trauma-informed care

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an organisational and clinical framework that recognises the widespread prevalence and profound impact of trauma and integrates knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices to avoid re-traumatising service users and to actively support healing; trauma-informed care is built on six principles: safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment and choice, and cultural sensitivity; it requires asking what happened to you rather than what is wrong with you, understanding that many presenting problems — substance use, aggression, dissociation, treatment non-compliance — may be adaptive responses to past trauma; trauma-informed approaches have been applied across healthcare, education, criminal justice, child welfare, and social services as a framework for system transformation