Toward Greater Trauma Sensitivity in Agencies and Schools

This session explores the policies, procedures and practices of trauma sensitive agencies and schools. Participants will learn four overriding principles that guide organizational decisions, and the trauma sensitive attributes that characterize an organization’s culture and climate.   Checklists to assess current levels of trauma sensitivity, tools that guide needed organizational culture changes, approaches to prevent development of secondary traumatic stress in staff members, and recommendations to enhance cross-system collaboration will be offered.

Learning Objectives

· Describe the guiding principles and characteristics of trauma sensitive organizations.

· Assess current levels of organizational trauma sensitivity.

· Apply tools to guide organizational culture change toward greater trauma sensitivity.

· Identify strategies to address staff secondary traumatic stress.

· Enhance organizational capacity to collaborate across community systems that serve children and families.