The six principles of being trauma-informed

- I dream of a world where technology proactively prevents and reduces harm, and all users, regardless of age and identity, feel safe and included. Trauma-informed approaches can help make this dream a reality. All trauma-informed approaches stem from trauma-informed care. Trauma-informed care is this approach to clinical practice. It considers the pervasive nature of trauma when treating and supporting clients. In doing so, it aims to promote healing and repair and prevent retraumatization. It's been at the core of social work practice for over 50 years. Trauma-informed work has evolved beyond clinical settings. For example, it's gaining traction in education, architecture, and law enforcement. Outside of clinical care, the term trauma-informed approach is used. Read Mai-Kai 2023 paper on trauma-informed technology for more information about trauma-informed care, and its ongoing evolution. The beauty of a trauma-informed approach is that it's flexible and can be used in any setting with people or with any products or services used by people, but it doesn't come with a script or a checklist. It needs to be individualized to each use case. Six principles make up all trauma-informed approaches. They are safety, including emotional and physical safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice, and cultural, historical, and gender issues. We recommend using the substance abuse and mental health service administration framework or SAMHSA for short. It's credible and validated. Many people have used this model for many years. The six principles aren't linear, they're interconnected and build on each other. Applying one principle often overlaps with another or helps you achieve another. For example, achieving safety helps build trust and vice versa. You can think of the principles as the ingredients of a trauma-informed approach. A helpful analogy I like to use to think of a classic lettuce salad. Most salads have the same core ingredients. They have some kind of lettuce or mixed greens. There's vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers. There's dressing, and then we build from there. Adding things like fruit, avocados, nuts, croutons, and more. It doesn't matter the order in which the ingredients are added to the salad. What's important is that the all go in. For example, putting the vegetables in the bowl before the lattice is fine because when combined, they still create a salad. My final product may look a little different than yours, but in the end, we both end up with a salad that contains the main ingredients. Just like when we use the six principles in whatever order or quantity are work demands, we end up with trauma-informed technology. This flexibility is crucial because situations, products, and research settings differ. One last important point is that all trauma informed approaches are guided by four Rs. Realize that trauma exists and can profoundly affect people in groups. Recognize the signs of trauma when it happens. Respond, or have a system that can respond to trauma in the moment and in achieving the first three, we resist retraumatization. By applying the six principles and achieving the four Rs, Your trauma-informed technology helps create environments that respects people's lived experiences and manages the of reoccurring trauma.