At Chefalo Consulting, we begin every meeting with a Community Meeting, a key ritual that consistently roots our team in emotional awareness and safety. While the concept is simple, its implications are profound.
Community Meetings are an essential, trauma-informed tool that promotes healing, safety, and resilience. By fostering emotional intelligence, collaboration, and connection, Community Meetings provide a foundation for healing and growth in both individuals and organizations.
Let’s explore how three simple research-based questions promote safety, connection, and resilience.
Table of Contents
Origins of the Community Meeting Model
The Sanctuary Model offers a comprehensive, trauma-informed approach to creating safe and resilient communities. Originally developed by Dr. Sandra Bloom, the model aims to address the complex effects of trauma through a structured framework of care.
Central to the Sanctuary Model are its four pillars. Together, these components create an environment where safety, healing, and growth are prioritized for everyone involved—clients, caregivers, and staff alike. The Four Pillars are Trauma Theory, S.E.L.F., The Seven Commitments, and the Sanctuary Toolkit.
Trauma Theory
Trauma Theory explains the psychological, physiological, and social impacts of trauma and informs the model's strategies for healing.
S.E.L.F
S.E.L.F. provides a practical framework for addressing Safety, Emotions, Loss, and Future, the four critical domains of recovery.
The Seven Commitments
The Seven Commitments of non-violence, emotional intelligence, inquiry and social learning, democracy, open communication, social responsibility, and growth and change, serve as the foundational norms guiding all interactions within the Sanctuary Model. Every tool and practice derive from these values, ensuring a consistent and cohesive approach to trauma-informed care.
The Sanctuary Toolkit
The Sanctuary Toolkit is a set of practical tools and rituals, such as Community Meetings, designed to foster daily resilience and prevent re-traumatization.
Together, these pillars create a system that supports not only individuals but also the organizational culture necessary for sustainable, trauma-informed care.
Theoretical Foundations of Community Meetings
Community Meetings are deeply rooted in several key theories, including Trauma Theory, Attachment Theory, and brain development research.
Trauma Theory
Trauma Theory provides a framework for understanding how adverse experiences—such as abuse, neglect, and violence—impact individuals. Traumatic experiences often overwhelm a person’s ability to cope, leading to emotional dysregulation, hypervigilance, and difficulty forming relationships. Community Meetings address these challenges by promoting emotional intelligence, fostering trust, and providing a safe space for participants to express their feelings and seek support.
Attachment Theory
Attachment Theory emphasizes the importance of secure relationships in promoting emotional well-being and resilience. Community Meetings help participants build and strengthen connections with others in their care setting, addressing the attachment injuries often caused by trauma. By creating opportunities for individuals to seek and provide support, these meetings foster a sense of belonging and mutual responsibility.
Brain Development Research
Research on brain development highlights the brain’s capacity for growth and adaptation, even in the aftermath of trauma. Regularly participating in Community Meetings engages the reasoning brain, helping individuals develop emotional regulation and problem-solving skills. This consistent practice supports the brain’s ability to create new, healthier patterns of behavior over time.
Unpacking the Three Powerful Questions
Every community meeting starts with three questions:
How are you feeling?
What is your goal for today?
Who can you ask for help?
One person starts by asking another each question, one at a time, waiting for the answer before asking the next question. This avoids routine self-reporting by creating a conversational tone. The individual who answered the three questions then turns to another team member and engages them in the same way until all participants have responded.
These questions may seem straightforward, but they challenge participants to engage deeply with their emotions, intentions, and relationships. This simple yet profound ritual fosters emotional intelligence, goal-setting, and interdependence, reinforcing the idea that everyone in the community is interconnected and mutually supportive.
Additionally, community meetings should only take 1-2 minutes per person. By holding space for our feelings, goals, and needs without explaining or justifying them, we can accurately "take the temperature" of the room and connect as human beings before moving on to work.
