Trauma is part of life. As long one exists, trauma can occur. Treating trauma acutely on the scene is important in crisis and mental health, but also recognizing it within a client or patient who has experienced it is key. Being trauma informed and trauma aware can bring day light to many existing problems and prevent many future ones. Mental health professionals must hence be trauma cognizant and alert for clues and possible issues within a client or patient.
Again, the true reality is everyone grieves and loses someone or something. The chance of one of those incidents to cause trauma at least once to some level in someone’s life is around 80 percent. So understanding the fine line between experiencing something sad, or even bad, and how that translates subjectively to trauma is important since such a high percentage of people within the population will experience some type of traumatic reaction. Identifying and helping individuals who are dealing with trauma can be a beautiful healing moment.
Please also review AIHCP’s Crisis Intervention Program, as well as its Trauma Informed Care Programs in 2026 for both clinical as well as pastoral disciplines. Bear in mind, helping others with trauma and processing it, is not merely a clinical purpose, but it can fall into non clinical and pastoral settings. So, it is important to help individuals face trauma within one’s scope of professional practice. While this may be limiting for some, such as pastors or chaplains within the scope of their mental health training, other licensed professionals in social work, counseling or psychiatric nursing can help treat trauma at a much deeper level. AIHCP’s certifications in behavioral health are aimed at giving professionals within all scopes of mental health additional knowledge and skills to help those in trauma to process and identify it. The idea of recognizing trauma across a life span has only been recently introduced into the DSM-V. This has opened the floodgates for many professionals to become certified within this field or utilize it within their practice.
What is Trauma
A person enters a state of crisis when something overwhelms his/her abilities to cope and handle the situation. It de-stabilizes and disorientates them. Like crisis, trauma is a severe stressful and impactful event in life that imprints itself upon the person. Sometimes it is so horrible, the person is not even able to properly store it within the mind resulting later in PTSD. Different levels of trauma exist. In the article, “Advanced Method-Trauma Informed Framework” from SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration), the individual who suffers from trauma experiences what is referred to the 3 “E”s of trauma care. The includes the event itself, the experience of it and the effects of it.
Within the event, what was the triggering occurrence that caused the initial trauma in a person’s life. This is very subjective in nature. What may negatively impact one person, may not hurt someone else based on numerous subjective, cultural, religious, emotional, mental and social support systems that make up the person’s ability to handle a crisis or horrible situation. While an event may objectively be horrible, some individuals are able to recover and show resiliency to it and trauma is minimal or non existent. Some soldiers can return home from war without trauma, while others cannot escape the trauma. So while the event may be objectively dark, such as a tornado destroying one’s home, an individual may still respond to that event without long term trauma as opposed to someone else.
The experience of event is the second key element. This is far more subjective in nature and determines if the individual will suffer trauma. The experience at the mental, emotional, or physical level is so intense, it overtakes the individual to the point that the persons experience of the event is traumatic acutely as well as long term. This again points back to a person’s emotional and mental build to particular events in life. A person’s history, a person’s interior resiliency, or a person’s support systems can all play key roles in how a person handles a crisis or how a traumatic event imprints upon a person. This in no way dismisses a person who experiences trauma as weaker than others because everyone is susceptible to trauma–it just matters what is one’s tipping point.
The effects of trauma play the third key element. The effects of a traumatic event can be short term or long term. They can be affect all aspects of the person. Effects can include inability to cope with life and everyday stressors, or trust others, social withdraw and issues, or loss of purpose and life meaning, or properly utilize the cognitive process. It can result in maladaptive coping practices, as well as manifest with symptoms associated with PTSD that include hyper vigilance, avoidance, dissociation, nightmares or emotional numbing.
Trauma across a life span and trauma informed care recognizes the imprint of trauma on human life and seeks to see if any trauma still lingers or was never discovered or at least discussed that may be haunting a client throughout his or her life.
SAMHSA and the Four “R”s and Key Assumptions in Trauma and Informed Care
SAMHSA’s article, “Advanced Method-Trauma Informed Framework” gives a detailed account about qualities and key assumptions in presenting a concise commitment to treating trauma across a life span and helping agencies, as well as individual practitioners a better way to proceed forward in creating a practice that gravitates around trauma informed care. The four R’s are essential in addressing trauma within any agency. A program or organization first needs to realize the impact of trauma as a universal human phenomenon that requires treatment in life. Secondly, counselors, or agencies need to recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma that are either acute or manifesting across the span of one’s life time. In many cases, one may have been living with trauma undetected through professional services or lack of visit. Counselors need to be aware that some new clients may have trauma from ages ago that was never treated. The agency or organization then needs to have the ability to respond to the needs of the client via fully integrated knowledge, training, policies and procedures to help the person. Finally, the agency owes to to any client to resist re-traumatization of the person.
