Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Trauma-Informed Care: Module 1

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Presenter: Jamie Heberlein

Summary

In this introductory module, Jamie Heberlein provides a foundation for understanding trauma and trauma-informed care. The session defines trauma as an experience that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope and emphasizes that the same event may affect people in very different ways. A person’s history, relationships, culture, environment, access to resources, and interpretation of an experience can all influence whether an event becomes traumatic and how its effects are experienced.

The presentation also examines different forms of stress, including positive, tolerable, and toxic stress. Tolerable stress is temporary and supported by relationships and resources, while toxic stress involves prolonged activation of the stress response without enough protective support. Participants consider the importance of supportive relationships and learn how trauma can also occur across communities and generations through historical trauma, intergenerational trauma, unresolved grief, systemic barriers, and cultural experiences.

The session then shifts from understanding trauma to understanding trauma-informed care. Trauma-informed practices are not therapy and are not intended to excuse harmful or unacceptable behavior. Instead, they use an understanding of trauma to create environments that are safer, more empowering, and less likely to cause additional harm. Organizations are encouraged to realize the widespread impact of trauma, recognize possible signs and symptoms, respond by integrating trauma knowledge into practices and policies, and actively resist retraumatization.

Participants are introduced to six principles that support a trauma-informed approach: safety; trustworthiness and transparency; peer support; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice, and choice; and cultural, historical, and gender responsiveness. The session encourages faculty and staff to examine their own departments and consider small, practical changes within their control. Heberlein closes by emphasizing compassion, relationships, positive intent, and curiosity about the needs or experiences that may be influencing a person’s behavior.

Presentation Slides: Trauma-Informed Care: Module 1 Presentation Slides

Presentation Outcomes

• Define trauma and recognize how an individual’s experience of an event can shape its physical, emotional, social, and other long-term effects.
• Distinguish among positive, tolerable, and toxic stress and explain the role supportive relationships can play in buffering stressful experiences.
• Recognize individual, collective, historical, intergenerational, and systemic forms of trauma and consider how cultural context influences experiences of trauma and healing.
• Describe resilience and post-traumatic growth while recognizing that recovery is influenced by relationships, resources, environment, access, and other surrounding conditions.
• Distinguish trauma-specific services from trauma-informed practices and recognize that trauma-informed care does not require faculty and staff to provide therapy.
• Apply the principles of safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment and choice, and cultural, historical, and gender responsiveness.
• Use a trauma-informed lens to approach behavior with compassion and curiosity while maintaining appropriate expectations and accountability.
• Identify small changes within a classroom, department, or workplace that can reduce harm and support a more trauma-informed organizational culture.

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