The resources listed here focus on trauma-informed and resilience-building practices. The materials cover a wide variety of application to organizations, agencies, programs, families and communities to better understand how to bring a trauma-informed lens to their work. Resources are divided according to format type (resource collections, guides/toolkits, presentations, research, videos, webinars) and organized alphabetically (key resources, however, are prioritized to the top of each format type).
Resource Collections
Center for Health Care Strategies Advancing Trauma-Informed Care Description: Advancing Trauma-Informed Care is a national initiative aimed at understanding how health care settings can implement trauma-informed approaches to improve patient outcomes and decrease costs. The multi-site pilot demonstration is made possible through support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The 2016 issue brief, "Key Ingredients for Successful Trauma-Informed Care Implementation," is one of many products provided on the site.
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Resource Library Description: A collection of trauma-related tools and guides. Topics include brain architecture, lifelong health, mental health, neglect, resilience, and toxic stress. Sign up for their mailing service to be notified of newly released resources.
National Child Traumatic Stress Network Empirically Supported Treatments and Promising Practice
Description: The fact sheets linked from this page offer descriptive summaries of some of the clinical treatments, mental health interventions, and other trauma-informed service approaches that the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and its various centers have developed and/or implemented as a means of promoting the Network’s mission of raising the standard of care for traumatized youth and families.
National Child Traumatic Stress Network Assessment of Complex Trauma
Description: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network posted this section in November provides an overview, with a case study, plus detailed information for mental health professionals, other professionals, and families and caregivers. This information is useful to include in presentations or basic education.
Resource Guide to Trauma-Informed Human Services
Description: This Guide provides an introduction to the topic of trauma, a discussion of why understanding and addressing trauma is important for human services programs, as well as a road map to find relevant resources.
Trauma-Informed Guides
SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach, 2014
Description: Introduced in this document from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is a concept of trauma and a framework for how an organization, system, service sector can become trauma-informed. Included is a definition of trauma (the three "E's"), a definition of a trauma-informed approach (the four "R's"), 6 key principles, and 10 implementation domains.
SAMHSA’S Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach in Youth Settings, 2015
Description: This four-page document SAMHSA offers a framework designed to be used across service systems that interface with youth.
123Care: A Trauma-Sensitive Toolkit for Caregivers of Children, 2015
Description: Public health nurses at Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) developed the 178-page toolkit for caregivers (parents, grandparents, child care providers, teachers, and others who care for children daily. The toolkit can be downloaded as a whole or individual topics can be downloaded separately. Caregiver handouts are also included.
Building a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System (CONCEPT), 2016
Description: Connecticut has made significant progress to ensure that trauma-informed care is part of its child welfare system. This issue brief relates to CONCEPT -The Connecticut Collaborative on Effective Practices for Trauma.
Georgia’s Child Sexual Abuse & Exploitation Prevention Technical Assistance Resource Guide, 2017
Description: The Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force released this guide, which provides details of best practices, principles of prevention, tips to identifying classroom resources for the classroom, tips for developing a prevention plan, age appropriate teaching suggestions, analysis of specific programs, and guidelines for implementation and evaluation. More information can be found in the following member blog posts: click here.
Guidance for CDR and FIMR Teams on Addressing Vicarious Trauma, 2016
Description: All partners engaged in the FIMR or CDR process, either individually or on a team, can be adversely affected by the repeated exposure to traumatic information. The goal of this guidance is to serve as a resource on vicarious trauma that can be utilized by fatality review leadership, staff, and team members to address the vicarious trauma that can result from exposure to child deaths.
Incorporating Trauma Informed Practice and ACEs into Professional Curricula - a Toolkit, 2016
Description: The toolkit is designed to aid faculty and teachers in a variety of disciplines, specifically social work, medicine, law, education, and counseling, to develop or integrate critical content on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care into new or existing curricula of graduate education programs.
Key Ingredients for Successful Trauma-Informed Care Implementation, 2016 (for health care)
Description: This brief and its related infographic and fact sheet, produced as part of Advancing Trauma-Informed Care, are intended to help healthcare providers address traumatic experiences and associated health effects seen in patients and outline a practical implementation framework and policy considerations for instituting trauma-informed approaches to care in health care settings.
