Gladys Noll Alvarez LISW
Trauma Informed Care Project Coordinator
Orchard Place/Child Guidance Center

Understanding trauma is not just about acquiring knowledge.
It’s about changing the way you view the world.
Sandra Bloom, 2007

Trauma Informed Care (TIC) is an organizational structure and treatment framework that involves understanding, recognizing, and responding to the effects of all types of trauma . It emphasizes physical, psychological and emotional safety for both consumers and providers, and helps survivors rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.

Trauma Informed agencies……..
• Avoid re-traumatizing
• Foster relationships that respect, teach, reinforce, and encourage the family’s competence
• Screen for trauma-exposure prior to providing services.
• Collaborate across agencies to produce better placement and process determinations for maltreated young children.
• Train and sustain staff
• Set program policy and evaluate the effectiveness of those programs using a trauma-informed perspective

• http://www.nctsn.org/products/child-welfare-traumatraining-toolkit-2008 updated in 2013
 The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit, 2nd Edition is designed to teach basic knowledge, skills, and values about working with children who are in the child welfare system and who have experienced traumatic events.
 The toolkit teaches strategies for using traumainformed child welfare practice to enhance the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families who are involved in the child welfare system.
 The toolkit can be accessed at the NCTSN Learning
Center for Child and Adolescent Trauma
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•
Connect – Focus on Relationships
•
Protect – Promote Safety and Trustworthiness
•
Respect – Engage in Choice and Collaboration
•
Redirect (Teach and Reinforce) – Encourage
Skill-Building and Competence
Hummer, V., Crosland, K., Dollard, N., 2009
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Steps towards * BECOMING * Trauma Informed
• Administrative Commitment to Change
• Universal Screening
• Staff Training and Education
• Hiring Practices
• Review of Policies and Procedures
Marsenich, L. 2010, CA Institute of Mental Health (also: next five slides)

Tools for Agency Self Assessment
• “Creating Trauma-Informed Care Environments
Organizational Self-Assessment” from University of South Florida
• “The Trauma-Informed Organizational Self-
Assessment” from the National Center on Family
Homelessness (NCFH)
• “Creating Cultures of Trauma-Informed Care
(CCTIC): A Self-Assessment and Planning
Protocol” By Roger Fallot PhD and Maxine Harris
PhD 2011
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Environmental Assessment tool 5pg.
Behavioral Health Services, Kearney, NE
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Core Principals revisited
(Fallot & Bebout; APA Convention 2013)
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Consumers: ask these 5 questions Staff: ask these 5 questions
• Safety- physical/emotional safety
• Trustworthiness-maximize, make tasks clear; appropriate boundaries
• Choice-enhance consumer choice and control
• Collaboration-max and share power
• Empowerment- prioritize and skill building every opportunity
• Safety-ensure for staff
• Trustworthiness- maximize as administrators and supervisors; make tasks and procedures clear; be consistent
• Choice- enhance staff choice/control in their day to day work
• Collaboration- max and share power with staff members
• Empowerment-prioritize staff skill building; provide resources

The Basic Lesson
Fallot & Bebout 2013 APA Convention
• Staff members— all staff members – can only create a setting of, and offer relationships characterized by, safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment only when they experience these same factors in the program as a whole. It is unrealistic to expect it to be otherwise.

• October 2010 Trauma Informed Care Project
• TIC Stakeholder’s group formed
• Annual Psychological Trauma & Juvenile
Justice conference—2011, 2012 and 2013
• Training of ALL STAFF from 2011 to now; have incorporated into new staff orientation.
• Provide trainings to community agencies on impact of trauma and trauma informed care
• www.traumainformedcareproject.org

• Gladys Noll Alvarez, LISW
Trauma Informed Care Project Coordinator
Orchard Place/Child Guidance Center
808 5 th Ave
Des Moines, Iowa 50309
– 515-244-2267
– galvarez@orchardplace.org
– www.traumainformedcareproject.org
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