Identity-informed approach
In this section you will focus on a key area of trauma-informed care – identity-informed approaches to trauma recovery. This is a vital part of trauma-informed care to focus on, especially when working with students from cultures, races and religions different to your own.
An identity-informed approach is very much a part of trauma-informed care and is essential when working with people from cultures different to your own, to ensure you are working in a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed way with all students and really meeting their individual needs.
An identity-informed approach to trauma is taking into consideration who an individual is and how those factors may influence the way they experience, cope with, and recover from trauma.
An identity-informed approach recognises that an individual's various social identities (like race, gender, class, etc.) can significantly influence their experiences of trauma and their recovery process.
It focuses on understanding how these identities interact with trauma and how they can shape a person's perceptions, responses and access to resources.
Understanding the impact of identity
A person’s identities play a significant role in how they experience, process and heal from trauma. An identity-informed approach focuses on the three key impacts, as shown below:
Intersectional lens | Trauma-informed care acknowledges that individuals hold multiple, intersecting identities, and these identities can create unique vulnerabilities to trauma and influence recovery. |
Cultural context | A person's cultural background significantly shapes their understanding of trauma, their coping mechanisms, and their help-seeking behaviours. |
Social determinants | Factors like socioeconomic status, migration status, and disability can also play a crucial role in how trauma impacts an individual. |
Some of the benefits of using an identity-informed approach include:
Reduced retraumatisation | By understanding the impact of past trauma and creating supportive environments, these approaches can help prevent further harm. |
Recovery | By addressing the unique needs of individuals with diverse identities, trauma-informed care can promote healing and wellbeing. |
Enhanced engagement | When individuals feel safe, respected, and understood, they are more likely to engage in treatment and support services. |
You will now explore two frameworks and engage in a task that can help you to understand and utilise identity-informed approaches better in your classroom and wider school.
Identity-informed schools
Using an identity-informed approach and viewing situations through an identity-informed lens can help you better understand and support all students.
It can also help you avoid making certain assumptions or jumping to conclusions regarding behaviour, attainment and the impacts of trauma.
To understand the importance of an identity-informed approach, we need to understand three key theories – intersectionality, the invisible knapsack and the social GRACES model.
Intersectionality
Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality to describe a type of analysis which provides a more comprehensive way of understanding how our various identities overlap and interlink so that we can provide better support to people by gaining a better understanding of the challenges they face and the biases we may hold towards them (Crenshaw, 1989).
Intersectionality helps to understand the different ways that a person’s identity can bring them power or oppression in the society they currently live in.
For example, if you are a white student, your race will have unlikely been a barrier to gaining certain opportunities such as a place on a certain apprenticeship programme or on a college course. In fact, in many countries, your race may make it easier for you to be welcomed into certain spaces and take advantage of certain opportunities.
Now let’s consider those parts of your identity which don’t bring you power in your society and can actually act as a barrier or a risk of oppression.
If you are a white female student, it is unlikely that you will have experienced structural racism, but you are likely to have experienced misogyny to some extent, and this may well have been a barrier for you to access certain opportunities. For example, being bullied during your apprenticeship in Construction and facing daily jokes about your inability to complete your work as well as your male peers. In this case, a female student may leave the course because of the oppression she is facing based on this part of her identity.
If you are a Black female student, you may have faced the double oppressions of structural racism, plus misogyny. Intersectionality helps us make meaning of these complex power dynamics, helping us on the first step to undoing them and ensuring equity for our students.
The invisible knapsack
The invisible knapsack is an activity created by Peggy McIntosh which is meant to help you examine your various identities and the privileges and oppression that we carry with us throughout our lives in each society we live in (McIntosh and Privilege, 1989). It builds on the theory of intersectionality and gives people a tool to begin analysing their overlapping identities.
It was intended to help us better understand each other and challenge any biases we may have towards each other and ourselves.
This can be a very useful activity when thinking about how your school treats different members of the community and also to reflect on the needs of groups who may be members of minority groups in your setting.
For example, a student who is religious may require a place to pray during the school day. A student who is not religious will not require this. Factoring in this part of their identity is crucial to ensure their specific needs are met. Equity is achieved through providing different resources to allow students the same outcome rather than providing the same resources to every student.
Risk and protective factors
