Children need a stable, nurturing, safe home environment and this is especially true for children who have experienced separation, trauma, and loss. This will require nurturing parenting, with routine, rituals, and structure and also flexibility to address the child’s changing needs. As a parent, you will need to be proactive to provide the structure and consistency needed. Even when you succeed in creating a stable, nurturing, safe environment, you will likely encounter challenging behaviors. The STEPS model, along with skills presented in other themes, can help you manage these situations. We’ll talk about all of these things in more depth as part of this theme.

Knowledge

• Understand how to develop and maintain daily routines to provide a sense of security for children.
• Understand how to balance setting consistent and predictable limits with the unique needs of
children who have experienced separations, loss, and trauma.
• Learn strategies to help children impacted by trauma and loss feel psychologically and physically safe
in the home.
• Can identify strategies to communicate in a manner that is reflective of children’s ability to process
knowledge.
• Understand how the sense of safety ties to behaviors.

Attitudes
• Willing to change family routines and rituals to meet the needs of children instead of making the
children change to meet the family routines and rituals.
• Willing to set boundaries while flexibly adjusting to the child’s emotional and developmental needs.

Skill
• Practice using “STEPS” to manage escalated behaviors.