Trauma-Informed Leadership and Organisations

This module explores what trauma is, how it shows up and why it belongs on every leader's agenda. It covers SAMHSA's three Es, Herman's account of complex trauma, the Welsh Adverse Childhood Experiences study by Bellis and colleagues, and Siegel's window of tolerance, with Aberfan in 1966 as its case study. It matters because leaders set the conditions in which people are helped or harmed.

This module moves from understanding trauma to a trauma-informed approach. It sets out SAMHSA's four Rs and six principles, Harris and Fallot's five core values, and the difference between trauma-informed and trauma-specific services, then looks at Scotland's National Trauma Transformation Programme and its four practice levels as a workforce design tool. It matters because principles only count where people can feel them.

This module explores the Trauma-Informed Wales framework, published in 2022 by ACE Hub Wales and Traumatic Stress Wales, with its four practice levels and five principles, and the TrACE Organisations Toolkit that helps put it into practice. It traces Welsh policy from the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 to the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation (Wales) Act 2026, and shows why systems, not only people, must be trauma-informed.

This module explores psychologically informed environments (PIE), where buildings, rules and relationships become part of the support. It traces PIE from Johnson and Haigh (2010) through the five elements of the 2012 good practice guide by Keats, Maguire, Johnson and Cockersell to PIE 2.0 and its three Rs of rules, roles and responsiveness, and examines what the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation (Wales) Act 2026 asks of services.

This module explores what it takes to lead a trauma-informed organisation, starting from the idea that you cannot give what the system does not give you. It covers SAMHSA's ten implementation domains, Sandra Bloom's trauma-organised organisation and the Sanctuary Model with S.E.L.F. and its seven commitments, and Heifetz's view of distress in adaptive change, with Wales's Early Action Together policing programme as a case study.

This module looks at the cost of caring and what leaders owe the people who carry it. It distinguishes vicarious trauma (McCann and Pearlman), secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue (Figley) and burnout (Maslach and Leiter), explores moral injury through Shay and Litz, and uses Stamm's ProQOL. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry's findings on health and care staff show why the cost is shared.

This module covers how organisations support staff who carry the cost of the work. It sets out the pressure, strain and burnout pathway, Proctor's three functions and Hawkins and Shohet's seven-eyed model of supervision, Schwartz Rounds and Maben's evaluation, and care after a traumatic event drawing on WHO psychological first aid, TRiM and NICE guideline NG116. Gibbs's reflective cycle and Achor and Gielan's work on recovery complete the picture.

This module examines what trauma-informed practice is not and how to evidence it honestly. It sets out why trauma-informed is not 'anything goes', the held conversation on hard subjects, and the critique of ACEs and trauma language recognised in the Welsh Government's 2021 review. It covers common sources of re-traumatisation, including Fricker's testimonial injustice, and offers an evidence framework and organisational self-check alongside the TrACE toolkit.

This capstone module reads three real cases through the lenses of the whole programme: the NHS Manchester Resilience Hub after the 2017 Arena attack, Everyone In and Wales's 'no one left out' approach during the pandemic, and the Hillsborough families' long campaign for the truth. It draws on Smith and Freyd's institutional betrayal and Bishop James Jones's 2017 report, and asks what systems make possible.