A trauma informed approach according to SAMHSA also applies six key principles to its application. First and foremost, safety is key when working with trauma patients. The client must feel safe physically, emotionally and mentally and the environment must facilitate that aura of safety. Second, the agency and counselors or social workers need to present its operations in an open and trustworthy fashion. Third, peer support is a key element in any healing. Peer support or trauma survivors can supply their stories or support to others walking the healing journey. Fourth, the entirety of the agency all plays a role in the healing process. The entire agency has a clear and mutually defined role in application of trauma support. Fifth, both staff and clients are given empowerment. The client is able to share in the process of healing via choice and decisions in plans of action. The staff as well is given empowerment via support of from the administration as well as the tools necessary to do their work. The final principle involves removal of any bias based on culturally, religious or gender issues when dealing with and helping individuals deal with trauma. In doing so, staff recognizes the trauma that can exist within certain groups and how that can manifest within individuals.
SAMHSA and Implementing a Trauma Informed Approach
Trauma informed care is an organizational decision that transforms the organization or agency or individual social worker or counselors paradigm of working with individuals. To be successfully implemented, it takes more than principles and good philosophies but a pragmatic process that involves multiple levels of preparation, policies, training, finances and feed back. SAMHSA lists ten core implementation domains that are essential to help agencies properly support individuals suffering from trauma.
First, governance and leadership is essential. There needs to be a conscious choice to implement trauma informed care and establish leadership and management of its implementation to oversee and work with peers and staff in that effort. Second, the agency needs written policies established that outline the new mission as well as a blue print for procedure. Third, the organization needs to create a physical environment that mirrors a safe harbor for the type of work trauma counseling requires. Individuals must feel safe, secure and able to trust without fear of embarrassment, guilt, or repercussion of their story. Fourth, there needs to be within the agency an engagement and involvement across multiple lines of individuals not only between counselor and client, but also within the organization itself and the process of helping individuals through trauma at all levels. In addition, fifth, an agency needs to be equipped with cross sector collaborations with other agencies at the local or state level that can help facilitate healing. Sixth, the agency needs to utilize the best empirically and scientifically proven principles in screening, assessment and treatment. Seventh, training and workforce development is essential to ensure counselors have the education and continuing education necessary in trauma informed care. Education and training workshops are key in maintaining up to date skills and knowledge in helping others. The training, however, is not just shared with counselors and social workers, but also at lower levels within staff in how to deal with trauma and understand the nature of trauma with potential patients who enter the actual facility. Eighth, as with all training, monitoring and quality assurance is essential to confirm that principles, policies, procedures and trainings are carried out properly within the whole of the organization. This involves trauma informed principles that are incorporated into hiring, supervision, evaluation of staff, as well as working with staff and their own vicarious trauma and self care needs. Ninth, agencies obviously need the necessary financial budget to transform the facility to support the need of trauma clients, as well as paying for the necessary trainings. Finally, evaluation and feed back is essential in how the mission is being carried out. This involves evaluation from top to bottom and taking feed back from everyone to ensure the implementation of the program is successful or if needs any adjustments.
Conclusion
Many individuals unfortunately lack proper trauma care. The initial trauma is untreated, or the trauma is allowed to persist without proper care. Individuals feel like they become a number without a real advocate. Many feel the pain of having to re-tell their story over and over without any true treatment. Others feel they labeled and may flee any treatment, while others who seek treatment may not have access to quality care in trauma or not have access to it. Hence many individuals feel as if they are unseen or not heard, or feel unrecognized within their social group and the traumas they collectively face.
Trauma informed care looks to acknowledge the reality of trauma in life for individuals within all cultural, social, religious and ethnic groups. It looks to implement mental health plans to help individuals heal from trauma and become healthy members of society. The need for trauma informed care and spotting trauma is essential in our society. So many suffer from trauma and when left untreated, these individuals can become a danger to themselves or others. Recognizing the necessity of trauma informed care is an answer to our mental health crisis itself.
AIHCP recognizes this important issue and offers a variety of mental health certifications, including in 2026, a trauma informed care certification for healthcare professionals. Please review AIHCP’s multiple certifications in behavioral health, as well as its Grief Counseling, Crisis Counseling, Stress Management and Anger Management programs.
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Sexual and Physical Abuse: Click here
Resource
SAMHSA. “Advanced Method-Trauma Informed Framework”. Access here
Additional Resources
AAP. “What is Trauma-Informed Care?” Access here
“Why Trauma-Informed Care Matters” Health Essentials. Cleveland Clinic. Access here
“What is Trauma-Informed Care?”. University of Buffalo. Access here