Understanding the resistance to trauma-informed care: The emotional, relational and ideological challenges of shifting power dynamics in child and youth residential care.

BACKGROUND

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a relational approach emphasizing safety, attunement, and collaboration. In child and youth residential care, this orientation sits in tension with longstanding compliance-oriented approaches that rely on rigid systems of incentives and consequences to guide behaviour.

OBJECTIVE

This study examines how residential care staff experience the challenges of shifting power dynamics during the transition from compliance-oriented approaches toward relational practice during TIC implementation.

PARTICIPANTS AND

SETTING

The study was conducted in a large urban child and youth residential care agency in Québec, Canada. Participants included staff across roles and organizational levels.

METHODS

Using a constructivist grounded theory design, data were generated through 17 in-depth interviews with staff, 45 h of participant observation of trainings, clinical support sessions, and leadership meetings, and analysis of institutional and implementation documents.

RESULTS

Analysis produced five interrelated theoretical categories characterizing the challenges experienced during TIC implementation: (1) perceptions of TIC as "too permissive," (2) destabilization associated with relinquishing punishment without concrete alternatives, (3) the emotional and relational challenge of "looking inward" through self-regulation and accountability, (4) an unspoken taboo around naming power, control, and compliance, and (5) a gap between intellectual buy-in and embodied practice under pressure.

CONCLUSIONS

Ideological resistance to TIC implementation emerged through concerns that its relational approach was overly permissive. Letting go of compliance-oriented approaches without clear enough relational alternatives often left staff feeling unsafe and helpless. Meaningful TIC implementation requires confronting punitive and childist belief systems, supporting deep self-reflection, and investing in experiential learning, supervision, and organizational conditions that sustain relational practice.