If you read this title and said, "no, this doesn't apply to me," I'm begging you, please stick around. Being trauma informed is important in every profession and in all of our personal lives. What does being Trauma-Informed mean? The concept of being trauma informed is just a way of operating in a way that assumes that the people who you interact with on a daily basis are more likely to have trauma than not. While this is something that I considered long before the pandemic, since we are now all going through a collective trauma, let's explore this more and discover how this actually works in practice. I will provide you with some basic tips for how to make sure that you create an environment that is the safest and most caring it can be:

For the sake of brevity, I will be compiling much of the information and tools for trauma-informed care into this blog post, but there are quite a few different approaches, so if you would like to share your own, you are welcome to in the comments. I'm writing this for the teachers, clergy, doctors, friends etc who work with other people in an environment that is not directly tied to emotional care:

1. Forethought:
When you are designing lessons, writing speeches, or preparing for a meeting, assume that someone in the room has gone through some sort of trauma. This may pan out as providing a trigger warning for a common trigger like "violence against POC" or "sexual assault." Next week, I will discuss the pros and cons of trigger warnings. This does not mean that you cannot address hard topics in an academic or other setting, it just means that you need to be conscious of the way in which you do so. Prefacing what you are teaching or speaking about allows those who deal with trauma to make a decision as to whether or not they are comfortable staying in the room (before they have a flashback or panic attack in the middle of your class, talk, etc).

2. Safety:
Many people perceive safety as a physical state of being, however, safety is also emotional. For example, is it safe for me to share my thoughts in this environment without being abused or criticized? Are there things that could obviously be triggering in this environment (and therefore make it unsafe for the person who has those triggers)? Is there a possibility of someone being retraumatized?

3. Lack of Blame
Your trauma and its consequences on your nervous system are not your fault. It is certainly your responsibility to figure out a way to cope in light of the trauma in a way that does not pass on the trauma or hurt others. But this post is about how you treat others (post on trauma coping for oneself coming soon). Your student/client/friend's PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks are not something that you should penalize them for. Believe me, no-one asks to go through those painful and frustrating experiences. They already feel really bad about disclosing anything to you, especially if they are in an early stage of healing. Avoid playing the blame game and work together to find a solution for the issue that has arisen in whatever environment you are operating within.

3. Demonstration of true care
Most people have a reasonable amount of compassion and care for the people around them. Demonstrating that care while not overstepping is a balance that one needs to reach when creating a trauma informed environment. What do I mean by this? Well, by assuming that others have trauma, you remove the need for disclosure. Not everyone will want to talk about what they have been through, and you may need to earn their trust if you want to know about it. There are simple things that you can do to be empathetic and show care to others--and I know that many of you already do these things. My favorite example of this is a former Hillel staff member when I was in college would bring me a Diet Coke or cup of coffee anytime that she would go to get herself one.

Honestly, showing up is the biggest part of this one. In many of the settings, you are not just a teacher or a clergy member, you are a friend, a confidant, a carer because you are there (whether physically or virtually). And we will remember if you show up and stand up for us when things are hard. Will I always remember my Talmud teacher who messaged me right after I had been in the hospital and sat with me as I struggled even though this happened four years ago? Yes because she showed up past just teaching me Aggadah and demonstrated to me that she truly cared.

Now I would like to provide two examples, one of being trauma informed and one of being less trauma informed. By sharing these examples, I am only demonstrating scenarios; there has been other times when the second professor has been extremely trauma informed:
Let's start with the good one (this was the highlight of my week when it happened): On my first day of Bible class, as my professor was going over her syllabus, she informed us that there was going to be some discussion of sexual assault and that we were going to write something about it. She added that we should come to her if this subject might be triggering to us. There was no blaming, no shaming of possible victims, just presentation of information, choice in how much to disclose, and a clear demonstration of care.

Now the less-good one: Note: I know that she cares about us (and I care about her); I am using this example to demonstrate the concept of being trauma informed. We did a project in my liturgy class, teaching us an important skill. But in order to do so, we had to tell the story (do an intake) with one of our classmates about a friend or family member who had passed away. So what is the issue with this project? It taught us the necessary skills, but some of us were forced to relive the trauma of our friend/family member dying and to tell that story to one of our classmates, our colleagues. Luckily, my class loves each other deeply and no-one was too triggered to my knowledge. But the whole concept of having to be a mourner for someone else's funeral made me feel like our professor didn't care enough to be trauma-informed or didn't have the knowledge to do so.

A Note on Trigger Warnings (Full post on this coming soon):
There are some obvious trigger warnings that can be incredibly helpful to those with mental health/trauma troubles, and it is not censorship to place them at the beginning of your post, video, or class. I will provide a list below:
Sexual Assault
Self-Harm/Suicide
Body Checking
Calories/Eating Disorder
Death of a close family member

Resources for further research:
https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/childrens_mental_health/atc-whitepaper-040616.pdf

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/trauma-informed-care-what-it-is-and-why-its-important-2018101613562