HUNGER TRAUMA
Research shows that people who use community food support frequently experience trauma (Walker et al. 2022). The inability to provide food for yourself or your family has an impact on a person’s mental and physical health and sense of wellbeing, causing feelings of emotional distress and guilt, and affecting people’s sense of identity and status. Those affected feel stripped of value and often report that they are made (by society) to feel useless. People feel shame and humiliation about their situation, guilt about their inability to feed their family, and anxiety about whether they deserve to receive support. This is in addition to experiencing the physical pain and fatigue of hunger and malnutrition. Many people would rather go hungry than suffer the indignity of going to community food providers and, as they perceive it, begging for food.
Trauma Informed Practice is a model that is grounded in and directed by a complete understanding of how trauma exposure affects community member's neurological, biological, psychological and social development – www.gov.scot
How community food support community members feel treated influences their self-esteem and their desire to return or use future services. When people visit food support services, they are often seeking both food and social connection, but this is not always what they experience. Without proper care, power differentials can emerge between food givers and takers, which further entrench the lack of meaningful exchange.
It is not uncommon for community food support volunteers to encounter community members who are in mental health crisis or contemplating suicide. This is a routinely traumatising experience, but many volunteers feel compelled to do this work if it means someone in need gets a meal that they otherwise wouldn’t. It is on this basis that we argue that a trauma-informed approach founded in a fundamental belief in the human right to food is now needed.
Moral injury is understood to be the strong cognitive and emotional response that can occur following events that violate a person's moral or ethical code – The Lancet.
It is not only about community members. We would also like to draw attention to what is sometimes called the moral injury experienced by many working in food support. This refers to the psychosocial damage that may be endured by staff and volunteers who are trying to manage overwhelming levels of need with limited resources. Volunteers report that they are regularly forced to make decisions and judgements about people who may be profoundly vulnerable, with no training and with insufficient resources.
The Alliance for Dignified Food Support is clear that the ultimate blame for this widespread trauma lies with the exclusion of so many people through sustained income poverty and insecurity, making it impossible for them to access food in socially acceptable ways. However, as an alliance, our ambition is to explore how we can ensure that the process of accessing support is as supportive as possible, and how a trauma informed approach can minimise the harm done by our services.