Guiding Principles of Trauma-Informed Care

• Safety

  • Staff and clients feel physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and culturally safe

  • Compassion, empathy, affirmation and validation is employed to establish and maintain safety and trust

  • Self-care and safety plans are established for both workers and clients

  • Staff have responsibility to challenge issues of unsafety

  • Recognition and prevention of retraumatization

• Trustworthiness & Transparency

  • Operations and decisions within the organisation are conducted with transparency

  • Building and maintaining trust amongst staff, clients and families is valued

  • Client expectations about how the service, treatment and care is clarified at the outset, including sensitivity regarding unintentional re-enactment of trauma, and managing this

• Peer Support & Mutual Self-Help

  • Those with lived experiences of trauma and their family members referred to as ‘survivors’ or ‘experts by experience’, provide peer support for establishing safety, building trust, enhancing collaboration, promoting healing and recovery, fostering hope, connection and empowerment

• Collaboration & Mutuality

  • True partnering between staff, clients and their families/carers with meaningful equal sharing of power and decision-making

  • Workers make decisions with (not for) clients ensuring there are no ‘us and them’ dynamics

  • There is awareness of and communication about each other’s trauma triggers and safety needs and recognition of the need of tailored support

• Empowerment, Voice & Choice

  • The organisation ensures that the individual strengths of their staff and clients are recognised, built upon and validated

  • The organisation recognises that each client requires a person-centred approach and that the experience of trauma may be a unifying aspect for staff and clients

  • Decision making and goal setting is shared, and self-advocacy skills cultivated. Staff are seen as facilitators, not controllers of recovery

  • Re-traumatisation is actively resisted by fostering empowerment, choice (providing options) and ensuring voices are heard in a supportive way

• Respect for Diversity & Inclusiveness

  • The organisation actively works to prevent stereotypes and biases based on gender, race, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability or geography

  • The organisation promotes the healing value of traditional cultural connections, recognises historical trauma and identifies and responds appropriately to complex and intergenerational traumas

  • Communication and care are accessible for peoples with disabilities, and there is an understanding that trauma can impact brain development and cognitive functioning

• Strengths based & Skill Building Approach

  • The organisation promotes resiliency and coping skills for managing triggers and fostering empowerment

  • Working with a strengths-based approach helps to ensure continuity of supports following a client’s involvement with a service

Adapted from: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. 2014, US Department of Helath and Human Services: Rockville.