There a lot of resources about trauma and complex trauma, including how it impacts children and how to treat it. For those charged with caring for and supporting youth who have been traumatized, these effects can create a myriad of questions and barriers. Parents and caregivers may find themselves asking things like “Why won’t he listen to me?”, “We’ve talked about this a thousand times, why hasn’t it changed?”, or “Why is she getting so upset over something so small?”. To answer these questions you must first understand hw trauma changed the basic wiring of a child. Here a few resources parents and educators may find helpful in beginning to learn about these very complex issues.
The NCTSN offers a wide variety of educational material around trauma and children. It includes a section specifically for parents and caregivers that gives helpful information regarding traumatic stress, age-related effects, and even helpful books and videos that can be shared with children.
The Child Mind Institute offers a variety of easy access to tools for families as well as educators, and provides several trauma response guides in nine languages outside of English including, but not limited to, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.
The National Childhood Stress Trauma Initiative was created between SAMSHA and NCTSN to raise awareness about the impact of trauma on children including related behavioral health concerns. This site offers several infographics that explain trauma and its effects in a quick and easy manner to understand and digest.
So how does one go about creating a list such as this? It is important to remember that the web has grown exponentially since its birth. And why was it born? To allow people to actively engage with and participate in the sharing of information and knowledge in way that books and magazines do not allow. The internet was started for, and continues to be, a way for people to collaborate across distances in order to work together for some purpose.
With all these people being able to add to, subtract from, and actively manipulate this system of information sharing it is no surprise that not all information is useful or accurate. When looking at resources you find on the internet it is important to not just accept anything as fact just because it was published on the internet. The truth is anyone can post anything, unlike books and journals that are scrutinized by editors and peers, so not all information is good information. Georgetown University Library provides a condensed and quick list of questions you can use when evaluating a resource. The general themes are summed up here.
Author
First and foremost, if you cannot identify an author or creator for an article or webpage you should proceed with extreme caution. If the author is identified, is there a link to a homepage or “About Me” section? What type of information is on that page about the author(s) credentials, experience, or connections to reputable organizations?
Purpose
Sometimes articles that look informational and/or scholarly turn out to be an attempt to sell a product or persuade the reader to a particular viewpoint. When reading the material try and determine who the author’s intended audience is-for example are they focusing on experts and researchers or providing important information to the general public?
Objectivity
While examining the intended audience of an article or webpage the reader should begin to form some assumptions on how objective the author is in presenting the material. If the author, in their personal information, is affiliated with an organization is there a sense of bias in their presentation? Sometimes biases and opinions can be stated to sound like facts, so it is important to always read with a questioning attitude. Often if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
Accuracy & Credibility
One way to check for objectivity is to check the stated facts. Can similar information be found elsewhere on other sites and by other authors? Even if it is presented slightly differently, the core information should be the same. Does the author use quotations and does the author cite where they found the information? This could be done by either including the name and author of the work they are quoting or providing a link directly to the resource. Clicking on these links can be important to verify it is a legitimate resource and if those links still exist, and therefore if the page is regularly maintained.
Timeliness
When looking at a webpage it would be helpful to start by checking when it was created and when was the last time it was updated. New research is always being completed and information is always being added, so it is important to try and stick with the latest information. It can be confusing and difficult to keep track of a there can be conflicting information, For example, how many time eggs have gone from being good and then bad and then good again?
In using all of these tools together you can begin to make a general assumption about what is safe and accurate.
Good luck and happy web reading!
Catherine's Field of Ideas 