Trauma-Informed Care: The Missing Link to Healing （創傷知情照護：痊癒路上缺失的一環）

The services are trauma-informed. So are the organizational policies, procedures, and trainings. So what is missing from our learnings about trauma-informed care that keeps our organizations, programs, staff, and clients in a perpetual cycle of revictimization and retraumitization? Answer: the unpacking of staff's individual understanding of what each one of us brings to this type of work.

In this session, we will explore the missing link with trauma-informed practices and teachings within our organizations and movement. We will explore the importance of asking ourselves and our staff questions like "What brought me to this work? Why do I do what I do? What triggers me? What is my belief about...?" as much as we learn about trauma, crisis intervention, therapeutic modalities, and empowerment. It is no coincidence that we are pulled into this work and movement. There is a purpose in it for us as much as the clients we serve. This is even true of our board members, IT, human resources, finance, and so on.

If we take the time to ask ourselves and our staff the right questions and create the space for reflection, we are then embodying the complete practice of trauma-informed care. At that point the entire system becomes unified as opposed to the invisible, yet palpable, separation and hierarchy between staff and clients that further feeds institutional oppression and inequity. Through this process, we gain greater acceptance and embodiment of the reality that all human beings have experienced some level of trauma in their lives. These traumas, whether related to gender-based violence or not, has led to our own ways of dealing and coping that may or may not reveal themselves in the workplace, in the presence of traumatized clients. In especially crisis-fueled settings, such as shelter, it can be easy to react to crisis taking place. Most of our trainings for staff, however, does not include a process to identify our own triggers that could affect our response to a survivor or their children.

If we wish to create radical changes in this movement and in our world, we can no longer deny the role we as advocates and professionals within our organizations play in understanding our own healing process and journey. In doing so, we are paving a pathway that creates healing within, expands our skillset to guide healing to survivors, and creates systematic and institutional changes that reflect healing justice. In this session, participants will walk away with the tools on how to take the first step into the journey within, with the goal of expanding healing through their commitments to clients, the organization, and community. This is not therapy, but rather an opening to self through questions and prompts, why this is necessary for the change we desire, and inspiring collective healing for all.