This trauma-informed blog post provides practical strategies for service providers supporting forcibly displaced clients through program disruptions, emphasizing safety, transparency, collaboration, and respect for clients’ varied backgrounds and experiences. It outlines specific approaches for managing transitions—from preparing clients in advance to ensuring continuity of care—while acknowledging the emotional toll on both clients and staff. This blog post was adapted from a best practices guide by the Center for Adjustment, Resilience & Recovery (CARRE).
Understanding the Impact
In times of funding uncertainty and programming changes, service providers often face the challenging task of managing disruptions in client care. For organizations that work with forcibly displaced individuals and families, navigating abrupt endings in service provision requires particular sensitivity. Clients with histories of loss and trauma may experience service disruptions as another destabilizing event in their lives.
Service disruptions affect both clients and staff in significant ways:
For clients, disruptions can trigger:
- Feelings of abandonment and loss
- Reminders of previous trauma and grief
- Increased anxiety and uncertainty
- Reduced access to essential resources
- Potential disengagement from services
For staff, these transitions often lead to:
- Feelings of guilt and concern for client well-being
- Difficulty having transition conversations
- Increased workload and stress
- Personal emotional impacts
A Trauma-Informed Framework for Transitions
Implementing trauma-informed approaches during service disruptions is essential for supporting newcomer clients through change. Here’s how to apply these principles:
Prioritize Safety and Transparency
Creating a physically and emotionally safe environment for difficult conversations is the foundation of trauma-informed transitions. When preparing to inform clients about program changes, consider reserving a private meeting room where clients can express their emotions without fear of being overheard. Approach each conversation with direct honesty, clearly explaining what is changing and why, while being careful to use interpreters when needed to ensure full understanding.
Transparency is crucial in conversations with clients, even when the news isn’t ideal. When you don’t have all the answers, acknowledge this openly. Rather than creating false reassurances, recognize the uncertainty while focusing on concrete steps you can take together. This honesty builds trust during a potentially destabilizing time and respects clients’ ability to cope with challenging realities.
Empower Through Collaboration
Service disruptions often leave clients feeling powerless, making collaborative approaches vital. Engage clients as active participants by presenting multiple care options and asking what matters most to them in a new provider. For example, some clients may feel more comfortable choosing a new provider of the same sex, while others may prioritize a provider who speaks their native language or who has cross-cultural experience. Honor these preferences to maintain the client’s sense of agency, and inform them of their rights during transitions, including whom to contact with concerns after your relationship ends. This will empower clients to advocate for themselves in new service settings.
Respect Clients’ Backgrounds and Experiences
Life experiences profoundly influence how people respond to change and disruption. A client who has experienced government persecution may interpret service disruptions differently than someone whose displacement was caused by a natural disaster. Take time to understand these nuances in each client’s situation.
Ensure transition information is provided both verbally and in writing in the client’s primary language. This reduces misunderstandings and demonstrates respect. When making referrals, prioritize providers who are knowledgeable of clients’ languages and cultural backgrounds whenever possible. Acknowledging and respecting your clients’ backgrounds recognizes the importance of heritage and belonging during times of change.
Practical Steps for Managing Transitions
Facilitate Effective Transition Conversations
When discussing service changes with clients, create space for their emotional responses. Some may express anger, others sadness, and some may appear indifferent while internally processing the news. All of these reactions are valid. A simple acknowledgment like, “It makes sense that you feel frustrated by this change,” can help clients feel heard and understood.
Throughout these conversations, intentionally highlight the strengths and resilience you’ve witnessed in your clients. Remind them of challenges they’ve already overcome and coping skills they’ve developed. This isn’t about minimizing the difficulty of the transition but rather reinforcing their capacity to navigate it successfully.
Take time to thoroughly review progress made toward goals and identify ongoing needs. This process not only provides closure for the current service relationship but also creates a foundation for continued care with future providers.
