Life Thrive: Using a trauma informed approach to one-to-one support

This year we have focused on one-to-one support for our clients, giving it a clear structure and focusing on outcomes for our clients.

“One-to-one support continues to make a real difference to people in terms of moving forward and I am glad that our model of support allows us to work intensively with people in this way to create significant and lasting change.” ~ Ivana Bensted, Genesis Life Project staff

 

An important part of delivering one-to-one support is understanding our clients. Many of our clients have issues with addiction, mental ill-health, loneliness and isolation. 85% of people with complex needs have experienced some form of trauma in their life (The Lankelly Chase 2015 Hard Edges Report). Therefore, when delivering one-to-ones, we understand that people with trauma behave in a certain way.

As we shared last year, we have a Psychologically Informed Environment in place to help staff understand these behaviours and enable them to work more creatively with clients. It also helps us decide which sort of one-to-one support is best for each person.

At Genesis Life Projects we use Trauma Informed Principles where we:

  • Realise the impact of this trauma and how it affects everyone differently
  • Recognise the signs and symptoms of their trauma
  • Respond to their trauma
  • do all that’s possible to Resist re-traumatisation

One-to-one support makes up the largest proportion of staff time and has the most meaningful impact, creating positive change in our clients’ lives.

“I needed help as I was feeling suicidal and so I went to Genesis Trust and was offered one-to-one support. Their approach and the way they do this has helped me a great deal…I am so grateful to have been given the time to work through this by the team at Genesis.” ~ client