Caregivers’ experiences of therapeutic support for children exposed to developmental trauma

Purpose: Exposure to trauma in childhood can have lasting impacts upon development and psychological well-being. Services can be sought to help young people heal from their experiences; however, literature suggests that their care may not always be trauma-informed. This paper aims to generate a theory to explain caregivers’ experiences of accessing mental health and therapeutic services for young people exposed to developmental trauma. Design/methodology/approach: A constructivist grounded theory approach was used, using an iterative process of data collection and analysis. Nine individuals including foster carers, adoptive parents and a special guardian were interviewed following purposive and theoretical sampling. Techniques of initial, focused and theoretical coding, alongside constant comparative analysis were used to develop the end theory. Findings: The theory demonstrates that multiple factors can impact upon caregivers’ experiences when accessing support for young people exposed to trauma. Six themes emerged documenting caregivers’ journeys from the decision to seek support to the ending of service involvement. Barriers, challenges and positive experiences are described. Results are contextualised through consideration of wider organisations and systems. Originality/value: The theory highlights challenges caregivers face when accessing mental health and therapeutic support for young people exposed to developmental trauma. It provides new insights into what caregivers consider to be trauma-informed experiences of care in these settings. Tentative recommendations are provided in the hope of improving future care.</p

The effect of arousal and eye gaze direction on trust evaluations of stranger's faces: A potential pathway to paranoid thinking

Background and objectives: When asked to evaluate faces of strangers, people with paranoia show a tendency to rate others as less trustworthy. The present study investigated the impact of arousal on this interpersonal bias, and whether this bias was specific to evaluations of trust or additionally affected other trait judgements. The study also examined the impact of eye gaze direction, as direct eye gaze has been shown to heighten arousal. Methods: In two experiments, non-clinical participants completed face rating tasks before and after either an arousal manipulation or control manipulation. Experiment one examined the effects of heightened arousal on judgements of trustworthiness. Experiment two examined the specificity of the bias, and the impact of gaze direction. Results: Experiment one indicated that the arousal manipulation led to lower trustworthiness ratings. Experiment two showed that heightened arousal reduced trust evaluations of trustworthy faces, particularly trustworthy faces with averted gaze. The control group rated trustworthy faces with direct gaze as more trustworthy post-manipulation. There was some evidence that attractiveness ratings were affected similarly to the trust judgements, whereas judgements of intelligence were not affected by higher arousal. Limitations: In both studies, participants reported low levels of arousal even after the manipulation and the use of a non-clinical sample limits the generalisability to clinical samples. Conclusions: There is a complex interplay between arousal, evaluations of trustworthiness and gaze direction. Heightened arousal influences judgements of trustworthiness, but within the context of face type and gaze direction