oppressed, marginalized, and living in poverty. Because of the focus on these population groups, almost all clients served by social workers encounter numerous and diverse traumatic experiences. Typical examples of such individual, familial, or community traumas include being a survivor of domestic violence, rape, torture, or forced relocation; fleeing from a war zone or a natural disaster; growing up with an abusive, incarcerated, or mentally sick parent; parental divorce; the death or life-threatening disease of a loved one; homelessness; or living in a poor neighborhood with significant exposure to community violence and a high crime rate. Because multiple traumatic experiences exacerbate each other, social workers often serve severely and repeatedly traumatized populations.

Although social work shares with other disciplines universal aspects of understanding and attending to the needs of trauma survivors, its unique perspective relative to trauma work reflects the values of the profession and emphasizes two foci. The first focus is the understanding of the development, functioning, challenges, and needs of people and systems that encounter traumatic events from a relational viewpoint and within the context of their environments such as immediate and extended family, cultural, social, racial, ethnic, and religious/spiritual affiliation. The second focus is the view of people and systems through holistic multidimensional lenses and addressing individuals, families, groups, and communities from a perspective that recognizes strengths, resilience, and the ability to cope and thrive in addition to challenges, struggles, and pathologies. This entry reviews the contextualized and holistic perspective of social work on trauma and discusses principles that guide social workers in providing services to trauma survivors.