Frequently Asked Questions
Trauma-informed care is a set of best practices that are designed to address the needs of those who have experienced adverse events, such as trauma, abuse, neglect, exposure to disaster events, and/or long-term unrelenting stress. The research tells us that these types of events can cause problems with learning, managing emotions, controlling behavior, poor health outcomes, and impared social and occupational functioning. The causes of these problems are often based on complex and sophisticated neurological and physiological processes in the brain and body. As a result, people often don’t know how to address these changes, and can feel stuck and overwhelmed. Trauma-informed care integrates over 100 years of research and best practices into an approach that helps organizations effectively address the needs of survivors of adversity and trauma. The research tells that providing trauma-informed services improves client outcomes, staff retention, and can lower long-term costs.
Examples of trauma-informed care approaches include (but are not limited to) changing organizational policies and practices to ensure they promote safety and minimize the potential for harm, educating staff about the effects of long-term stress and trauma, crisis response and de-escalation protocols, teaching evidenced-informed self-care and wellness practices, conducting assessments, and providing cutting-edge clinical training to mental health professionals on how to effectively and safely treat trauma.
Over the past few decades, there has been an explosion of interest and training in trauma, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and trauma-informed care. This is a good thing! It shows that people are becoming more aware of how adversity and trauma can cause long-term problems, and that more sophisticated evidenced-based approaches are needed to adequately address them. Unfortunately, there is no universally accepted, standardized approach for practicing trauma-informed care. With such a high demand for trauma training, this has led to there being numerous persons claiming to be experts in this area of trauma-informed care. Although their intentions may be sincere, in many instances they offer very basic content that often doesn’t provide a clear path for organizations on how to implement these practices. When this happens, people can start to view trauma-informed care as a “fad”, and something that doesn’t really work. What makes the Gulf Coast Trauma Institute unique is that we offer both high quality research-based training on trauma and provide ongoing consultation to help you and your organization effectively implement these practices and troubleshoot problems when needed. This approach allows organizations to start seeing the benefits of adopting trauma-informed practices.
Besides specializing in trauma-informed care practices, we also provide a range of services that focus on promoting wellness. For example, many of our workshop offerings focus on reducing stress, building self-compassion, fostering resiliency, and enhancing mind-body connections. This type of content is important to everyone, from those working in the mental health/human services field, to those in the business and finance sector. We also have expert trainers and facilitators that are able to come to your organization and provide ongoing wellness training and coaching if needed. Please feel free to contact us to find out more on how the Gulf Coast Trauma Institute can promote wellness practices in your agency
The Gulf Coast has been affected by numerous natural and man-made disasters over the last several decades including hurricanes, tornadoes, oil spills, floods, and mass shootings among many others. The GCTI team is uniquely positioned on the Gulf Coast to mitigate the psychological and emotional impacts of past and future disasters, while working to prevent traumatic stress across multiple organizations and schools. Our team is a blend of regional and national experts who either currently live or have lived in a Gulf Coast state for many years. We have relationships with local agencies and organizations as well extensive knowledge of southern culture and the resilience of its residents. We have worked closely with mental health systems of the South and strive to enhance these systems to improve our own communities.
YES! If your organization is located outside the Gulf South, we have you covered. Our team is willing and able to serve organizations across the United States.
You are not alone, my friend. Please reach out to us via phone or email. We’re happy to schedule a free consultation to better understand your organizational goals and challenges. We can design a plan of services that’s individually tailored to meet your organization’s needs.