Knowra Trauma-informed care Trauma-informed care Trauma-informed care is an approach to services that recognizes how trauma can affect people and organizations. It emphasizes safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment while seeking to avoid retraumatization.
Trauma : Trauma is lasting psychological or bodily distress following events experienced as threatening or overwhelming. The approach begins by recognizing trauma’s possible effects without assuming every person has the same response.
SAMHSA's concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach : A 2014 framework from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defining trauma and six principles for trauma-informed systems. Its six principles provide a widely used structure for organizational practice.
Trauma-informed psychotherapy : Psychotherapy delivered with attention to trauma’s effects, relational safety, pacing, and the client’s choices. Therapeutic work applies trauma-informed principles directly to assessment, treatment, and the clinical relationship.
Trauma-focused therapy : Trauma-focused therapy directly addresses traumatic memories or their effects through a structured psychological treatment. Trauma-informed care shapes the whole service; trauma-focused therapy is a specific treatment that may be offered within it.
Secondary traumatic stress : Secondary traumatic stress is trauma-like distress arising from exposure to other people’s traumatic experiences through work or caregiving. Service workers may need support to sustain trauma-informed practice without absorbing unaddressed distress.
Adverse childhood experiences : Adverse childhood experiences are potentially traumatic events and conditions occurring before age eighteen. This research helped show how early adversity can shape health and service needs.
Trauma screening : Trauma screening uses questions or tools to identify possible exposure to traumatic events or related symptoms. Screening can inform support, but requires clear purpose, consent, and safeguards against coercion.
Trauma-informed schools : School practices and policies that recognize trauma’s effects on students and support safety, connection, and learning. Schools can adapt discipline, classroom routines, and student support to reduce threat and exclusion.
Person-centered care : Person-centered care organizes services around an individual’s needs, preferences, values, and participation in decisions. It shares emphasis on agency, while trauma-informed care adds explicit attention to trauma and retraumatization.
Compassion fatigue : Compassion fatigue is emotional and physical exhaustion associated with prolonged caregiving and exposure to suffering. Workforce strain can weaken the consistent relationships that trauma-informed services require.
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