Please watch the video on Tonier Cain and her story on Trauma Informed Care

Please share two points that stood out to you in the video and why they stood out.

Please respond to two other posts as well. Please be respectful of each person’s post. 2 to 3 lines

Student 1

I am fortunate enough to be familiar with Tonier’s story and while it is sad and shocking every time that I hear it, it is also too familiar and similar to adults that I work with now. There were a couple of points that stood out for me in Tonier Cain’s talk.
The first one was that as providers and people who work within systems we sometimes see people as liars and manipulative but don’t give them credit for being resourceful and being able to get their own needs met. The means that they are using to met those needs may be maladaptive but people are using the coping mechanisms and survival skills that they have been given. As she points out the prevalence of trauma, and sites the figure that 93% of incarcerated women have been exposed to emotional, physical and sexual abuse how can we expect them to utilize new or healthy coping mechanisms if those traumas go unresolved.
The second point that I found to be very important is that the very systems that we set in place to help people can in fact be a part of the problem, they can be dehumanizing and traumatizing and when multiple systems, i.e. law enforcement, mental health services, and homeless services are not communicating with each other then it is almost impossible to put all of the pieces together to provide the intense interventions needed to actually break the cycles and change peoples outcomes. To change the systems we need to be a trauma-informed culture where we are all trained in trauma-informed care and truly believe in recovery and hope.

Student 2

This was very difficult for me to watch, even though I know that many children grow up like this. The first thing that stood out most to me were that despite all of the red flags that something was wrong, nobody asked. Nobody at school intervened, except for once, when social services was called in, with temporary positive results. Why did not one see value in this child, and why were there no adults in her life who felt a responsibility to protect her? The second thing that stood out was the story about Tonier trying to open the can of peas to feed her siblings, cutting herself, and finding her mom in another apartment eating a big chicken sandwich. She said it was then that the she her mama was never going to really take care of her. After all she went through as a child and as an adult, it’s a wonder that she even survived, let alone was able to get clean and help others. She deserved so much more, and she was failed so many times, it breaks my heart.