(Old) Trauma-Informed Principles Interactive Version

Six Guiding Principles to a Trauma-Informed Approach

Click the icons to learn more about each principle

1. Safety

2. Trustworthiness & Transparency

3. Peer Support

4. Collaboration & Mutuality

5. Empowerment, Voice, & Choice

6. Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues

Safety

All people need to feel physically and psychologically safe. When the physical setting and interactions promote a sense of safety, a trusting environment is built. We prioritize safety as defined by those served.

Click here for more information on practical ways that we can create a safe environment that reduces harm and is conducive to healing:

• Provide a space that allows for different people to feel included and protected. One where people are clear on what is happening and how decisions are being made.
• Create a safe physical environment that is adapted to different people’s cultures.
• Believe we all can work towards healing.
• Practice compassion, attunement, and understanding.

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When people live through difficult experiences, it can rupture trust in others. An important task of trauma healing is “empowerment and reconnection as experiences of recovery” . By being transparent, we build relationships where people feel safe and that they can rely on us to support them in their healing process.

Trustworthiness & Transparency

Click here for more information on some practical ways to build a relationship of trust and transparency:

• Speak from your core of authenticity.
• Be honest and avoid omission.
• Be reliable.
• Follow through on assignments, ideas, and expectations.
• Prepare for all transitions before they arrive.
• Work continuously to increase competence.

Click here to access an exercise to strengthen transparency and trustworthiness in our work.

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Peer Support

Peer support helps to build relationships based on safety, trust, and hope. When we share our stories and lived experiences with each other, we promote a more equal relationship based on openness and trust. This enhances the collaboration that is important for recovery, empowerment, and healing.

Carolyn Yoder, in the Little Book of Trauma Healing, reminds us that the proof of trauma healing is not only in the ability to carry out basic functions, but importantly in the quality of people’s relationships (2).

Click here for more information on some practical ways we can facilitate peer support:

• Consider the whole environment and the challenges people face.
• Have a greater awareness and compassion for yourself and others.
• Approach each other with a nonjudgmental open heart and open mind

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Collaboration& Mutuality

By including everyone in decision-making, we equalize power and create a sense of mutual trust. By acknowledging that everyone has a role to play, we build meaningful relationships that facilitate and nurture healing. Common trauma-informed knowledge states: "one does not have to be a therapist to be therapeutic".

Click here for more information on some practical ways we can facilitate collaboration & mutuality:

• Think of all people as activators of change.
• Respect people as the experts in their own healing process.
• Encourage each others’ capacity through assuming a coaching role, not a policing one.

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Empowerment,Voice, & Choice

Empowerment means increasing a person’s ability to choose with intention from their options in order to achieve their goals. When we are supported and given a chance to express our voice and thoughts, we are empowered to decide what is most important to us in our healing process and achieve our goals.

Click here for more information on some practical ways we can promote empowerment and help people’s voices have more presence:

• Don’t criticize, judge, or make assumptions about choices that are made.
• Avoid jargon or “expert” terms.
• Create statements that give everyone choices in how they wish to be supported.

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We acknowledge that we are all bearers of culture and that there are differences within and between people’s cultures. Each of us has knowledge, values, and beliefs that are passed through generations and are also shaped by our own experiences. Culture holds our different values, beliefs, experiences and way of being. This leads to different levels of power and at times unequal power relations within different groups.

Cultural, Historical,& Gender Issues

Click here for more information on some principles to keep in mind for cultural sensitivity:

• A culturally safe environment acknowledges differences and how these influence power in our relationships.
• We can increase our cultural awareness and acknowledge and understand difference.
• Building cultural competence and developing the skills, attitude, and knowledge to responsibly embrace and tend to differences is important.

By understanding and respectfully responding to differences, we can include different voices and share power.

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