Question One: Emotional Honesty
The first question often provokes the most resistance. Traditional workplace cultures tend to discourage emotional expression, favoring a façade of professionalism that excludes vulnerability. Community Meetings challenge this norm.
In a Community Meeting, we look for answers beyond feeling "fine" or "okay.” We also help participants dig a bit deeper, going beyond the easy answers like "tired" and "good." Participants are encouraged to use a rich emotional vocabulary to articulate their feelings honestly. Identifying our specific emotions is harder than it seems, but through practice helps individuals recognize and own their own emotional states. This shared vulnerability strengthens trust and collaboration.
Community Meeting isn’t a time for follow-up questions or discussion, even if empathetic and supportive. Rather, it is focused on practicing identifying your own feelings, building the courage to share feelings out loud, and increasing trust among the group to listen for understanding.
Question Two: Goal-Setting
This question shifts focus toward action. Participants clarify their intentions and priorities for the day or for the meeting, promoting accountability and efficiency.
Trauma disconnects us from executive functioning skills. It makes us stuck in the past, which increases feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Goals reconnect us to the present and the future. When we focus on goals, we empower and motivate ourselves. Hearing others’ goals helps us create community and establish our priorities.
Question Three: Normalizing Support
Asking for help can feel vulnerable, especially at work. You may fear others perceiving you as incapable or incompetent. The reality, however, is everyone needs support. This question normalizes the fact that no one anywhere can effectively function solely independently from a community.
Participants identify people they can rely on for assistance in any way – emotionally, pragmatically, at work, or at home. By naming how you can proactively and consistently seek support, we foster a culture of interdependence and trust.
Move Through Initial Discomfort and Discover Connection
Adopting Community Meetings can feel uncomfortable at first. Sharing emotions openly, particularly in professional settings, challenges long-standing norms and requires a leap of trust.
However, this vulnerability is essential for creating trauma-informed spaces. When participants embrace the awkwardness of discussing emotions, they unlock opportunities for deeper understanding and collaboration.
Consider these scenarios:
A colleague’s stress, acknowledged at the start of a meeting, prevents misinterpretations of their tone or behavior.
Sharing emotional states reduces unspoken tensions that might otherwise lead to conflict or inefficiency.
Staff members who acknowledge their own emotions and seek help when needed are better equipped to maintain their resilience and effectiveness. The meetings promote a sense of shared purpose and mutual support, reducing burnout and strengthening the organization as a whole.
Ultimately, Community Meetings allow organizations to address the human realities that often go unspoken in traditional workplace settings. Community Meetings contribute to a culture of transparency, democracy, and collective commitment to well-being. This culture enhances the organization’s capacity to respond to the needs of both clients and staff, creating a more sustainable and effective system - whether that system is in the healthcare, social services, governmental, or private sector.
Putting Community Meetings to Practice
Community Meetings are used at various points throughout the day, such as the start of a program, staff shift changes, or whenever the community needs additional support. They are versatile and can be adapted to meet the specific needs of the group.
Community Meetings can play a crucial role in supporting staff members. For instance, a staff member dealing with personal challenges, such as concerns about family during a natural disaster, might share their feelings and goals during a meeting. This process allows them to feel supported by their colleagues, enhancing their resilience and capacity to remain present and effective in their role.
Conclusion: A Simple Ritual with Profound Impact
Community Meetings may seem simple, but their impact is profound. By fostering emotional honesty, setting clear intentions, and building supportive relationships, these meetings embody an organization’s commitment to trauma-informed care.
Organizations that embrace this practice—despite its initial awkwardness—gain the tools to address the deep effects of trauma while strengthening their culture and community. Whether used in residential care, schools, government agencies, correctional facilities, or any other setting, Community Meetings help build the connections and skills necessary for building resilience and stability in your organization.
Download our free, two-page Guide to Holding Community Meetings and start using Community Meetings with your teams today.
To learn more about building a trauma-informed culture in your organization, download our Complete Guide to Trauma-Informed Values.
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