Profiles of trauma-informed care champions can also be found on the website.
NEAR@Home Toolkit: A Guided Process to Talk about Trauma and Resilience in Home Visiting, 2015
Description: The NEAR@Home toolkit helps home visitors engage parents use the ACEs questionnaire in a safe, respectful, and effective way for both home visitor and family. The toolkit has five core elements: Preparing, Asking, Listening, Affirming and Remembering. It contains useful scripts for dialogs between a home visitor and a parent, and is designed for home visitors who have some basic knowledge of NEAR science (Neurobiology, Epigenetics, ACEs, and Resilience) and have at least one year of experience in their model home visiting. Follow the link and fill out the form to access the toolkit.
Policy Guidance for Trauma-Informed Human Resources Practices, 2017
Description: This document is designed as a guide for organizations working to become trauma informed. It is not limited to any particular system or type of organization so addresses the issues from a broad perspective. An organization’s Human Resources (HR) structure may vary in its formality and breadth of responsibility therefore concepts outlined in this document may need to be adapted to match the needs of an organization/agency/business.
This document provides policies and activities to consider for pre-employment, onboarding/orientation, ongoing employment, and off-boarding.
Secondary Traumatic Stress in Child Welfare Practice: Trauma-Informed Guidelines for Organizations, 2016
Description: The Chadwick Center for Children & Families at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego has just released a set of trauma-informed guidelines with concrete strategies for approaching secondary traumatic stress (STS). While these guidelines were created for intended use within child welfare systems, they may be easily adapted into other child-and family-serving organizations.
These guidelines were created as part of the Chadwick Trauma-Informed Systems Dissemination and Implementation Project (CTISP-DI), supported by funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The guidelines highlight strategies and approaches to STS throughout 4 phases in the life of a child welfare worker (or other child-and family-serving professional), including the hiring phase, first 3 months on the job, the cumulative effect over time, and critical incidents.
Sesame Street's Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration
Description: These resources -- including a video, activities, and a story -- can help with the changes a child is going through when dealing with the incarceration of a loved one.
Shift Your Perspective: A Trauma-Informed Understanding of Suicidality, 2011
Description: PowerPoint slides by ACEsConnection member, Elizabeth Hudson.
Strategies for Encouraging Staff Wellness in Trauma-Informed Organizations, 2016
Description: This brief focuses on practical strategies for fostering trauma-informed care. It outlines the impact of chronic work-related stress and provides examples of two organizations (Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers and Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services of Drexel University) that prioritize staff wellness.
Training Staff in Trauma Treatments: Considerations for Complex Care Providers, 2017
Description: The experiences of five complex care organizations across the country in training their staff in a variety of evidence-based trauma treatment approaches (Seeking Safety; Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing; and Attachment, Regulation, and Competency) are outlined in this technical assistance brief. The purpose is to inform the efforts of other provider organizations seeking to adopt an evidence-based approach to trauma treatment.
Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services, 2014
Description: [PDF] This manual is intended to assist behavioral health professionals in understanding the impact and consequences for those who experience trauma. Patient assessment, treatment planning strategies that support recovery, and building a trauma-informed care workforce are topics addressed.
Trauma-Informed Care Interview Questions
Description: This is a list of potential interview questions that may used to identify key trauma-informed qualities in job candidates, including empathy, non-judgment, and collaboration.
Trauma-Informed Oregon's Roadmap to Trauma-Informed Care for Organizations, 2016
Description: This is a terrific and thorough roadmap for organizations to follow. It begins with a foundational readiness phase comprising four parts (recognition & awareness, foundational knowledge, agency readiness, process & structure), and an implementation phase that organizations repeat throughout their departments and comprises gathering information, prioritizing and creating a plan, implementing & monitoring, adopting practice & policy. There's a list of organizational resources and a case study of how Clackamah Behavioral Health Centers made the transition. Foundational knowledge includes all five parts of ACEs science: the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, the effects of toxic stress from ACEs on children's developing brains, the effects of toxic stress on short- and long-term health, the epigenetic effects of toxic stress, and trauma-informed, and resilience-building practices.
