What Is Trauma-Informed Care?
In this episode of "A Trauma-Informed Future," Katie explores the concept of Trauma-Informed Care and its impact on personal and professional lives. She discusses the development of Trauma-Informed Care, its key principles, and how it is being applied in various industries beyond mental health care.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Show Transcript:
Hi everyone, and welcome to a Trauma-Informed Future podcast. I'm your host, Katie Kurtz, a subject matter expert and trainer specializing in making trauma-informed care inclusive and adaptable for us all. I'm so happy you're here, and I'm excited to talk today about what Trauma-Informed Care is all about.
If you haven't already, I hope you listen to episode one where we started by creating shared language under. Standing, which will help us get on the same page as we move through this podcast. We began this podcast by creating shared language and then moved into creating shared understanding. Everything we talked about in episode one can feel really heavy, even hopeless.
When we start to expand our understanding of trauma, that means we're expanding it to understand that virtually every person we come in contact with, even ourselves. Even the people closest to us, the people we love, the people we serve likely have an experience of trauma and toxic stress. And when we start to expand that understanding in learning about systemic trauma and oppression and how our nervous systems can manifest into those trauma responses, it can all feel really daunting.
So I wanna insert here that I'm honoring, witnessing, and acknowledging whatever you're feeling. And I really want to insert some hope. After 15 years of being a trauma specialist, I still hold on to the hope, and that is why this is so important to have a trauma-informed lens and so we can create a trauma-informed future.
Because as much as trauma changes our brains and our bodies and our lives, so does healing. Being healing informed means that we are simultaneously recognizing the impact of trauma, but also healing and that each person has their own healing pathway. What we know is the more access we have to specific resources and healing environments, we can change the course of our brains and bodies and access nervous system, care and co-regulation, but healing's a big umbrella term.
What may be healing for me may not be healing for you, and that's okay. Okay. Each person has their own healing pathway that comes in many forms, not just within our therapist's office, but different therapeutic modalities, nature movement, art expression, so many different ways we can heal. And when we start to look at the systems we exist in, especially the systems that are continuously causing harm and adversity and trauma, we hold a social responsibility to be a part of the collective healing of that systemic harm and trauma.
And we have a role to play when it comes to being healing informed in the spaces we hold by offering trauma-informed care. Trauma and stress thrive in isolation. It disconnects us from our sense of self, our sense of self-worth, dignity, humanity. It disconnects us from our sense of community, relationships, culture.
It disconnects us from our autonomy agency and even sovereignty. People do not consent or choose trauma. It thrives in isolation, but healing and resilience, they're relational work. We need other people. We need safe, healthy, nurturing people in our lives so we can access a felt sense of safety in their presence so that we can access whatever pathway we want to heal.
We need that kind of connection as much as the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. So this leads me to share one of the most important tools we have at our disposal Reach. Search has shown again and again that the number one thing to prevent, to mitigate and to heal toxic stress and trauma are safe, healthy, nurturing relationships with others.
There have been countless studies, and I have my own personal experiences of witnessing this in action. I've seen children come from awful situations, extreme trauma, but by having one safe, healthy, nurturing teacher or coach or person in their life, it changed the trajectory of their ability to move through their life.
We all have the ability to be safe, healthy, nurturing people for others in our lives, whether that's personally or professionally. When we show up in a way that allows people to access safety in our presence or in our spaces, we are able to become healthy and nurturing people, and in that presence, they're able to access co-regulation and we never know the impact we may have on those people.
This isn't just about being polite or kind. This is life shifting mitigation and prevention of trauma and toxic stress, both in individuals and our collective. We as professionals have the power and ability to show up as safe, supportive people in our clients and communities lives. And when we do, when we lead with a trauma-informed lens, we are able to have a full scope of ability to ensure that our spaces are brave enough and strong enough for people to access their own felt sense of safety.
So what is trauma-informed care? I know a lot of people are talking about it now more than ever, but it's not a buzzword. It's not a trend. It's a longstanding, evidence-informed approach that recognizes the prevalence and impact of trauma to then inform practices, tools, and skills to resist harm and promote trust, personal safety and healing.
