Is there a chance for kids traumatised in early childhood?

It seems that there are no chances for traumatised children. How much help can be provided, and how much help can foster families and authorities provide?

The problem with traumatised foster children is that foster families need professional support. Most traumatised foster children have never experienced a caring family or parents. They have been neglected and have experienced violence and evil situations before they have been removed from their families. They have never had the chance to establish a positive relationship to parents or relatives, and they have a deep mistrust against all adults. So they refuse to rely on any help offered, which is quite comprehensible. In situations which remind them of their former life they dissociate from the situation, and at the same time transfer their former reactions to their carers, believing that they represent the adults who have traumatised them. If they are not helped by trauma therapists, they will never lose this habit. This can make a child unbearable for a family. The family might have to put up with aggressive outbreaks, disruption of family life and other symptoms of early childhood traumatisation.

Still, living in a state-supported institution like children´s homes or housing groups is not necessarily better, and, worst of all, there are too few. It can take months or even years to transfer a traumatised child to a housing group which can cope with the behaviour of traumatised children and at the same time provide specialist help, so that these children have a chance of a good start into independent life after their coming of age. Precious time is wasted which might have been used for helping these children to lead a normal life.

This is what I have experienced during the past few weeks, and maybe it sounds clever, professional and reserved. But there is a development behind this which is hurting and seeing this development from a distance helps to cope and get things straightened out.

We had to put Sue, our younger foster daughter under the custody of the youth welfare office, which means that with her consent we took her to the nearest available children´s home. We were not able to cope with the symptoms of her traumatic experiences any more, and knowing that many institutions refused to accept her we don´t feel guilty or responsible for this pitiful situation. She lives there in a group of youngsters who all have been removed from critical situations in their families, mostly against their own will. Janet, her older sister, is still living with us. I visit Sue mostly once a week, but I noticed that she is trying to put up a distance between herself and me. Some say it is because she feels guilty, some say that this is the repeated break off of a relation. I don´t know how to judge this; I am not even sure that she ever has established a family relation to the rest of us.

The situation in this children´s home is far from ideal. The youth welfare office is trying to find a specialised housing group, but this seems difficult. So the situation still is quite unsettled. Our role as her family can only be to keep up contact to her and monitor her situation. There is only one chance to keep a relation. Visits to her must be well prepared with her by a therapist, and with us as well by a therapeutic supervision. This is what I am just discussing with the youth welfare office so that we get the support we need.