12 minutes
Where mistrust comes from Trace institutional mistrust to its sources, from institutions and segregation to coercion, discrimination and systems no one could use, and recognize how it shows up at your counter.
What you’ll be able to do Connect at least four sources of institutional mistrust to specific behaviors staff may see, and explain why the behavior is a reasonable response rather than a personal flaw. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most trauma-informed response? Document a next step for Where mistrust comes from: List three promises your intake process makes, explicitly or by implication, and check whether each is kept every time. The memory the person brings Minnesota once housed thousands of disabled people in state institutions. Many living adults were sent to segregated classrooms, denied jobs or housing, placed under guardianship without being asked, or treated involuntarily. Many Black, Native, Latino, Asian and immigrant families have watched a disability label become a reason for removal, surveillance or lower expectations. The state’s Olmstead Plan exists because that history is recent and its effects are ongoing.
A person does not need to have lived through an institution to inherit the lesson. A parent’s experience with a school, a sibling’s experience with a hospital, a neighbor’s experience with a benefits investigation all teach the same rule: be careful what you tell them, and never sign anything you have not read twice. When a person is careful with you, they are applying that rule. It is not about you, and it is not irrational.
Inaccessible systems teach the same lesson more quietly. A phone tree no one can navigate, a notice in a language the household does not read, a portal that cannot be used with a screen reader, a form that requires a document the person cannot get: each one says that the system was not built for them. After enough of these, a person stops trying, and a worker who does not know the history writes “failed to follow through.”
Five sources of mistrust and what they look like at intake Institutionalization History: state hospitals, regional treatment centers, nursing facilities and group settings where daily life was decided by staff.
What you may see: hypervigilance about rules, reluctance to disclose symptoms, questions about who decides and whether the person can leave.
Segregation History: separate classrooms, sheltered workshops, day programs and housing that kept disabled people apart from community life.
What you may see: low expectations the person has absorbed, or a sharp insistence on ordinary options that staff read as unrealistic.
Coercion History: involuntary treatment, restraint, guardianship, conditions attached to benefits, threats of removal of children.
What you may see: agreeing to everything to end the meeting, or refusing everything to keep control. Both are strategies, not personality.
Discrimination History: being denied a job, a lease, a loan or a medical procedure because of disability, race or both; being disbelieved about pain or ability.
What you may see: bringing a witness, recording the conversation, asking for everything in writing.
Inaccessible systems History: forms, phone lines, buildings and websites that could not be used, and staff who treated the failure as the person’s.
What you may see: a person who stopped responding and is now described in the file as unengaged.
Read the strategy, not the attitude What you can change You control whether a protective behavior is recorded and treated as a reasonable response to history, or as evidence about the person’s character.
What to watch for Do not describe a person who asks for everything in writing as “difficult,” or a person who brings a witness as “hostile.” Both are doing what worked before.
Your next step The next time someone is guarded with you, say plainly what you can and cannot promise, then keep the promise you made.
I do not need you to tell me you are different from the last worker. I need you to call when you said you would call. Do that three times and we will talk about the rest.
Composite participant perspective, illustrative Small promises, kept Trust is built in the transaction
The callback that came when promised, the letter that arrived in the right language, the worker who said “I do not know, I will find out” and then did. Reassurance without a record is noise.
Answer the specific question
“Will this be reported?” deserves a specific answer: what is reported, to whom, under what conditions, and what is not. If you do not know, say so and find out before continuing.
The witness is welcome
A person who brings a friend, an advocate or a recorder is managing risk. Welcome them, address the person, and do not treat the presence of a witness as a sign of bad faith.
Failed to follow through
Before writing this, name what the person would have needed to follow through: the language, the format, the channel, the time and the document. If any was missing, the process failed first.
A person who has been failed by services is not starting from zero with you. They are starting from below zero, and the first thing they will test is whether your words and your actions match.
Carry this forward Many disabled people, and many families of color, carry direct or inherited experience of institutions, segregated classrooms, involuntary treatment, guardianship or benefits investigations.
Wariness, minimal answers, bringing a witness, or refusing a home visit are protective strategies that worked before.
Trust is rebuilt in small, kept promises, not in reassurance.
A scenario decision and a knowledge check, plus a written list of the promises your own process makes and whether it keeps them.
List three promises your intake process makes, explicitly or by implication, and check whether each is kept every time.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Reset this lesson
Previous lesson Next lesson Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