Now trauma-informed Care has several origins. There's not just one person that coined the term or authored this approach. It's 50 plus years in the making. And there are different origins to this approach that I want to acknowledge and name. Trauma-Informed Care is rooted in trauma theory frameworks. So people who have studied trauma or who in academia really understand.
And helped us gain an understanding of what trauma is. It is also rooted in the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study or ACEs study, and all the work around adverse childhood experiences and community environments, as well as research done on Post-Traumatic Stress or P T D and most notably. Wartime veterans.
We started to see trauma-informed care get formalized as an approach. Around the late 1960s and early 1970s, we were starting to see a culmination of things happening. Vietnam veterans were returning from War to America, and they were starting to display signs of what we now know as ptsd. At the same time, we were also experiencing a civil rights movement.
An L G B T Q I A movement, a women's rights movement, and a rape crisis movement where we had several survivors advocates and activists coming forward to push for resources and rights. Within this culmination, we also started to see people in the mental health and human service field witness accounts of people's lived experiences of trauma and start to realize collectively that they needed to change the way we, they work with these trauma survivors in order to ensure they're not causing them further harm.
And that's where we really started to see the formalization of what we now know as trauma-informed care. What I really wanna note here is often the unnamed and unacknowledged people that don't get credit or even any type of acknowledgement when it comes to the origin of this approach. Those are those grassroots efforts, the survivors, the activists.
The people who experienced trauma and advocated and pushed for their humanity to be dignified and who fought to have spaces to exist in the social justice activists and the anti-oppression frameworks that this model is based off of. Although there is a variety of different. Approaches, the most notable approach or what I call traditional trauma-Informed care was established by the substance abuse, mental health and services administration, also known as samhsa.
It's a federal government entity here in the United States, and there was a ground breaking publication called Tip 57. You're welcome to Google it. It's linked here in the show notes. It's a long read, so I'll give you that warning. It was developed by a group of multidisciplinary clinical professionals in the mental health field that came together to create this approach, and they asserted for the first time four key assumptions about trauma-informed care to realize it exists.
To recognize its impact, to respond as needed and to resist re-traumatization. It also formally created an overview of what we know as the six key approaches or principles of trauma-informed care, which are safety, trustworthiness, transparency, peer support, collaboration, and mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice, and cultural considerations.
This model is an excellent model. It gives us a strong foundation of what we know as trauma-informed care. It's inspired movements of trauma-informed care into fields like education and schools, as well as yoga and fitness and so forth. But what I really wanna note here, especially if you're familiar with Trauma-Informed care, is that this approach was built by and for mental health clinicians.
So it's a highly clinical approach, and it was never intended to be adapted into other professions or industries. Therefore, as great as it is, it's not inclusive or adaptable for everyone. We know that people who've experienced trauma don't just exist in mental health systems. They exist in all areas of the world and in life.
So we can't just expect trauma-informed care to only exist in clinical or mental health settings. It should be accessible and available to all people in all places. So if we think about the SAMSA model as the most traditional trauma-informed care model we're aware of, it's still really new. It was only formalized about 15 years ago, and still at that time, we were still functioning from this definition of trauma and this understanding that trauma survivors were among the minority, not the majority.
What we now know is that virtually all of us have experienced trauma. So now when we think about the future of trauma-informed care, we need to have a broader understanding of trauma. Its complexities and the insidious nature of it. Therefore, being trauma-informed care is not reserved for some, but it's available to us all, especially if we're holding space for people professionally in any type of field like coaching, wellness, business services, consulting, body work, movement, fitness, et cetera.
Just like how there's no universal definition of trauma, there's also no universal definition or language around trauma-informed care. I just wanna emphasize this because trauma-informed care started in mental health and healthcare fields. Please do not assume that trauma-informed care is the standard of care in these systems.
Not all social workers or therapists are trauma trained, let alone trauma informed. And I don't know if you've gone into the healthcare system, especially in the US recently, but it's definitely not trauma-informed. We will for sure be going over these topics in future episodes, so, All right. So I just wanted to honor that there are many origins to trauma-informed care and especially the SAMHSA model.
I've learned it. I appreciate it. But I want us understand that this podcast and the way I lead and train goes beyond this traditional model in order to make this approach inclusive and adaptable for all people, professions and spaces. And that model tells you what trauma-informed care is, but it doesn't necessarily give you a.
