313 – What is Trauma-Informed Practice

Transitioning from Student to Qualified Practitioner – Working Around Barriers in Communication

In Episode 313 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, your hosts Rory Lees-Oakes and Ken Kelly take us through this week’s three topics:

• Firstly in ‘Ethical, Sustainable Practice’, Rory and Ken ask what is trauma-informed practice?
• Then in ‘Practice Matters’, Rory speaks with Alex Gulland about her transition from student to qualified counsellor.
• And lastly in ‘Student Services’, we look at barriers in communication.

What is Trauma-Informed Practice [starts at 03:13 mins]

Understanding and responding to the impact of trauma is essential to be able to best serve our clients. In this section, Rory and Ken take us through what is trauma-informed practice, giving an outline of what it means to be a trauma-informed practitioner:

• Trauma-informed practice is a framework created by SAMHSA, focused on understanding and responding to the impact of trauma and avoiding retraumatisation.
• The three E’s: Event, Experience, and Effect.
• An event plays out that creates a traumatic experience, and now there is an effect on the individual involved.
• These events don’t have to be huge for someone to become traumatised.
• Dual burden e.g. a hate crime – the attack itself is traumatic, and then there is the trauma of being attacked for who you are. (Traumatic event and Negative Cultural event).
• Working with trauma requires a good grounding of training – it’s nuanced, it’s got depth, and clients need to feel safe with you.
• Four R’s of trauma-informed care:
  • Realisation: recognising the widespread impact of trauma and understanding potential paths for recovery for clients.
  • Recognition: identifying signs of trauma.
  • Response: integrating your knowledge about trauma into your policies and procedures from the moment you meet a client.
  • Resistance – actively working to prevent retraumatisation.
• Let clients see the therapy room before a session – are they comfortable with it? Is there anything they’d rather have removed e.g. mirrors?
• Trustworthiness and transparency – building trust through clear communication and consistent boundaries.
• Utilising peer support – recognise the value of shared experience.
• Supporting clients to make informed decisions and encouraging them to take an active role in their journey.

Transitioning from Student to Qualified Practitioner [starts at 22:33 mins]

In this week’s ‘Practice Matters’, Rory speaks with Alex Gulland about her transition from student to qualified practitioner.

The key points of this discussion include:

• There are a few decisions to be made once you qualify to become a counsellor – will you join an organisation or set up your own private practice?
• If you decide to go into private practice, do you do that as a limited company, or as a sole trader?
• You will need to change your insurance from student insurance to cover you as a sole trader (or whatever path you have chosen).
• Make sure your DBS certificate is up to date.
• Ensure your data protection is in line with the GDPR.
• Think about how you are going to take payment from clients.
• Consider your assessment forms and your contract.
• Have a clinical/therapeutic will.
• How will you support yourself financially while you work on setting up your practice?
• Peer support and networking – keep in contact with your peers, as they will become a good professional network as you go into practice.

Working Around Barriers in Communication [starts at 47:59 mins]

Barriers to communication come in all different forms. It’s important to be able to recognise different barriers to communication and think about how to approach and work around them. In this section, Rory and Ken discuss some of the ways we might be faced with barriers in communication:

• Language barriers – this includes dialects and accents. Consider differences in language for countries that speak the same language as us, e.g. in America a ‘trunk’ refers to the boot of a car.
• Neurodiversity – double empathy, their way of communicating may be different to the way you normally communicate with those around you.
• Email – some clients may not have access to this form of communication, whether that be skill-wise, or they don’t have access to a smartphone or computer.
• We have to be very thoughtful of how people communicate and what they can communicate with.
• Counselling is a communication process.
• If a client doesn’t feel they are being heard, recognised, or understood for who they are, they may be reluctant to show or bring their whole self.
• Does the client feel they are safe? Can they be assured of confidentiality, e.g. can people see into the room, can people be heard outside of the room?
• Are there any outside noises or distractions such as roadworks?
• Are we as the counsellor a barrier for communication via transference or parallel process? Would a referral be best for the client?
• Technology as a barrier – when working with clients online, we can meet challenges such as the internet going down or frustration around using applications such as Zoom.

Links and Resources

• Alex Gulland
• Counselling Skills Academy
• Advanced Certificate in Counselling Supervision
• Basic Counselling Skills: A Student Guide
• Counsellor CPD
• Counselling Study Resource
• Counselling Theory in Practice: A Student Guide
• Counselling Tutor Shop
• Facebook group
• Website
• Online and Telephone Counselling: A Practitioner’s Guide
• Online and Telephone Counselling Course