How to help clients dealing with trauma

Trauma-informed practice has gained significant attention in recent years. For many, however, it remains unclear what it truly entails and how to implement it effectively.

There are various interpretations of what trauma-informed practice means, with different professionals offering their perspectives. Our views are shaped by lessons learned over recent years through dealing with complex personal injury actions, particularly in the field of historical child abuse.

The key principles of trauma-informed practice that guide our work include Trust, Choice, Collaboration, Control and Empowerment.

Sensitivity is vital when dealing with clients whose brains have been affected by trauma, says Laura Connor

Establishing trust is fundamental to a successful agent-client relationship. We need to guide clients through an adversarial process, often not best suited to their needs. Our job is to minimise the harm that process can cause as much as possible, whilst also ensuring justice and compensation is ultimately achieved. We are dealing with a litigation process defined to suit very different case types, perhaps also within a different era of understanding, so we need to push boundaries and question developed custom and practice to best serve our clients. As our profession becomes better educated on the needs of individuals and members of the public, inroads are being made to make our system better suited to victims of crime and negligence.

Through our focused work with survivors of historical abuse, we have discovered new approaches to help support clients whose brains have been affected by trauma. This often leads to reactions that may not align with typical expectations. Perhaps most importantly, we appreciate that trauma-informed practice should not be confined solely to cases involving survivors of abuse.

Our experiences gained through working with survivors, as well as with those who provide training in the field, have deepened our understanding of trauma-informed practice. In our cases, trauma can affect not only individuals who have been injured but also their families, or even those who have lost loved ones. While we cannot fully shield clients from the impacts of legal proceedings, we can use our expertise to mitigate those effects and offer as much protection as possible. But whilst we offer this supportive service, it’s important to note we are not here to provide treatment. We must be clear with clients about this boundary as lines can become blurred, particularly when we are often their only direct point of contact and the only people they feel they can rely on.

Our clients don’t need to trust us outside our professional relationship, although many will. However, it’s vital that we employ techniques early on to build that trust. Once established, we work collaboratively with our clients, ensuring they understand the process, timelines, potential variations, and involving them in decision-making at every step.

We are grateful for the insights we’ve gained and the opportunity to learn ways to better assist and work with our clients. Our knowledge and methods of practice continue to evolve, most recently through the formation of our Life Impact Team.

Our Life Impact Team combines the respective expertise and experience of lawyers in our Survivor Team and Serious & Catastrophic Injury Team. Bringing the complementary skills sets of our lawyers together allows Thompsons to bring a unique service to our clients. Whilst this firm has a strong and proud history of involvement in development of legislation and creating new laws through cases we fearlessly pursue, this is perhaps a quieter shift in professional development, treatment of clients, and support of one another.

Laura Connor is a Partner, Thompsons