The tools or skills to be trauma informed, and I love nothing more than to focus on how do we actually integrate what we learn into everyday practice. That is why this podcast exists. I wanna honor the origins of this approach while also ushering it into the future in a way that's inclusive and adaptable for us all.
So how do we do that? Well, first of all, I really wanna be clear here. I'm not coming each week to tell you that I know what's best or my way is best. Absolutely not. Remember our friend Nuanced. I'm here to share my unique expression of this approach. I share how I lead this work in an inclusive way, how I make it integrative and doable so that anyone can apply it, and I'm gonna bring together a lot of amazing people who are doing the same thing.
And I also invite you in so we can together expand and co-create this shared vision of a trauma-informed future.
Wherever you are on your trauma competency journey, we could all use some extra tools to ensure we are leading with both competence and confidence. The trauma mindful toolkits are four different interactive guides to begin or deepen your ability to integrate trauma competent care. You can choose from nervous system care, knowing your scope, consensual communications or humanizing harm toolkits.
The toolkits are accessible on demand guides to ease the overwhelm and help you actively apply and integrate essential trauma informed practices. To celebrate the launch of this podcast, you can receive $10 off each of the toolkits. By using the discount code, a trauma-informed future, this limited time only discount is available now through the end of July.
So head on over to katie kurtz.com/toolkits to get your toolkit and use the discount code, a trauma-informed future. That's katie-kurtz.com/toolkits.
So everything I do is based off the trauma competency framework. This is a framework that I develop that honors the variety of different models that already exist, like the SAMSA model, but also I. Different interpretations of other models that have come after the SAMHSA model. So two of which that I think are excellent interpretations of the model are the Missouri model, which came from the state of Missouri here in the us.
This is what gave us the language of trauma aware and trauma responsive, as well as the longstanding work of trauma-informed Oregon. Another group based in the us. Again, amazing approaches and they're still. Made by and for clinicians. So these are still very human service clinical approaches that were not intended or created to be shared or adapted in other industries.
I love and appreciate these models and when I started to really look at them and then start to see, at the same time, trauma-informed care entering and gaining traction in non-traditional fields like corporate business coaching, wellness. I knew it wasn't gonna work because in mental healthcare, it is seen and based off of these models, that the standard should be trauma responsive care, that that is above trauma-informed care, which absolutely, in healthcare, mental health care, that should absolutely be the standard level of competency.
However, if I go into the coaching business or wellness fields and I talk about trauma responsive care, what are you gonna think? Oh, well, that means I can respond to trauma and that is not the case, right? Because that's not in the scope of practice or professional boundaries of coaches, corporate leaders, wellness professionals.
Therefore, I love these models, but they can be often misleading and potentially harmful when we utilize this language and framework. It's not applicable to all professionals. Professions. It also shuts people down saying, well, this is only applicable to social workers or therapists and it doesn't include me, therefore I don't have to adopt it.
But we, what we know is that trauma-informed cultures of care should exist everywhere in all professions. So the trauma competency framework is something I developed to really make an inclusive and adaptable approach for us all. It's a scaffolded learning model that creates an inclusive approach for trauma competencies for any profession based on their scope of practice or professional boundaries.
So it starts with trauma awareness being that first foundational level of competency. This means I have a knowledge and understanding of trauma. Maybe I have my own lived experience. Maybe I Googled my way to awareness. Maybe I write a book, whatever it may be. I've just gathered nuggets of information over time, but it's just an awareness.
Like anything, we have a lot of awareness about, a lot of different things, but it's just that it stays at that level of knowledge and awareness. The next level of competency is trauma, mindfulness. This means I have an understanding of trauma, and now I'm using that understanding and awareness to be more mindful in my everyday life.
Maybe I'm being more considerate of others. Maybe I'm being more sensitive to the realities of trauma every day. Just like any other type of mindfulness, it's not top of mind all day every day, but you start to practice mindfulness as you move about your world. Maybe you notice a shift in your language, or maybe you pause a little bit more.
Maybe you expand your empathy a little bit more. Whatever it may be. The next level of competency is trauma-informed. This is really what I believe is best practice. This means I have the knowledge, the mindfulness, the tools, and I have taken some sort of training to develop skills that I integrate into a lens in which I lead my life, whether it's personally or professionally.
