Trauma-informed Care

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a way of providing care, coming with knowledge about trauma, that can change the way we work. It’s not really a new set of interventions, but it can influence all of what we do.

We aim to recognise the signs, symptoms and widespread impact of trauma.

We try to look past individual’s presenting behaviours and ask, ‘What do you need?’ and “How can we create an environment where you feel safe and supported?” rather than ‘What is wrong with you?’

We also aim to prevent or minimise re-traumatisation.

Trauma-informed care does not aim to treat trauma-related difficulties (that’s the role of trauma-specialist services and practitioners). Instead, it seeks to address the barriers that people affected by trauma can experience when accessing support

These are often cited as the six key principles of trauma-informed care:

• Safety: The physical, psychological and emotional safety of service users and staff is prioritised.
• Trustworthiness: Transparency exists in an organisation’s policies and procedures, with the objective of building trust among staff, service users and the wider community’
• Choice: People are supported in shared decision-making, choice and goal setting to determine the plan of action they need to move forward’
• Collaboration: The value of staff and service user experience is recognised in overcoming challenges and improving the system as a whole’
• Empowerment: Efforts are made to share power and give service users and staff a strong voice in decision-making, at both individual and organisational level’
• Cultural consideration: Move past cultural stereotypes and biases based on, for example, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability, geography, race or ethnicity’