Trauma Informed Approach

Trauma basics

Trauma is a physical, emotional, and psychological response to an event or series of events that is often beyond someone’s control.

Trauma can affect people in different ways and can have immediate and long-lasting effects.

It's important to understand that trauma is a complex issue, and different people may respond to traumatic experiences in different ways.

It's also important to recognise that recovery from trauma is a process that takes time and requires support from people such as mental health professionals, friends, and family.

Understanding trauma

At Survivor Connections we always learning more about how trauma affects someone and their needs to heal.

Many places that try to help survivors talk about a ‘trauma-informed approach’, which aims to respect the impact of trauma on a person’s mental, physical, and emotional health. It seeks to create a safe and supportive environment and acknowledges the long-lasting effects that trauma can have on a person's well-being.

A trauma-informed approach aims to promote healing and recovery by creating a supportive environment, helping individuals feel empowered and in control of their own recovery process.

Many people think that a trauma informed approach is all about safety. Allies often have their own interpretation of what safety means, and it's important to ask a survivor what it means to them.

In a true trauma informed approach, safety is only the first step:

Find out more about exploitation, human trafficking and modern slavery: