When families experience trauma, it changes the way family members relate to one another and affects the family system as a whole. Sometimes, families are able to resolve their trauma, especially if they already have a strong and supportive family system. In other cases, unresolved trauma causes long-term harm to relationships and interactions between family members. This disrupts young people’s emotional and social learning and can cause them to develop unhelpful or harmful thought patterns and behaviours as they attempt to cope with what they experience and observe.