The Business Case for becoming Trauma-Informed

Hey Ellen,

In Johnson City I've been involved since 2015 in the development of a Community wide trauma informed system of care that now has law enforcement, educators, healthcare, mental health, foster care, 2 universities and more involved.  I've been researching the work piece and unable to find a lot of data but that doesn't mean it's out there - because I'd like to include a business owner, manager, etc. piece in our system of care.

I met last week with one of our local Chambers to see about a training for workforce in 2019 to which they were most receptive.  We've used a 4 hour SAMHSA training for educating our community and last winter when I developed a 4 hour POST Certified training for police officers included a segment on "self-care" and using the Professional Quality of Life Scale.  This assessment tool will allow officers to gauge how well they are handling the stress of the job to avoid PTSD.  I'm in discussion with Ballad Health about the possible implementation of this tool for their workforce as well.  I'd welcome a conversation with you about this if you'd like to contact me at becky.haas@balladhealth.org 

My best to you on your continued efforts in this field.  I totally agree that there's a need

Hi, Ellen.  The CDC's website for the Essentials for Childhood Framework may have some resources that would be helpful to you. Specifically, these two: https://www.cdc.gov/violencepr..._3_Employer-Role.pdf and https://vetoviolence.cdc.gov/a...d-abuse-neglect-biz/.

Good luck on your efforts!

Vanessa

Maybe a small group could collaborate electronically around brainstorming a "white paper"?  There is a real need for this sort of information and bringing a few folks together to rough out an outline might be a good way to get started? Just nudging! Karen 

I would suggest looking at ACEs Connection's Resources Center. In the Blog Directory, categories such as Policy and Legislation, Training (for individuals, organizations, communities), and Trauma-Informed Guides, Presentations, and Toolkits may be helpful to you. I would also recommend taking a look at different communities on ACEs Connection (and perhaps posting to their Ask the Communities if you have not already), such as ACEs in Education, ACEs in Pediatrics, ACEs in the Criminal Justice System, Becoming Trauma-Informed and Beyond, and more. Hope this helps!

Hello friends,

Thank you for raising this very important point. We have been trying to engage deeper with our business community locally and created a draft 1 pager about "Why Trauma-Informed Care is Good for Business". I had an MSW intern do a brief literature review to help us create the document. Unfortunately, we were unable to find many/any rigorous studies with pre/post evaluation data on the "impact" for employees. There is much more on the "impact" on clients/patients, but less about the workforce implications. What we did find mentioned was not quantified statistically, i.e. % reduction in injuries, illness, turnover, or % improvement in workplace satisfaction, productivity, etc.

Anyhow, I would be very interested in continuing this conversation with others and exploring putting something together. I'm certain there are others out there who understand this better. We have a partnership with some local researchers that might be able to help design a "post-only" evaluation tool if there are some organizations who have completed the "trauma-informed care transformation" and willing to conduct an evaluation with their staff?

Also, I've always loved this story about the trauma-informed shipyard as a good example of the business case for this work. Vigor Shipyard - https://www.theguardian.com/us...tion-men-masculinity

ACEs Connection: https://acestoohigh.com/2016/1...kind-of-bottom-line/

Cheers,

Kody Russell

Hello, I am working on focusing my trauma-informed program for private industry. There are many aspects to this that can benefit companies to build a better internal environment, create better working relationships, as well as promoting wellbeing in the community. I have been asked to talk about this lately to community and business leaders and this has sparked me spending time on this area. Please feel free to call and we can connect and have this type of discussion. Our society is in bad need of this, but they are starting to look at ACE and stress impact, so the time is now!

Sincerely, Melinda Meshad, LCSW 805-660-1452