Trauma-Informed Practice

• John Rigg: The effect of trauma on the brain and how it affects behaviors (Video)
• Janet Seahorn: Understanding PTSD’s effect on brain, body, and emotions (Video)
• Community Resilience Initiative Resources (Website)
• What is Trauma-Informed Care (TIC Implementation Resource Center) (Website)
• What is Trauma-Informed Teaching? (Article)
• Dinner Table Resilience: Mental Health Resource for our Community (Toolkit)
• Trauma-Informed Care: A Primer For Refugee Service Providers  (Article)

• Social Emotional Learning (SEL) activities 
• Mindfulness
• Breathing exercises 
• Brain breaks 
• Trigger lists (Lesson plan)
• Routines  

• Mark Sander: Trauma-Informed Classrooms
• Trauma-Informed Routines & Procedures
• Trauma-Informed Teaching Strategies

1. Safety
   Throughout the organization, staff and the people they serve feel physically and psychologically safe.
2. Trustworthiness and transparency
   Organizational operations and decisions are conducted with transparency and the goal of building and maintaining trust among staff, clients, and family members of those receiving services.
3. Peer support and mutual self-help
   These are integral to the organizational and service delivery approach and are understood as a key vehicle for building trust, establishing safety, and empowerment.
4. Collaboration and mutuality
   There is recognition that healing happens in relationships and in the meaningful sharing of power and decision-making. The organization recognizes that everyone has a role to play in a trauma-informed approach. One does not have to be a therapist to be therapeutic.
5. Empowerment voice, and choice
   Organization aims to strengthen the staff, client, and family members’ experience of choice and recognizes that every person’s experience is unique and requires an individualized approach. This builds on what clients, staff, and communities have to offer, rather than responding to perceived deficits.
6. Cultural, historical, and gender issues
   The organization actively moves past cultural stereotypes and biases , offers culturally responsive services, leverages the healing value of traditional cultural connections, and recognizes and addresses historical trauma.

Instructors can use self-care to help avoid burnout and secondary traumatic stress (see below). The definition of self-care is any action that you use to improve your health and well-being. According to the National Institute of Mental Illness (NAMI), there are six elements to self-care:

• Physical
• Psychological
• Emotional
• Spiritual
• Social
• Professional

Mental Health America provides suggestions on how instructors can protect their mental health. Below are a few suggestions:

• Set boundaries early on – and hold them
• Focus on what you can control
• Move your body
• Stay in touch with friends and family 
• Keep up with self-care
• Maintain reasonable expectations
• Check in on each other
• Express gratitude 
• Take time to laugh 

Secondary traumatic stress occurs when someone experiences indirect trauma as a result of hearing about others’ trauma; it is often seen in those who work with individuals who have experienced traumatic life events, such as educators, social workers, or health care workers. Instructors should be aware of its signs and tools for self-care. 

• The National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning Environments has a resource packet to help people further understand secondary traumatic stress and tools for self-care.

This video from the University of Kentucky explains secondary traumatic stress.