Ensure Continuity of Care
Thorough documentation bridges current and future services. With client consent, prepare comprehensive summaries of goals and progress, ideally involving clients in this process to maintain transparency. Facilitate “warm handoffs”—whether through in-person meetings, three-way phone calls with the client and their new provider, or introductory letters when direct communication is not possible—to reduce the anxiety of forming new service relationships. When intra-agency referrals are used as a solution to service disruption, facilitate case conferences to ensure all service providers involved in the case are aware of changes to the case management team and process. Give the client clear written information about next steps, including provider contacts and appointment details, along with community resources like ethnic organizations, faith communities, and peer support groups that can offer additional assistance during transitions.
Support Staff Well-being
Managing service disruptions takes an emotional toll on providers as well as clients. Regular consultation with supervisors helps ensure appropriate client support while giving providers space to process their own reactions, including the sense of moral injury that can arise from breaking promises to already-vulnerable clients. Organizations should create both formal and informal staff support opportunities—from dedicated discussion time in team meetings to professional supervision—recognizing that maintaining provider well-being ultimately leads to better outcomes for clients during these difficult transitions.
Setting boundaries with clients is crucial, especially during times when services may be reduced or workloads may increase due to staff departures. Providers may feel a strong sense of responsibility toward clients and be reluctant to say “no” when services are cut back, which can lead to burnout and overwhelm. It is important to communicate clearly and compassionately with clients about the changes, explaining that these adjustments are necessary and often unavoidable. Setting clear, professional boundaries early on in the service provision relationship can help ensure that clients continue to receive the best possible care within the limits of available resources.
Additional Resources
While service disruptions are challenging, they don’t have to be devastating. Through transparency, collaboration, and thoughtful planning, you can maintain trust and support client resilience even during uncertain times. The following resources offer additional support:
Trauma-Informed Approaches
- Evidence Summary: What is the evidence for strengths-based and trauma-informed approaches? (2025)
- Archived Webinar: Case Management Fundamentals Series: Trauma-Informed Care in Case Management (2022)
- Guide: Trauma-Informed Care: A Primer for Refugee Service Providers (2023)
- Archived Webinar: A Trauma-Informed Approach to De-escalation and Crisis Response (2023)
- Guide: A Trauma-Informed Understanding of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) (2021)
- South Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, Video : Trauma-Informed Work with Asylum-Seeking Youth at the Border (2021)
- Global Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, Tip Sheet: Trauma-Informed Strategies to Engage with Youth Seeking Asylum (2021)
- Archived Webinar: Trauma Attachment With Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Clients (2024)
- Archived Webinar: Traumatic Stress Among Refugee Children and Youth Part I: Viewing Trauma Through a Developmental Lens (2023)
- National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), Guide: Children, Youth, and Families Who Experience Migration-Related Trauma and Family Separation (2021)
Sustaining Resilience
- Archived Webinar: Creating Balance in Case Management (2025)
- Guide: Effective Case Consultations and Case Conferences (2022)
- Blog: Three Ways to Preserve Institutional Knowledge for Successful Change Management in Resettlement (2024)
- Podcast: Leading During Times of Transition (2023)
- Blog: Refugee Quarterly Consultations: Innovative Models for Empowering Community Connections (2024)
- Guide: Preventing Occupational Hazards by Promoting Organizational Resilience (2020)
- Karen Organization of San Diego, Blog: Best Practices for Supporting and Sustaining Community-Led ECBO Boards (2023)
- Blog: Fostering Resilience for Refugee Students (2024)
- RefugeeResponse, Video: Managing, Maintaining, Coping and Changing: A Series on Mental Health (2020)
- Guide: Preventing Crises and De-escalating Difficult Situations with Newcomer Clients (2023)
- Sesame Street, Toolkit: Supporting Families Resettling in the U.S. (2023)
- Guide: Demystifying Strengths-Based Services: Fostering Refugees’ Resilience in Resettlement (2019)
- Archived Webinar: Demystifying Strengths-Based Services to Foster Refugees’ Resilience (2019)
