In recent years, trauma-informed care has become the standard of care in behavioral health, residential treatment, healthcare and K-12 school systems. Now early childhood programs are increasingly becoming trauma-informed in their work with young children and families.  As with trauma-informed care in general, there is so much information available on the internet that it can be difficult knowing where to start.

Head Start and Early Head Start continue to lead the way in promoting school readiness and family engagement for vulnerable young children. It’s no surprise, then, that Head Start is increasingly focused on implementing trauma-informed care as highlighted in its Guidance to Implementing Trauma-Informed Care brief, noting that:

Successfully implementing trauma-informed care (TIC) is challenging. Successfully measuring TIC is equally challenging. But with the Online ARTIC you can do both.

Part III: Mindfulness for Trauma Treaters and Survivors – First, Do No Harm

This is the third in a series of blog posts on the role of mindfulness in sustaining trauma-informed care.

Mindfulness practice can support transformative healing. But it can also cause harm, especially for trauma survivors. Maximizing healing and minimizing harm is imperative for trauma-informed treaters and champions, so the emergence of trauma-sensitive mindfulness (TSM) is both timely and welcome.

The Online ARTIC makes TIC assessment and program evaluation user-friendly. At the same time, it still requires thoughtful planning, staff time, and effort to get meaningful results.

Committing to trauma-informed care is the difficult part. With the Online ARTIC, measuring trauma-informed care is the easy part. Start today with 6 Easy Steps to Onboard the Online ARTIC.

Part II: Mindfulness – Healing Racial Trauma

This is the second in a series of blog posts on the role of mindfulness in sustaining trauma-informed care.

Both within our Risking Connection community and beyond it, delivering trauma-informed care (TIC) is an ethical imperative.

Part I: Mindfulness – Finding Balance When the World is Upside Down

This is the first in a series of blog posts on the role of mindfulness in sustaining trauma-informed care.

Our Current Challenge

Adopting and sustaining trauma-informed care can be overwhelming. Senior leaders, managers and direct care staff must accept the reality that creating a culture of trauma-informed care is more journey than destination.

New federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act includes critical funding for advancing trauma-informed care services in tribal communities.

Delivering trauma-informed care (TIC) is challenging. Measuring TIC is even more difficult. More and more school systems, human service agencies, juvenile justice programs, behavioral health organizations and others are moving to become more trauma-informed - and struggling to measure the impact of their efforts. That’s why the Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI) developed the Online ARTIC.