Trauma Informed Care

We are the Loras College Trauma-informed Care Honors Group, class of 2024. Since our sophomore year, we became interested in learning more about trauma and its effects on students, especially in college. This led us to want to explore methods of trauma-informed care, aiming at helping those who may be suffering from past or present Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which may present itself in college due to all of the possible stressors. As a group, we gave trauma-informed care trainings to seven first year classes at Loras during the Fall of 2023. Feedback was great and we are hoping that trauma-informed care education still occurs at Loras and wider, which is our reason for making this website! Our goal is to provide resources for faculty, professionals, or any other people (especially students) interested in the topic. Please enjoy the content and feel free to use it; that is why it's here. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to reach out to the group's contact person, Brian Day at Brian.Day@loras.edu. Thanks and enjoy!

Trauma is when we experience very stressful, frightening or distressing events that are difficult to cope with or out of our control. It could be one incident, or an ongoing event that happens over a long period of time. Trauma doesn't look the same from one person to another, but regardless, it can have a grave impact. Healing also isn't something that everyone does the same, and it is for sure not always linear. This is why we hope to provide education and resources on this topic.

Trauma during childhood is referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and is measured using an ACEs quiz. It's a 10 question quiz that assessed your past experiences and gives you a score out of 10, with a higher score meaning you've incurred more trauma. Based on research, higher ACEs scores are correlated to higher rates of mental and physical health issues, which can be problematic especially for students coming into college. A link to the ACEs quiz is below. Feel free to take it, however know that some questions may be difficult to digest and may lead you down a path of re-traumatization. Please contact a loved one or counselor if you are unsure about taking the quiz or your results.

Trauma-informed Care (TIC) is the practice of recognizing trauma and its effect on your life and properly treating it, while avoiding re-traumatization. TIC is important because many people bury or don't properly deal with their past traumas, which results in negative consequences in their lives. Education on the topic, discussions, and counseling resources are all helpful steps of trauma-informed care, and necessary parts of the healing process. This is not something you should try to attempt on your own, but rather with the help of a counselor or professional in the field of trauma-informed care. Please proceed with an open mind, but recognize if this is something that would be helpful for you, please contact someone listed above before delving more into the content.