Trauma Informed Practice isn’t just for our service users

Over the last 18 months I’ve been co- developing training for Trauma Informed Care, as part of my work for the Council of Europe, with colleagues from various agencies. One thing I have been very mindful to promote is that Trauma Informed Care/Practice does not just apply to the children and families we work with, it applies to us, our colleagues, and the environment in which we work. We are all human, we all have lives outside of work, we have families, friends, social groups. AND LIFE HAPPENS, fantastic, great, good, not so good , bad, awful and traumatic. While we are often able to use our experiences to inform our practice, empathise with service users etc, we must take cognisance of the impact of our life, and work experiences on us, including vicarious and secondary trauma. Practising good self care is crucial and we need to recognise that our colleagues have also had life experiences, some of them traumatic, and which we may have no knowledge of. To be trauma informed is to be trauma responsive, as colleagues, friends and managers; it is being trauma responsive at an organisational level, and in every aspect of the organisation, staff, buildings, facilities, employee support and in all organisations, not just those working with trauma.