Trauma-Informed Leadership and Workplace Culture Insights

The foster care system in the United States is broken. More often than not, the system actively harms those it seeks to protect. There...

The foster care system is meant to provide temporary care for children whose families are unable to care for them. While it can be a supportive and lifesaving resource to some children, it also presents challenges. While those with a personal or professional connection to foster care carry insights into the system, most people only have a vague understanding of the foster care system. So, in honor of Foster Care Awareness Month, here are six things that I believe everyone sho

We need to work to live, but is work negatively impacting our well-being? For most of us, work allows us to meet some of our basic needs: such as a stable living situation, healthcare, and nutritious food. The issue is that, for most of us, work also contributes to toxic stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout, which negatively impacts our mental, emotional, and physical health. If I asked you this question: “How do you feel about your job?” How would you respond? If your ans

Start here:  Want the full set of trauma-informed tools for leaders? Visit our Trauma-Informed Leadership Toolkit  for scripts, boundary phrases, regulation tools, and practical next steps. There are tons of trauma-informed tools out there to help you integrate trauma-informed practices into your everyday life, and today we’re going to focus on powerful questions. Trauma-Informed Tools: Powerful Questions & TIC Coaching Powerful questions are a core component of trauma-inform

Nine simple emotional regulation techniques that feel a little silly, but work. Practical options you can use in the moment, at work or at home, to reset and respond skillfully.

Universal precautions at work means leading as if anyone may be carrying trauma or chronic stress. Learn why it matters for communication, psychological safety, and follow-through plus 11 trauma-informed leadership habits you can use immediately.

Also referred to as compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma is a major contributor to chronic stress, especially for those who work with populations at a higher risk of trauma, such as social workers, healthcare workers, therapists, educators, and emergency workers. Vicarious trauma, aka compassion fatigue, is one of the most visible signs of trauma in our workforce. Compassion fatigue, aptly named, is a sort of tiredness and apathy that comes from expending our compassion on ot

Learn the trauma triangle and how workplace reenactments show up in teams under chronic stress. Identify the common roles, spot early signs, and use practical interruption strategies that protect trust and accountability.

We’ve all heard it: “our team is a family.” Organizations across every industry use this language. From non-profits to corporate teams, the idea that our working relationships should be as close-knit as our familial ones has become embedded into cultural norms—and even some of our mission statements. But “The Corporate Family” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This news might be hard for some of you to hear: calling your work team a family is not a trauma-informed practice. I

Committing to trauma-informed work can be a real challenge. Most trauma-informed practices involve cultural changes and large-scale...

All human beings are born with a capacity for empathy, but ultimately, empathy is a learned behavior—much like language. Just as language...

Understand the four pillars of emotional intelligence and how they show up in real workplace behavior. Includes practical examples for leaders, supervision conversations, and team communication under pressure.

“ Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going on inside ourselves.” - Bessel Van Der Kolk Trauma-informed care is impossible without self-awareness. Anyone who practices TIC needs self-awareness, and most of us would benefit from greater self-awareness. In this complete guide to self-awareness, we’ll explore why self-awareness is core to the trauma-informed mode

Last week, we discussed how to recognize trauma states at work. The classic fight, flight, freeze, and appease trauma responses can reveal themselves in subtle ways, and other lesser-known trauma states can plague professional environments. Now that we know how to spot when someone is stuck in survival mode at work, it’s time to talk about how to help someone get out of that mindset. Today, we’ll explore the answer to the question: how can we respond to someone when they’re

Recognizing trauma responses is an important skill for trauma-informed leaders to learn—and knowing these common trauma responses is a great place to start. When we view the world with a trauma-informed lens, we can identify two distinct states of mind or headspaces. Of course, this is an overly simplified model that helps us understand the neurobiology of trauma —but it can help us easily identify when someone (including ourselves) is experiencing a trauma response. These t

Download this newsletter as a printable PDF: Monthly Reflections As the end of summer approached, many of us prepared for the incoming...

When we discuss implementing trauma-informed change, the conversation largely surrounds how we live trauma-informed values. How does our behavior reflect our values? What about our lifestyle choices, how we engage in relationships, or our attitude toward life’s challenges? When we reflect, we recognize that there are many ways we live trauma-informed values, but there are also many areas where we can improve. So, once we’ve identified the areas we’d like to change, the questi

In most circles, safety plans are discussed as a tool for suicide prevention. While they are certainly a great resource for people who may experience a crisis such as suicidal ideation, safety plans are a self-care tool that proves useful in less extreme situations as well. Whether you’re someone who would benefit from a personal safety plan or you’re interested in implementing an organizational safety plan for your workplace, this introduction to safety plans is a great plac

When we experience a traumatic event, shame and guilt are common survival skills we rely on. Like the flight, fight, freeze and appease response, these coping skills that are often meant for our survival, can leave us paralyzed. Logically, it’s easy to say, “of course, that wasn’t your fault.” But most survivors of trauma know just how hard it is to believe. Today we’ll explore a few questions relating to guilt and trauma, like “Why is it that survivors of traumatic experienc

Trigger Warning: Please note that this blog contains a discussion of suicide, self-injurious behavior, depression and/or references of...