What Does It Means to Be Trauma-Informed?

• It is a practice that holds trauma at the center of how an individual or group session, classroom, meeting  space and organization is structured and how people move through that structure, at every level. While this  practice is grounded in a good intention/healing ideology, missing is a critical analysis and  integration of race and culture as a guiding principle of trauma-informed practice.

• Becoming trauma-informed is an ongoing process, an ongoing lesson and a journey. Rather than claiming  expertise, we develop it by sharing what we have learned from our individual and collective experiences  and by inviting others to join us in developing a community that embodies equity-based, trauma-informed  leadership and practice. 

• It is the embodiment of social justice and the leaning into connection through use of self. 

Putting A Trauma-Informed Approach Into Practice  

There are several factors to consider for an environment to truly be a healing space of non-revictimization.  

1. Who and how we define trauma is central to how trauma is understood and operationalized in theory and  practice.  

2. The social location and the training of the practitioner, leader and educator is a crucial factor in the attempts  to create trauma-informed systems of care and avoid re-traumatization.  

3. The extent to which students, educators, practitioners and leaders were—and still are—socialized and  educated in a white supremacy framework lays the foundation for how trauma-specific concepts are  defined, understood and operationalized.  

Unless there is an active attempt to deconstruct and positively disrupt normalized ways of 
knowing and being, ways that are only grounded in a white ideology, educators and leaders in 
the trauma field may remain oblivious to skewed definitions, exclusionary actions and 
unintentionally re-traumatize the very staff/students/ colleagues/clients we aim to help. 

Tenets of Trauma-Informed Practice

(Adapted from Proffitt, 2010 and R. Abramovitz, 2020)  

• Safety: Ensuring physical, emotional, spiritual safety; “do no harm.” This means not “claiming” a space to  be safe but actively working in collaboration to make it safe. Building safety requires the naming of the  connection between intergenerational and systemic trauma and individual well-being. 

• Trust/Trustworthiness: Maximizing trustworthiness and transparency, making tasks clear, maintaining  appropriate boundaries. Understanding that building trust takes times and is very much based on identity  and positionality in context. 

• Choice: Prioritizing choice and decision-making; supporting participants’ control over their own healing  journey. Honoring the diversity of healing practices. Offering and inviting choice. 

• Collaboration: Maximizing collaboration and sharing power. Equity- and inclusion-based approaches and  interventions. Inclusion is practiced and honored in decision making. 

• Empowerment and Voice: Identifying strengths, prioritizing building skills and a community that promote  survivor/organizational healing and growth. Every has a value to add and every voice should have the  opportunity to be heard.

Quiros, L. (2021). Incorporating Diversity and Inclusion into Trauma-Informed Social Work: Transformational Leadership; New York: Routledge