Trauma Informed Practice (TIP)

Trauma informed organisations: Produced by NHS Education for Scotland (NES).

Trauma is more prevalent than once thought – it is estimated that about 60% of the UK population has experienced psychological trauma in their lifetime, yet we often won’t know about people’s experiences. While many people will recover from trauma (particularly through supportive, positive relationships with others), for some, it can have a significant and long-lasting impact. Trauma has consistently been associated with poorer outcomes for mental/physical health, education, social outcomes, and many more.

Trauma can impact our ability to feel safe in relationships, to trust others, to manage strong emotions, and to view ourselves as worthwhile. Many settings can unwittingly provoke strong reminders of the trauma experienced. For these reasons, and many more, trauma can create invisible barriers to many services and opportunities in life.

We all have a role to play in understanding and responding to those affected by psychological trauma.

What is psychological trauma?

The term trauma can refer to a wide range of traumatic, abusive or neglectful events that are experienced as emotionally or physically harmful, or life threatening. Whether an event(s) is traumatic depends not only on our individual experience of the event, but also how it negatively impacts on our emotional, social, spiritual and physical wellbeing. We are all affected by traumatic events in different ways.

Taking a ‘trauma informed’ approach

Being trauma informed means approaching everything we do in a way that recognises the impact trauma may have on people and responding in ways that supports recovery and does not cause further harm. It ensures that both our service users and staff experience the five key principles of trauma informed practice through their involvement with South Lanarkshire Council – trust, safety, collaboration, empowerment and choice.

You can read more about other organisations’ approaches to implementing trauma informed practice in the case studies compiled by the Improvement Service.

National Trauma Transformation Programme (NTTP)

The NTTP was established in 2018 to achieve the Scottish Government and partners’ ambition for a Scotland where trauma is considered everyone’s business. This is a long-term change programme and the NTTP provides a range of learning resources, guidance and implementation support for all sectors of the workforce, to up-skill staff to the appropriate level of trauma-informed and responsive practice and, critically, to embed and sustain this way of working.

You can read more about the work of the NTTP in the NTTP Newsletter.  

What’s happening in South Lanarkshire?

South Lanarkshire Council and SLUHSCP have made a commitment to putting trauma informed practice and responses at the forefront of our work. As part of that commitment, all SLC staff are encouraged to complete learning around trauma which is relevant to their job role and remit.

Find out more about Trauma training for employees and managers.

To support South Lanarkshire’s commitment, the following are in place:

TIP steering group

The remit of this group is ‘to co-ordinate and oversee action to develop a trauma informed and responsive workforce across South Lanarkshire and work towards SLC systems and processes being trauma informed’.

The group meet every 8-12 weeks and membership includes the SLC Trauma Champions, representatives from each of the Resources, the Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP) and the NHS Lanarkshire Implementation Coordinator. If you would like to know who the representative is for your Resource, please contact Alison Chapman.

Trauma champions

The NTTP supports a network of local Trauma Champions - senior leaders from Local Authorities, Health and Social Care Partnerships, Health Boards, and key community planning partners. Following retirement, a process is currently underway to replace the Trauma Champions within the council.

Lead officer

Most Local Authorities in Scotland now have a Lead Officer in post, responsible for the local implementation of TIP. The Lead Officer within SLC is Alison Chapman.