When Systems Reinforce Trauma: Juvenile Justice Professionals’ Perspectives on Trauma-Informed Care and Youth Resilience

Background and Purpose:

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system (JJS) experience high rates of trauma, yet trauma-informed care (TIC) is not consistently implemented across settings. Although prior research has established the prevalence of trauma, less is known about how juvenile justice professionals understand and apply trauma-informed practices in their day-to-day work. In addition, limited research has examined how professionals conceptualize and support youth resilience within the JJS.

The purpose of this study is to explore juvenile justice professionals’ perceptions of trauma-informed care and youth resilience. Specifically, the study addresses the following research questions: (1) How do professionals understand trauma-informed care and youth resilience in the JJS? (2) How do they implement trauma-informed and resilience-enhancing practices? and (3) What barriers shape service delivery?

Methods:

This qualitative study employed a constructivist approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 juvenile justice professionals, including probation officers, social workers, attorneys, and a therapist, in Indiana. Participants were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling to capture a range of professional roles.

Interviews explored participants’ experiences working with justice-involved youth, their understanding of trauma and resilience, and their approaches to implementing trauma-informed care. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis with an inductive coding approach. Coding was iterative and focused on identifying patterns across participants while remaining grounded in their experiences. Ecological theory and the Resilience Portfolio Model informed interpretation of findings.

Results:

Findings indicate that participants view trauma as pervasive among youth in the JJS and often reinforced by system practices. Participants described how routine procedures and punitive structures can contribute to re-traumatization, even when professionals aim to support youth.

Resilience was understood as a dynamic, relational process shaped by supportive relationships, trust, and opportunities for youth voice and agency, and influenced by both individual and system-level factors.

While participants endorsed key trauma-informed principles such as safety, trust, and empowerment, implementation was often informal and based on personal experience rather than structured models. Participants reported relying on intuition and relationship-building in the absence of consistent training or organizational guidance.

Barriers included limited funding and staffing, punitive system cultures, fragmented collaboration, and inconsistent leadership support.

Building on these findings, the Resilience-after-Trauma Care (RTC) framework was developed to conceptualize trauma, intervention, and resilience as interconnected processes within juvenile justice settings.

Conclusions and Implications:

This study highlights the gap between trauma-informed care as a guiding framework and its consistent implementation within the juvenile justice system. Findings underscore the role of professionals in shaping youth experiences while also revealing how system-level constraints limit service delivery.

Implications include the need for sustained training, organizational commitment to trauma-informed approaches, and improved cross-system collaboration. The RTC framework offers a practical tool to guide more consistent implementation of trauma-informed and resilience-focused practices. Strengthening alignment between policy, practice, and training may support improved outcomes for justice-involved youth and inform future research on system-level influences.