A Lawrence program that helps the homeless is training its volunteers to detect whether any of the people it’s assisting endured trauma as a child.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports  it’s an initiative of Lawrence Family Promise, which uses churches and their volunteers to house homeless families.

Nearly 1,000 volunteers took part recently in what is called trauma-informed care training. The goal is to make sure the volunteers’ actions don’t cause fresh trauma to people who went through situations such as abuse, violence and neglect as children.

Lawrence Family Promise founder Joe Retiz says the training helps give volunteers realistic expectations about the way some homeless people might respond to them – and lessons in how to avoid making a situation worse.
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