Towards a Trauma Environment–Fit Framework: Insights from CPS Penang

Abstract

Residential care can protect children affected by abuse, including child sexual abuse (CSA), while still providing limited privacy, predictability, and choice. This qualitative case study examines how caregiving practices and spatial conditions interact at the Children’s Protection Society Penang, using Trauma-Informed Design and Person–Environment Fit (P–E Fit) as interpretive frameworks. Existing care environments may create tensions between safeguarding oversight and children’s opportunities for privacy, choice, and self-directed regulation. The architectural implications of trauma-informed care in existing Malaysian child-protection facilities remain underexplored. The study aims to investigate how spatial conditions and caregiving practices interact at CPS Penang. Its objective is to identify observable spatial conditions and consider their fit with caregiving operations and children’s everyday needs. The qualitative case study combined on-site spatial observation, organisational-flow mapping, documentary analysis, and one semi-structured interview with CPS leadership. Three precedents were examined for distinct purposes: the Nordic Barnahus model for child-centred service sequencing; Rainbow Centre, Singapore, for accommodating diverse developmental and sensory needs; and Rumah Hope, Malaysia, for residential care in a local welfare context. Findings indicate an abbreviated arrival transition, overlapping circulation and shared activities, limited personal control in sleeping areas, and noise transfer between functions. Operational routines and caregiver intervention support continuity but cannot be assumed to resolve environmental constraints. Cross-case interpretation informed five provisional architectural principles: emotional zoning; graduated privacy and choice; sensory regulation; spatial support for predictable routines; and culturally responsive domesticity. Together, these principles form a preliminary Trauma Environment–Fit Framework for context-sensitive appraisal and future adaptation of Malaysian child-protection environments. The framework distinguishes operational safeguarding from architectural support, highlighting the need to balance supervision with privacy, respond to individual variation, and respect resource constraints. The study makes an architectural, rather than clinical, contribution by identifying observable spatial conditions and theorised person–environment mismatches. It does not measure children’s recovery outcomes or establish causal effects. Further participatory and post-occupancy research is needed to evaluate the framework’s applicability and effectiveness.