Trauma-Informed Philanthropy: A Funder's Resource Guide for Supporting Trauma-Informed Practice in the Delaware Valley, 2016
Description: Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation, and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey partnered to produce this hands-on resource that will help funders understand the science behind trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and resilience; apply trauma-informed principles and practice to their grantmaking; and learn about existing local efforts to implement trauma-informed practice. This guide focuses on the Philadelphia region, but the concepts are transferable.
Trauma-Informed Toolkit for Providers in the Field of Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, 2017
Description: This toolkit addresses a number of areas designed to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who may have experienced trauma. Included is a guide for direct support professionals and others, background information on the problem of ACEs and the evidence that the problem is magnified in those with IDD, a guidance for trauma-informed behavioral planning, and directions for thinking about personal and agency solutions.
Trauma-Informed Presentations
Creating a Trauma-informed Team, 2009
Description: Ann Jennings, PhD introduces the concepts of simple and complex trauma and discusses research related to re-traumatization within institutional and community settings. This 93-minute video is a product of the Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services/Bureau of Prevention Treatment and Recovery (MHSAS/BPTR).
Shift Your Perspective: A Trauma-Informed Understanding of Suicidality, 2011
Description: [PPT] Presentation slides by ACEsConnection member, Elizabeth Hudson.
Trauma 101, 2010
Description: [recording] Dr. Sandra Bloom presents at the “Trauma: A Public Health Crisis in Western New York”conference sponsored by the Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York. This presentation informed community members and stakeholders about trauma and trauma-informed care.
Trauma-Informed Care
Description: [PPT] A series of slides from the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division.
Understanding the Effects of Trauma on Health, 2017
Description: [PPT] This PowerPoint and associated fact sheet explore the causes of trauma and and its health impact. Opportunities to avoid or reverse the effects of trauma, ways in which health care providers can help patients heal from trauma, and policy changes that can support trauma-informed care are also explored.
Trauma-Informed/Resilience-Building Self-Assessment Tools
Organizations (in general)
- Organizational Self-Assessment — The National Council for Behavioral Health designed this tool to be completed by range of stakeholders, including leadership, supervisors, practitioners, consumers and support staff.
Westat's Table of Measures to Assess Organizational Trauma-Informed Practices and Policies
Description: This list of measures (see the attachment below) provides some of the parameters that might help in the selection of an appropriate measure for an organization in a particular sector.
Child-Abuse Prevention Agencies
- Trauma–Informed Organizational Self-Assessment for Child Abuse Prevention Agencies — Created by Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund, this survey has 101 questions self-administered by staff.
Child/Youth/Adult/Family Serving Organizations
- Ticometer – Comprising 35 items across five domains, this tool, created by the Center for Social Innovation, measures the degree to which an organization is engaged in trauma-informed practices.
- Trauma Transformed's list of self-assessment tools for child/youth/adult-serving agencies.
- Traumatic Stress Institutes’ ARTIC Scale, the first psychometrically valid measure of trauma-informed care published in the peer reviewed literature. Can also be used in education settings.
Domestic Violence Services
- Trauma Informed Practice (TIP) Scales — The National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health created this 33-item survey to be completed by clients (DV survivors).
Health and Human Services Organizations
- TI Organizational Capacity Scale — American Institutes for Research created this 35-item online self-administered staff survey; can be used in housing, homeless, and behavioral health settings.
Healthcare
- Trauma-Informed Oregon’s Standards of Practice for Trauma-Informed Care in a HealthCare Setting (one of the few tools that includes assessing integration of all parts of ACEs science)
Homeless-Service Agencies
- Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment — Created by National Center on Family Homelessness, 123-question survey self-administered by staff.
Mental Health Services
- TreSIA self-assessment tool — Self-administered staff survey from epower & associates intended as a team-based activity to support the development-of-change plan. Scoring results provide recommendations for actions.
Trauma-Informed/Resilience-
National Network to Eliminate Disparities (NNED) Forum Call: Trauma-Informed Care and Violence Prevention, 2011
Description: The focus of this webinar is to review basic trauma theory, provide an introduction to hyperarousal and to offer tips for practioners. It features Sandra Bloom, Laura Harrison, and Larke Huang. Dr. Bloom describes the ACE study and explains how ACE scores are derived.
