Trauma Informed Care Project

The goal of the Trauma Informed Care Project is two-fold:

First to educate the larger System, which delivers services or has some piece of a family’s case, about Trauma and how it may impact the system and/or affect the family. The intent is to examine policies, practices and organizational structures to help prevent re-traumatization of our clients of our staff and our system at large. One of the first steps was to establish a Stakeholders group of community members to help determine the needs of the community/system, to help plan what type of trainings are needed and what parts of the system need to be addressed. This group meets quarterly with working subcommittees which meet monthly to carry out the strategic plan.

Second, to educate and train practitioners in evidenced based trauma informed services so that our consumers/community/system can have available resources to send trauma survivors to receive services. It is our goal to try to provide an annual conference bringing national speakers on Trauma to Central Iowa. The Annual Psychological Trauma & Juvenile Justices conference has hosted such speakers as Dr. Robert Anda, Dr. Sandra Bloom, Dr. Robert Macy, Dr. Neil Boris, Tonier Cain, Eduardo Duran PhD and Dr. Bruce D. Perry. The project has provided specific trainings for therapist, for educators and for foster families which have been directed more specifically to their piece of the system and enhance services. We would also like to look at how to make sure that these practitioners have access to some consultation to ensure fidelity to these evidenced based trauma informed service models.