Now, typically you're getting to this level of competency through some sort of qualified training or, um, support to help you integrate and embody this work. The last level and highest level of competency is trauma responsive. This means I have extensive education, apprenticeship, different types of skill developments, mentorship, tons of time, tons of internships, whatever it may be.
These are the people who directly support others in addressing and processing their trauma. These are our trauma therapists, our somatic practitioners, our healers, our body workers. They have an extensive understanding of trauma. They have specialized skills, and they're the only level of competency that actually supports people in who and through their trauma.
You notice in the other three competency levels I never once mentioned, getting at your shovel and starting to dig into people's trauma or even knowing about their trauma history. So this is the framework that everything I do is based off of. And I specifically lead trainings and consultations and share tools and resources that I go go up to that trauma-informed level.
Although I do train many people who are trauma responsive because this framework shows you those different levels of competency, not how to get there, but what those competency levels are. So, So what I personally use as the foundation of everything I lead practice, train on is the trauma-informed space holding blueprint.
So this goes beyond that traditional trauma-informed care model and ignites an EM embodied practice of skill integration of how we can hold space for ourselves and others that honors our lived experiences and intersection of identities and our full humanity. So the trauma-informed space holding blueprint.
Offers an outline of curation, facilitation, leadership methods, and a trauma-informed care model. So the central part of the trauma-informed space holding blueprint is the model of trauma-informed care I teach, which are the five Rs, how to recognize trauma and what it is, regulate our nervous systems so we can offer co-regulation to be a bridge of reconnection to others so they can access safety in our presence.
To realign our intention and impact so that we can resist harm through everything we do. This blueprint's, evidence informed and built off of, and acknowledges all the other models that have been created and everything we've talked about today. But it goes beyond that to ensure you're not just learning, but applying and integrating, so it becomes an embodied practice.
Trauma-informed care is bidirectional. We are included in the space as wed for others. When I first learned about trauma-informed care, Way back 15 years ago when it was just getting formalized. I was taught to deliver this approach one-sided. It was just what I was giving to others, the clients before me.
It didn't include me, the person delivering this care, which always kind of felt a little off to me, but I also got it boundaries, right? I was a therapist. They were my client. I had to enact boundaries to make sure I was providing them the best care possible to resist harm. I. But what I've learned over the years is that when I denied my humanity in the space I'm holding for others, that it's not trauma-informed.
Trauma-informed care is an incredibly boundaried practice, but we are doing ourselves and others a disservice when we're not including ourselves in the approach. There is no arrival in trauma-informed care. It's an evolution. When we activate these skills and use pr, use them and practice them, just like any other skillset, the stronger and more confident we become.
But there are no shortcuts or perfection. Nothing's good, bad, right or wrong. There's of course a lot of nuance and complexity, but most of all, this is a long game. This isn't some short, quick fix, and the more we practice it, the stronger, more confident we become. You can take all the trauma-informed trainings, read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, use all the language, and none of it matters unless you're actually applying what you learn.
Trauma-informed care is not passive or static. It's dynamic and it's meant to be actively applied. The approach evolves as we evolve. Unless it's in your scope of practice or professional boundary to support others in their trauma. Most of us are never gonna talk about trauma in our spaces, and that's not only okay, but it's expected.
Trauma-informed care has nothing to do with actually knowing about people's trauma. It means that we are mindful of the impact and that it's a part of the humanity of the person or people before us holding an understanding of trauma and toxic stress, and then using that to inform how we hold space and lead our businesses.
That's how and what trauma-informed care is, but like any practice, it takes time and attention and humility for your, your humanity as you apply it. Trauma-informed care is a lens through which you lead your life, both personally and professionally, and it's so amazing to see so many new people adopting this lens, and also people who have this existing approach strengthen it and continue to be a part of the future of trauma-informed care.
So I often sit with this question and I'm gonna invite you to also sit with it too. What would be possible if our clients, our customers, our communities, felt trust and safety in our presence? What would be possible if you felt confident in your ability to ensure safety for others? What would be possible if we all came together to create a future that is trauma-informed for us all?
We're gonna explore all of these possibilities and see what trauma-informed care looks like in real life throughout this podcast. But that's all for today. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you, and until then, take good care.
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