The importance of understanding trauma in psychology and as court-appointed advocates (CASA) is discussed. Trauma shapes cognitive, emotional, and social development, impacting how children think, learn, trust, and protect themselves. The podcast aims to connect theoretical knowledge with practical advocacy to support children facing trauma. Bridging classroom learning with real-world application is crucial to help children effectively. First, we want to start by explaining why trauma matters in both fields. When it comes to our development psychology class, we learn how experiences shape cognitive, emotional, and social development. As far as CASA, being court-appointed social advocates, we're trained in emphasizing understanding trauma and how to support our foster children better. Our podcast prompt is how we notice that the theories we learned in developmental psychology come alive during CASA training, especially around trauma and development. Hi. Let's introduce ourselves. My name is Jaci Bento. I'm Diego Rivera. I'm Tamita Evans. Both the class and the CASA training centers on a huge idea. Trauma isn't just something kids go through, but it becomes something they carry. And that changes everything, how they think, how they learn, how they trust, and how they protect themselves. So that's really the heart of today's episode. The purpose is to bridge what we learned in the classroom with the real world, with real world children are living through every day. So we're connecting academic theory with real world advocacy because the science only matters if we use it to show up better for kids who need it most.