From SAMHSA.gov
What is trauma?
Trauma happens after an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that someone experiences as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening. It can have a negative effect on a person’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. Entire generations, communities, or cultures can experience trauma collectively.
What is trauma-informed care?
Trauma-informed care is a way to create safer environments for people who have experienced trauma. Programs and organizations that use trauma-informed care:
- Realize how trauma affects people and understand potential paths for recovery and healing
- Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, and staff
- Respond by creating policies, procedures, and practices that reflect knowledge about trauma
- Resist or avoid retraumatization
What is a Trauma-Informed Approach?
A program, organization, or system that is trauma-informed realizes the widespread impact of trauma and understands potential paths for recovery; recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, staff, and others involved with the system; and responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices, while seeking to actively resist retraumatization.
Trauma-informed approaches recognize and intentionally respond to the lasting adverse effects of experiencing traumatic events, through several principles:
- Safety: participants and staff feel physically and psychologically safe.
- Peer support: peer support and mutual self-help are key as vehicles for establishing safety and hope, building trust, enhancing collaboration, and utilizing their lived experience to promote recovery and healing.
- Trustworthiness and Transparency: Organizational decisions are conducted with the goal of building and maintaining trust with participants and staff.
- Collaboration and Mutuality: importance is placed on partnering and leveling power differences between staff and service participants.
- Empowerment, Voice and Choice: organizations foster a belief in the primacy of the people who are served to heal and promote recovery from trauma.