Practical Tips for Trauma-Informed Care
12 tips to work more effectively with trauma survivors
by Nate Munro
It comes up often in my advocacy work about how Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) impacts email and communications, so I thought I would clarify it for the community.
Trauma-Informed Care means that the service provider or organization needs to take accountability for any stress or trauma they may actively or inadvertently cause by delivering their services. Not only is the service-provider required then to understand how the trauma is caused by their services, but they are also responsible to make any necessary adaptations (like from ADA requests) to avoid causing the survivor additional stress or exacerbate their disabilities.
Tips for service-providers and organizations to deliver effective Trauma-Informed Care or services:
Remain respectful and be helpful - this establishes and maintains trust.
Work together to find solutions to the survivor’s challenges.
Avoid escalation at all cost - trauma survivors will automatically respond in kind when attacked as part of their disability, so it is imperative that the organization avoid escalation as a primary objective.
Avoid testing the survivor’s personal boundaries as this creates defensiveness that impacts trust, which is extremely difficult to regain.
Scheduling and advanced notice - avoid ambushes, surprising the trauma survivor, and ‘sudden movements’ even in written actions. Make a plan with their full involvement and stick to it.
Avoid using barrages of multiple emails or texts, instead keep them in one thread, and try not to send more than a couple at a time. Batches of emails are often perceived as attacks, even if they contain well-meaning content.
Avoid using emails in ALL CAPS - this is seen as aggressive and triggering for sensitive people.
Pacing - avoid overloading and overwhelming the survivor with batches of calls, emails, or adding new unexpected entities, all in short periods of time.
Avoid hurrying - demanding unrealistic or high-pressure deadlines is toxic and not conducive with trauma-informed care and services.
Avoid redundancy - asking the survivor to duplicate or repeat steps, especially when unnecessary or delivered as a ‘surprise,’ damages the organization’s integrity. When each step can be a chore, special care needs to be taken to avoid or bypass unnecessary steps.
Allow the survivor to have a voice - dismissing the survivor, their claims, their personal dignity, or their ability to make their own choices is antithetical and counterproductive for working with trauma survivors or anyone with disabilities.
When triggered or overwhelmed, allow the survivor to recover before adding more pressure onto them.
A better option when the survivor shuts down is to just check in with them on a human level to see how the survivor is doing, however this underscores the necessity for maintaining trust with the survivor, so you can still reach them in the worst case scenario if they are triggered by organizational failures or betrayal.