Conversations that make a difference

In June 2023, Small Steps Big Changes (SSBC) played host to 250 health, social care, and voluntary sector colleagues from across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire at the second trauma informed practice conference for the year.

The conference ‘Conversations that make a difference’ was designed to support the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Trauma Informed Strategy and are aimed at workforce colleagues, researchers and partner organisations who support trauma, adversity, and trauma informed care through their work with families. 

In Nottingham, SSBC realise that building a trauma informed workforce is pivotal to understanding the negative impact of trauma that not only affects the families and children that we work with but also our workforce.

As the workshop attendees started to discuss their experiences it became clear that there were a lot of similarities between people working in trauma, adversity, and trauma informed care and those who had lived experience of trauma. 

These workshop discussions were able to determine that trauma informed care shouldn’t be considered in isolation, but needs to bring together a shared ideology, language and framework across systems and organisations based on the nine principles of a trauma informed approach:

1.    Recognition
2.    Safety
3.    Resist re-traumatisation
4.    Trustworthiness and transparency
5.    Collaboration and mutuality
6.    Empowerment, choice, and control
7.    Peer support and mutual help
8.    Cultural, historical and gender issues
9.    Pathways to trauma – specific care.