{"id":9508,"date":"2020-02-10T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T14:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=9508"},"modified":"2020-02-10T16:53:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T20:53:13","slug":"what-does-it-mean-to-be-trauma-informed-and-resilience-oriented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2020\/02\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-trauma-informed-and-resilience-oriented\/","title":{"rendered":"What does it mean to be trauma-informed and resilience-oriented?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>What does it mean to be trauma-informed and\nresilience-oriented?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the years since STAR began\nour learning and teaching journey (in response to a call to respond to\nSeptember 11, 2001 in the US), many more voices and programs have emerged to\nbuild awareness and action plans for building resilience and addressing trauma\nin individuals, organizations and communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both clinical and cultural\nperspectives on trauma and resilience have begun to inform our lives in myriad\nways. The impacts of trauma \u2013 from individual and collective experiences of\nviolence, historical, systemic and structural harms, and environmental\ndevastation \u2013 reverberate through families, communities and the world. More\npeople are courageously acknowledging the need to address these impacts.\nOrganizations working in the midst of structural and direct violence are\nexploring how to trauma-inform their efforts and create more trauma-informed\nwork places. Trauma-informed school and community networks have begun to form. Resilience-based\nprogramming is not an uncommon concept whether in education, economic and\nsocial development, or peacebuilding. Trauma-sensitive yoga is taught in\nschools and prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, <strong>what does it mean to be trauma-informed and resilience-oriented? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Laura van Dernoot Lipsky\ndescribes a vision she calls \u201ctrauma stewardship,\u201d which \u201ccalls us to engage\noppression and trauma \u2013 whether through our careers or in our personal lives \u2013\nby caring for, tending to, and responsibly guiding other beings who are\nstruggling\u201d (2009, p.11). She highlights and questions the common belief that\n\u201cour commitment to our work may be measured by our willingness to martyr\nourselves\u201d (p. 12). Her work describes how trauma stewardship is required to\naddress personal dynamics, organizational tendencies, and societal forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shawn Ginwright sounds\ncaution about resilience-building work: \u201cThe pursuit of wellness\nwithout fairness will not yield the outcomes individuals and communities need\u201d\n(2013, p. 147). He shares the frustrated words of a colleague, \u201cImagine that\nsomeone has their foot on your neck and it is very difficult to stand up!\nResilience is like saying to young people that I\u2019m going to make your neck\nstronger, rather than focusing on how to get it off my neck in the first\nplace!\u201d (p. 54).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to research by\nBarry Hart, Mikhala Lantz-Simmons, and Daria Nashat (2016), a trauma-informed\norganization:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>has staff that has received training in trauma\nand that knows how to identify signs of trauma. Staff incorporates a\ntrauma-informed framework into their interactions with clients, meaning that\nthey understand that people have stories and deserve to be treated with\ncompassion and respect;<\/li><li>creates structures so that staff can practice\nmeaningful self-care;<\/li><li>opens space for members of the organization,\ninstitution or business to speak about stress;<\/li><li>fosters a sincerely relational environment\nwhere everyone\u2019s dignity is respected; and<\/li><li>provides resources for getting help for those\nthat need it.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>At STAR, each participant\ncontributes something to our understanding of what it means to be\ntrauma-informed. While the following list is by no means comprehensive, these\nare a few additional pieces of the puzzle that we might add around what it\nmeans to be trauma-informed and resilience-oriented:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Acknowledgement\nof the historical and ongoing harms that are influencing the context<\/strong>: for example, legacies and aftermaths of\nslavery, apartheid, genocide and colonization. Naming these harms and actively\nidentifying and enacting ways to disrupt and address the dynamics (implicit\nbias, power imbalances, over-representation of dominant groups,\nmicro-aggressions, to name a few) are a key step to addressing historical\ntrauma. <\/li><li><strong>Authentic\ninclusion<\/strong>: Making spaces for many\nbodies to play a role in leadership, decision-making, learning and action\nprocesses, with awareness of \u201cwho is not in the room\u201d and how decisions and\nactions will impact people. This might range from considerations where to host\nan event (accessibility) to who leads activities (do they represent multiple\nexperiential backgrounds, or is it one person from a dominant group?) to what\ncontent is included and excluded from the agenda.<\/li><li><strong>Prioritization\nof trust-building and decentralizing power:<\/strong> Centralization of too much responsibility and\npower with one individual \u2013 due to founder syndrome or perceived resource\nscarcity or lack of trust \u2013 can both burn out that individual and create\norganizational trauma. When trust-building happens regularly, more people hold\npower to respond to emerging issues, whether traumagenic events or other\nshifts.<\/li><li><strong>Adaptability\naround agenda, timeline, and budget:<\/strong>\nBecause one cannot foresee what resources and possibilities and questions and\nchallenges will emerge (whether during a week-long seminar or a multi-year\nprogram), finding ways to build in adaptability is foundational to reducing\npotential impacts of traumagenic events. Examples range from re-jigging a\ntraining schedule to accommodate for questions dear to participants\u2019 experience\n(but not originally on the agenda), to finding ways to acknowledge and support\nan employee who is suffering from secondary trauma, to building budgets that\nacknowledge an HIV outreach program with displaced persons might also need to\ndedicate resources to activities beyond the scope of HIV awareness and\ntreatment. Creating space to address emergent traumagenic events, when they\nhappen, can make the difference between maintaining mobility and getting\ncompletely stuck.<\/li><li><strong>Creation\nof space for rest, digestion, and release:<\/strong> The dynamics of trauma can cultivate a\nprofound sense of urgency and sharp need for control; these can be replicated\nin individual bodies, educational spaces, crisis response spaces and elsewhere.\nWhile the need to respond swiftly to crises is real, creating even small spaces\nfor ourselves or our teams \u2013 to rest our bodies and minds, digest what is\nhappening (alone and together), and release a tight controlling grip, stress,\nanger, frustration and grief \u2013 can make a difference in well-being and\neffectiveness. This can happen through creative work scheduling, or mindfully\nscheduling time each day for doing nothing or connecting in play or sport or\nmusic, or other means. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We share this to begin\nconversation and invite additional ideas. The journey of trauma-informing our\nwork and life-spaces is ever unfolding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ginwright,\nS. (2016). <em>Hope and healing in urban\neducation: How urban activists and teachers are reclaiming matters of the\nheart. <\/em>New York and London: Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hart, B., Lantz-Simmons, M., &amp; Nashat, D.\n(2016). Starting\nwhere we are: Trauma-informing SPI. https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2016\/03\/starting-where-we-are-trauma-informing-spi\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lipsky, L.D.\n(2009). <em>Trauma stewardship: an everyday\nguide to caring for self while caring for others.<\/em> San Francisco:\nBerrett-Koehler Publishers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks too to Talibah Aquil, Paul Ruot Bayoch, adrienne maree brown (in her book <em>Emergent Strategy<\/em>, 2017), and Trina Trotter Nussbaum, who helped shape the content of this beginning through conversations, research, and writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Copyright\n\u00a9 2019 Eastern Mennonite University, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/star\">http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/star<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What does it mean to be trauma-informed and resilience-oriented? In the years since STAR began our learning and teaching journey (in response to a call&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2020\/02\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-trauma-informed-and-resilience-oriented\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about What does it mean to be trauma-informed and resilience-oriented?<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1595,1596,622,1394],"issues":[],"class_list":["post-9508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources","tag-katie-mansfield","tag-resilience","tag-star","tag-trauma-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9509,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions\/9509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=9508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}