Creating Trauma-Informed Care Environments

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is an approach that recognizes the widespread impact of trauma on individuals and seeks to create an environment that fosters safety, trust, and empowerment for those affected by past experiences. Creating trauma-informed service environments requires a shift in both organizational culture and practice, emphasizing the importance of understanding trauma’s role in behavior, health, and well-being. This process begins with the foundational principle of safety—physical, emotional, and psychological—while promoting a culture of collaboration, choice, and empowerment. 

Training audiences learn to create trusting, caring, and responsive relationships with those they serve in both faith-based and secular environments. Emphasis on creating predictable environments that are conscious of potential triggers and how to use social-emotional learning strategies to support others from a strengths-based perspective. This training includes some content about developing personal resilience to vicarious trauma and burnout. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) put forth a framework for behavioral health specialty sectors that can be adapted to other sectors such as nonprofits, child welfare, education, criminal and juvenile justice, primary health care, the military and other settings that have the potential to ease or exacerbate an individual’s capacity to cope with traumatic experiences