TTC Trauma-Informed Care Principles 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which of the following best describes the principle of 'trustworthiness and transparency' in trauma-informed care?
- Keeping clinical decisions confidential from clients
- Making tasks clear and maintaining appropriate boundaries so clients can trust the organization (Correct answer)
- Ensuring all staff share client information freely within the team
- Prioritizing organizational policies over client preferences
Correct answer: Making tasks clear and maintaining appropriate boundaries so clients can trust the organization
Trustworthiness and transparency means operations and decisions are conducted with transparency, with the goal of building and maintaining trust with clients and staff.
Question 2: A trauma-informed clinician notices a client becoming dysregulated during session. The BEST immediate response is to:
- Continue with the planned agenda to avoid reinforcing avoidance
- Pause the session, offer grounding techniques, and allow the client to set the pace (Correct answer)
- Refer the client to a higher level of care immediately
- Document the dysregulation and reschedule for the next session
Correct answer: Pause the session, offer grounding techniques, and allow the client to set the pace
Trauma-informed care prioritizes stabilization and co-regulation before processing, allowing the client to regain a sense of safety.
Question 3: The concept of 'universal precautions' in trauma-informed care means:
- Assuming every client has an infectious disease
- Treating all clients as if they may have a trauma history, regardless of known diagnosis (Correct answer)
- Requiring trauma screening before any clinical contact
- Applying the same treatment protocol to every client
Correct answer: Treating all clients as if they may have a trauma history, regardless of known diagnosis
Just as medical universal precautions assume potential exposure, TIC universal precautions assume any client may have experienced trauma and respond accordingly.
Question 4: Which organizational practice most directly supports staff resilience and reduces secondary traumatic stress?
- Mandatory overtime to complete documentation
- Regular clinical supervision focused on case complexity and staff well-being (Correct answer)
- Restricting staff from discussing difficult cases to maintain professionalism
- Assigning more cases to experienced clinicians to protect newer staff
Correct answer: Regular clinical supervision focused on case complexity and staff well-being
Regular supervision that addresses both clinical and personal impact of trauma work is a primary protective factor against secondary traumatic stress.
Question 5: A trauma-informed organization that emphasizes 'peer support' is primarily trying to:
- Replace professional staff with peer workers to cut costs
- Leverage shared lived experience to build connection, trust, and hope for recovery (Correct answer)
- Ensure peers handle crisis situations independently
- Provide peers with diagnostic authority for trauma-related disorders
Correct answer: Leverage shared lived experience to build connection, trust, and hope for recovery
Peer support in TIC uses lived experience of trauma and recovery to offer empathy, reduce stigma, and model hope.
Question 6: When implementing trauma-informed care, 'collaboration and mutuality' refers to:
- Leveling power differences between staff and clients and recognizing that healing happens in relationships (Correct answer)
- Staff and clients working the same number of hours each week
- Clients collaborating only with peers, not with clinicians
- Requiring mutual agreement on all organizational policies before implementation
Correct answer: Leveling power differences between staff and clients and recognizing that healing happens in relationships
Collaboration and mutuality recognize that everyone in the system—staff and clients—plays a role in creating a trauma-informed environment, and that power differentials should be minimized.
Question 7: Which statement BEST reflects the trauma-informed principle of 'empowerment, voice, and choice'?
- Clients are empowered when clinicians make all decisions to reduce their burden
- Offering clients meaningful choices in their care plan strengthens their sense of control and self-efficacy (Correct answer)
- Empowerment means clients can leave treatment at any time without consequences
- Voice and choice apply only to residential treatment settings
Correct answer: Offering clients meaningful choices in their care plan strengthens their sense of control and self-efficacy
Empowerment in TIC involves building on clients' strengths and offering choices throughout treatment to restore a sense of agency often lost through trauma.
TTC Trauma-Informed Care Principles 2
Which of the following best describes the principle of 'trustworthiness and transparency' in trauma-informed care?