Children and adolescents with history of trauma have been empirically shown to face a range of different behavioral and emotional challenges as a result of past traumatic experiences. The process of placement of these children and adolescents in residential care is carried out with the aim of providing help and support in their personal and family challenges. In the theoretical part, I present the placement of the child in the residential and counselling institution, the functioning of the Residential and counselling institution Frana Milčinskega Smlednik, the definitions of traumatic events and trauma, the consequences of traumatic events, a trauma-informed care, trauma caused in the child protection system. I also focus on forms of help and support for children with trauma experiences, basic principles of support, some therapies and techniques and the use of medication. Finally, I present the importance of inter-institutional cooperation and secondary traumatization of professional workers. In the following part of the thesis, I present a qualitative research I conducted with professional workers working in the position of educator or counsellor at the Residential and counselling institution Frana Milčinskega Smlednik. Through semi-standardized interviews, I obtained results on how professional workers recognize trauma and signs of traumatic experiences in children, how they provide help and support to children and their family, and what knowledge they rely on in doing so. I also explored how familiar they are with a trauma-informed care, their perspective on institutionalization as a potential additional traumatic experience for the child in placement, how they themselves cope with working in a trauma environment, and how inter-institutional cooperation and collaboration with parents or foster parents of children in placement take place. The results of the research showed that professional workers recognize the impact of trauma on the child and use a variety of skills when providing help and support, but express a need for additional acquisition of knowledge about trauma. They perceive the placement of a child in a residential care as a stressful experience, but only in rare cases traumatic. According to the professional workers who participated in the research, additional traumatic experiences can be caused by placed peers in cases of peer violence and their negative integration. Professional workers face compassion fatigue in this work and need regular supervision and work on self-care to reduce it. Inter-institutional cooperation takes place in the Residential and counselling institution and professional workers also regularly cooperate with the parents or foster parents of the placed children and adolescents.
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