Leading Amidst Trauma

First off, continued hats off to everyone in leadership roles. Bravo for standing up during this unprecedented experience.

A friend just shared Tom O'Connor's excellent piece "Engaging Arts Audiences In A Time Of Trauma" which says brilliantly (and much more eloquently than I ever could) six key principles regarding leading amidst trauma. You can read all of it when you're ready - it is short and worth the time - but here are the six core principles of trauma informed care for skimming.

  1. Safety: creating spaces where people feel culturally, emotionally, and physically safe, while also conveying an awareness of an individual’s discomfort or unease

  2. Trustworthiness and Transparency: providing full and accurate information about what’s happening and what’s likely to happen next

  3. Peer Support: peer support and mutual self-help as key vehicles for establishing safety and hope, building trust, and utilizing lived experience to promote recovery and healing

  4. Collaboration and Mutuality: the recognition that healing happens in relationships and partnerships with shared decision-making

  5. Empowerment Voice and Choice: the recognition of the need for an approach that honors the individual’s dignity, and recognizes the individual’s strengths

  6. Cultural, Historical, and Gender Issues: moving past cultural stereotypes and biases, offering responsive services, leveraging the healing value of traditional cultural connections, and incorporating policies and processes that are responsive to racial, ethnic, and cultural needs, as well as recognizing historical trauma

Hang in there!