Creating and Sustaining Healthier Systems

For the last thirty years, the field of traumatic stress studies has been growing rapidly and methods for addressing the needs of trauma-survivors have burgeoned. But in those same three decades, the nation’s mental health and social service systems have been under relentless assault, with dramatically rising costs and the fragmentation of service delivery often rendering them incapable of ensuring the safety, security, and recovery of our clients. The resulting organizational trauma both mirrors and magnifies the trauma-related problems for which our clients seek relief. In this presentation, Dr. Bloom described her journey of becoming trauma-informed and the key things she and her colleagues learned from their adult survivors of childhood adversity and other forms of trauma. She then summarized what may happen to groups under significant stress and discuss the Sanctuary Model, a trauma-informed organizational approach that helps organizations develop trauma-informed cultures to buffer individuals against the impact of chronic stress.