12 minutes
Not asking for the story Learn when a process asks a person to disclose adversity without a purpose, and how to redesign the question.
What you’ll be able to do Identify a question in a service process that asks for disclosure of adversity without changing what happens next, and rewrite it or remove it. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What should change? Document a next step for Not asking for the story: Rewrite one history question on a form you use as a present-need question. The cost of the question Telling the story of what happened to you is not free. It costs something every time, and it costs more when the listener is a stranger, the setting is an office, and nothing visible happens as a result. People who have been in services for years have told the story to many workers, in many intakes, and have learned that the telling changes nothing. The question is a ritual the service performs, and the person pays for it.
The test for any history question is simple: what does the answer change? If the plan, the service, the worker or the approach would be different depending on the answer, the question has a purpose, and the way it is asked can be made as safe as possible. If nothing changes, the question is intrusion, and the fix is to remove it.
What a service can act on is present need. What helps you feel safe here. What we should avoid. Who you want involved, and who you do not. Whether you want to be told before things change. These questions produce answers the service can use, and they do not require the person to say what happened.
History questions and present-need questions History Present need When history is needed
"Have you experienced abuse or neglect?" "Describe any trauma history." "Were you ever placed in an institution?" Each asks for the story. Ask what the answer changes.
"What helps you feel comfortable in a new place?" "Is there anything we should avoid doing or saying?" "Who would you like involved, and who would you not?" "Do you want to be told before something changes?" Each produces something the service does differently.
Sometimes it is: a clinician who will act on it, a safety question that must be answered, a legal requirement. Then ask once, explain why, say who will see it, and make sure the person does not have to say it again to the next worker.
A question about a person's past is justified when the answer changes what the service does. Otherwise it is a cost with no purpose, paid by the person.
Ask what the answer changes What you can change You control what your process asks. For every history question, you can ask what a different answer would change. Where the answer is nothing, you can remove it.
What to watch for Do not keep a question because it has always been there or because it feels thorough. Thoroughness that changes nothing is intrusion.
Your next step Take one form and write, beside every history question, what the answer changes.
Carry this forward Every question about a person's history has a cost to the person; a question is justified only when the answer changes what the service does.
Most intake and assessment questions about adversity change nothing: the service offered is the same whatever the answer, and the story has been told again for no purpose.
The alternative is to ask about what the person needs now — what helps, what to avoid, who to involve — which is what a trauma-responsive service actually acts on.
A tabs comparison of history questions and present-need questions, a quote, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
Rewrite one history question on a form you use as a present-need question.
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