Preventing and Mitigating the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by Building Community Capacity and Resilience: The ACEs Public –Private Initiative Cross-Site Evaluation Findings, July 14, 2016
Description: This webinar presents final findings of the newly completed ACES Public Private Initiative (APPI) evaluation. This evaluation examined efforts of 5 Washington state communities to reduce toxic stress due to ACEs, build resilience among youth, and improve child and adult well-being. The full report can be found here. All other webinar materials can be found here.
Presenters: Peter Pecora, Natalya Verbitsky-Savitz, and Margaret Hargreaves, APPI
Sponsor: Mathematica Policy Research and Community Science
Reclaiming Futures Webinar Library
Description: New webinars are hosted nearly every month, and past webinars are archived on the site for public access. Topics include juvenile justice reform, juvenile drug courts, adolescent substance abuse treatment, and positive youth development. You can sign up for their newsletter to receive alerts for upcoming webinars.
THRIVE's Trauma-Informed Webinar Trainings
Description: THRIVE webinars embody System of Care principles and are well-suited for agency orientations, group or individual viewing. Registration for each webinar is required, and will give access to the Guide to Trauma-Informed Organizational Development and other resources. THRIVE is Maine’s graduated System of Care, and receives funding from Maine’s Department of Corrections Divison of Juvenile Services and the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Domestic Violence Exposure, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resiliency: Opportunities for Early Child Care Providers, 2016
Description: This session explores the latest thinking about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and childhood exposure to domestic violence. Emphasizing the opportunity for universal education, presenters will discuss strategies for trauma-informed parenting to prevent the intergenerational transmission of ACEs including the implementation of the “Connected Parents, Connected Kids” Safety card. The webinar includes practical skills learning including how to educate families about ACEs and how to promote resiliency through trauma-informed parenting.
Presenters: Rebecca Levenson, Leiana Kinnicutt, and Amanda Kay
Sponsor: Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Child Protection and Custody in collaboration with Futures Without Violence
Trauma-Informed Care for Women Experiencing Homelessness and their Children, 2012
Description: Webinar on the ways homeless services programs can use a trauma-informed care model to serve mothers and their children better and help break through the cycle of trauma and homelessness. The goal of the webinar was to share information on how to improve the trauma confidence of your organization.
Presenters: Barbara Poppe,USICH’s Executive Director; Joan Gillece, Director for SAMHSA’s National Center of Trauma Informed Care; Julia Tripp, Research Assistant for Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Program Associate for Advocates for Human Potential with Programs for the Assistance in the Transition out of Homelessness
Sponsor: Interagency Council on Homelessness
Trauma-Informed Innovations in Crisis Services, 2017
Description: This webinar series highlights the work of crisis service providers employing a trauma-informed approach. Each webinar focuses on how an agency implements one of the principles from SAMHSA’s Concept and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. PowerPoint slides and recordings of previously held webinars are available on the website.
Presenters: Various
Sponsor: National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD)
Trauma-Informed Practice with Children and Youth in the Child Welfare System, 2013
Description: This 65-minute webcast discusses trauma-informed practice and intervention in child welfare situations (foster care/birth parent focus). Other resources included on this website.
Presenters: Erika Tullberg, Assistant Professor of Research at the NYU Child Study Center and Director of the Atlas Project; Glenn N. Saxe, MD, Arnold Simon Professorship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Sponsor: National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections
Working Toward Well Being: Community Approaches to Toxic Stress, 2016
Description: "Working Toward Well-Being: Community Approaches to Toxic Stress" distills the experience and recommendations of leaders from six communities who were convened by CSSP in the Early Childhood-LINC Learning Lab on Community Approaches to Toxic Stress. Watch to learn more about the framework of community approaches to toxic stress and how cities and counties can use the framework to improve the well-being of their youngest residents.
Presenters: Cailin O'Connor, Center for the Study of Social Policy; Tonja Rucker and Laura Furr, National League of Cities; Community leaders from Early Childhood-LINC communities
Sponsor: Center for the Study of Social Policy
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