Why aren't trauma-informed practices for you and me?

The first change was also the most important: the committee shifted our focus from providing client trauma-informed care to employee trauma-informed care. Throughout a discussion of the direction we needed to go, the misalignment of asking employees to provide trauma-informed care when they were not treated with such compassion, respect, and dignity was too powerful to overlook. Once we shifted our focus and actions toward our coworkers, the environment shifted toward connection, creativity, and--in turn--better client outcomes.

Unfortunately, many organizations still see trauma-informed practices as "just for clients." Some researchers have exposed diminished satisfaction when employees are solely trauma-informed care deliverers and not recipients.

At face value, improving customer experience seems like a job task or expectation unto itself. "Greet people with a calm posture." "Believe people when they share their hurts." "Look at people when they speak to you." Great! Yes! Do that!

But, also, be that for one another. When we ask employees to do better for clients than organizations are willing to do for them, we inherently undermind the request we are making. In the world of social work, people say, "You can't drink from an empty cup, and you can't pour from an empty well." If an organization does not extend trauma-informed practices to employees, we will slowly empty their wells.