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Trauma Informed Care

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Trauma is pervasive and impacts all of us, children and adults. One way we can be responsive, healing centered, and recovery oriented in this space is to normalize that which we know is real. Building a form of care centered and informed by trauma can help promote a culture of safety, trust, empowerment and choice, and peer support. In collaboration with the Children’s Commission and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), the South Southwest MHTTC has compiled and curated documents meant to provide all available trauma-informed care training resources for various professionals.

The training resources provided in these documents were collected in a collaborative effort between the SAMHSA Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC), the Cross Systems Trauma-informed Care initiative led by Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and the Statewide Collaborative on Trauma-informed Care led by the Supreme Court of Texas Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families (Children’s Commission). This information has been compiled from multiple sources and the MHTTC, HHSC and the Children’s Commission cannot guarantee either the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the information or the effectiveness of the trainings listed. The MHTTC, HHSC and the Children’s Commission do not endorse any one training resource, modality, or curriculum. These documents are intended to serve as a non-exhaustive list of resources as the field continues to change and evolve regarding trauma.

RESOURCES

Trauma Informed Care Series
The South Southwest MHTTC collaborated with the Texas Association of Community Health Centers from July – November 2023 to host a Trauma Informed Care Series: Knowledge & Strategies for Health and Hope. Traumatic experiences have consistently been correlated with negative health outcomes across an individual’s life span, including up to a 20-year reduction in life expectancy and a 30-40% increase in the incidence of substance use.

Trauma-Informed Care Basics
As systems move toward providing trauma-informed care, it is important for everyone at all levels of an organization to understand the basics of trauma-informed care. The following resources and courses introduce participants to understanding stress, understanding trauma, and understanding trauma-informed care. All organizational staff can complete the course to develop a shared language, understand stress and trauma, connect the role of resilience in response to adversity and trauma, and identify ways everyone in the organization can support trauma-informed care and implement trauma-informed approaches.

This online course was created collaboratively between the South Southwest MHTTC and the Texas Cross-Systems Trauma-Informed Care Initiative with support from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 

Recognizing and Responding to Trauma in the Wake of Mass Violence
This resource is a list of evidence-based and best practice interventions utilized in the training and consultation opportunities the South Southwest MHTTC provides to address the trauma needs of individuals impacted by incidents of mass violence. This list may be best understood as a sampling of interventions that are best employed simultaneously, as part of an over-arching community response that can set communities on a path toward resilience.

Trauma Informed Work with Asylum-Seeking Youth at the Border
Providing care and support for children, youth, and families as they navigate the asylum system can be challenging. It can be hard to know how to be as helpful as possible, especially when communication is difficult. In this brief video, two mental health experts with experience within the asylum and immigration systems share their suggestions for providing trauma-informed supports, while reducing the stress that staff and volunteers may experience.