New Year's Resolutions - Trauma Informed Care Edition | Patient Centered Care and Trauma Informed Care for Pediatric Patients

With New Year’s resolutions in full swing, maybe 2017 is the year you or your hospital system more fully integrate trauma informed into the routine care of pediatric patients and families. What resources are available to you to help?

The DEF Protocol provides physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals a framework to implement trauma informed care. From a handy DEF Poster to encourage staff members to embrace trauma informed care to DEF Pocket Cards and the DEF Nursing Assessment Form for quick and easy screening and intervention recommendation and to the DEF Users Guide to practicing trauma informed care, there’s a resource for any phase of implementation.

How to Implement Trauma Informed Care Using DEF Protocol

To see how trauma and traumatic stress is experienced through Tommy's eyes, watch the journey of Tommy and his family from the emergency department through inpatient and outpatient care.

For more in-depth, practical guidance for using trauma informed care at the bedside, the following continuing education courses (with free nurses credits available) are available:

Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress: An Introduction for Health Care Professionals is a continuing education course that provides an introduction to traumatic stress reactions related to injury and illness, how to identify risk factors and signs and symptoms of emotional trauma in children, and how healthcare professionals can address these reactions in the context of everyday pediatric care.

DEF Protocol Series is a three part “how to” guide to build key skills to implement the DEF [Distress, Emotional Support and Family] Protocol with pediatric patients and families.

Part 1: D is for Distress: Helping Pediatric Patients with Pain, Fears, and Worries

Part 2 - E is for Emotional Support: Who and What Does Your Patient Need Now?

Part 3 - F is for Family: Remembering Family Stress and Coping

For Health Care Professionals: Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress (PMTS) and Working with the Child Welfare System will enhance healthcare professionals’ skills in trauma-informed care and provide tips for working effectively with the child welfare system.

What if you’re not a healthcare provider? For professionals who work in mental health, the Working with Children and Families Experiencing Medical Traumatic Stress: A resource guide for mental health professionals, provides an overview of pediatric medical traumatic stress, resources to help educate medical colleagues, and psychosocial screening, assessment, and intervention resources.

Regardless of the stage of implementation of trauma informed care, there are many evidenced based, research backed patient education materials and coping tools, like the Cellie Coping Kit, you can use right now to help your pediatric patients and families cope with their illness or injury.

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