Researching Trauma-Informed Care Using Feminist Theory As a Guiding Principle

Background and Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore employees’ experiences of trauma-informed care (TIC) at a non-profit social service agency using feminist theory as a guiding point in the research methods. The application of feminist theory requires attention towards power imbalances, oppression and social justice (Beckman, 2014; Clemans, 2006; Gringeri et al., 2010). The harmony of feminist theory and TIC is natural, in that both include the cognizance of power balances, with a focus on empowerment, collaboration and choice between researcher and participants.

Methods: This study used narrative research methods from a transcendental phenomenological approach. The researchers attended two ‘all-staff’ meetings to explain the purpose of the study, and recruit participants. The researchers then used purposive sampling to gather a sample of four focus groups (N = 17 participants in total). These groups provided multiple perspectives within the organizational hierarchy, as two focus groups included direct-line workers, one focus group with middle-management employees, and one with administrative-level employees. The researchers aimed to minimize the inherent perceived power imbalance between researchers and participants (Burgess-Proctor, 2015), and encourage feelings of empowerment during/after participation in this study.

Results: In most social service organizations, it is clear from an organizational flow chart that power imbalances naturally exist, with more power given to those in policy/financial decision-making positions. As this organization became committed to TIC, middle management and administrators described the decision-making processes as inclusive and transparent. One of the administrators explained that it is the “new leadership from the top that supports our new culture of respect, providing opportunities for voices to be heard”. However, direct-line staff felt the burden of the emotional toll from the challenging work they perform with families, and voiced the need for improvement within certain areas (power/ empowerment, collaboration and choice). As one direct-line worker shared: “We’re the ones doing the hard work and bringing in the money, but we get reprimanded when we don’t meet productivity. Oftentimes it’s outside of our control. If a client no-shows or cancels at the last minute, we can’t always control that.”

Conclusions and Implications: In studies using narrative feminist research methods, the participants are empowered to ‘co-create’ meaning with the researcher, as opposed to the researcher making meaning for the participants (Fraser & MacDougall, 2017). This ‘co-creation’ lends itself to the TIC principle of collaboration, because the researchers and participants collaborated together not only towards making meaning of participant experiences, but also towards a trauma-informed research environment. Many of the issues noted by the participants are echoed throughout the social service industry, and can often lead to burnout (Handran, 2015), which is why TIC principles (i.e., collaboration, power sharing, and choice) may ameliorate that outcome (Lang et al., 2016). The results of this study suggest that even with the shift towards a trauma-informed organizational culture, there is still more work to do. Future research should look at agencies in multiple stages of the trauma-informed organizational change process.