A trauma-informed approach to care acknowledges that site staff and care teams need to be sensitive to how trauma impacts individuals’ responses to environments and stimuli. Adopting trauma-informed practices can help improve patient engagement, treatment adherence, health outcomes, and staff understanding of some volunteers’ avoidance responses to site visits.

Trauma-informed care seeks to:

  • Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in patients, families, and staff;
  • Integrate knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices; and
  • Actively avoid re-traumatization.

This module involves a  1-hour training video on Trauma-Informed Care.


 

What are the benefits of providing trauma-informed care?

There are a number of benefits to using a trauma-informed approach, not only for study volunteers but also for site staff. Many volunteers with trauma have difficulty walking into a clinical site, let alone maintaining healthy relationships with PIs and staff. For volunteers, trauma-informed care offers the opportunity to engage more fully in their visits, develop a trusting relationship with site staff, and improve long-term health outcomes.

The STARR Certification module on Trauma-Informed Care provides information on how trauma impacts individuals so that staff understands and can empathize with study volunteers, along with tools and tips on how to create a trauma sensitive environment and make study volunteer visits to your site less distressing, alleviating triggers, and making it easier for volunteers to come in for study visits.

CERTIFICATION EXPECTATIONS

  • Staff review of Trauma-Informed Care materials and training video below.
    (Click the video image below to go to YouTube where you can view the video)