The month of May is National Mental Health and Trauma Awareness Month to raise awareness of the impacts of trauma on the physical, emotional and mental well-being of children, families and communities. To commemorate, Haelan House announced a Training Workshop for Professionals to Implement Trauma-Informed Care into their business or organization. Haelan House is a 501c3 nonprofit organization located in Central Oregon.
Practicing Trauma-Informed Care Where You Work will be held on Saturday, June 3, at Rosie Bareis Community Campus from 1-6pm. Cost is $160 and includes the training, a film screening of The Invisible War and a workbook.
“Finally, people are starting to reach out for healing the effects of trauma in a variety of ways. That is why businesses, organizations, and individual practitioners are encouraged to learn how to provide trauma-informed care. Traditional ways of relating to staff, clients, and customers can unintentionally do more harm than good.”
The effects of trauma exposures on humans are detailed in research over the last three decades from the evolving sciences of neuroscience, molecular biology, public health, genomics, and epigenetics revealing that experiences such as historical trauma, community trauma, individual trauma, and pandemic trauma results in significant impacts at the micro, meso, and macro health system levels.
Being trauma-informed recognizes the presence of trauma and the role that it plays throughout someone’s life resulting from past traumatic experiences. Trauma is the response a person has to a deeply disturbing or stressful event, or series of events, that affects an individual’s ability to recover and impacts them emotionally, mentally, nutritionally, physically, socially, and spiritually. On an organizational level, being trauma-informed changes organizational culture to emphasize respecting and responding to the effects of trauma at all levels in a person’s life, including what experiences or trauma they have had that affects their identity, relationships with others, and their worldview.
The estimated cost to taxpayers of treating the effects of trauma is $458 billion dollars per year.
Businesses and organizations can help in the healing process for those impacted by trauma by creating and implementing trauma-informed care policies and practices.
Trauma is not just a current buzzword. Seventy percent of the adult population in the United States has experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives. Trauma exists and has widespread effects. We are striving to help people recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma so they can respond proactively to resist re-traumatization and allow for healing to begin.
The training will be led by Dr. Shemya Vaughn. LPC, LPCC, CRC. Providing services to people with disabilities since 1997, Dr. Shemya Vaughn is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor in Missouri, and Licensed Clinical Counselor in California with a doctorate in rehabilitation counselor education from Michigan State University.
In addition to disability service provision, she has taught at three community colleges and four universities. Her book, Transgender Youth, was published in 2016 and she also co-edited a book, Trauma-Informed Care in 2021.
She currently operates an online private practice providing therapy for anxiety, depression, and trauma to individuals, couples, and families in the disability community, the LGBTQ+ community, and the BIPOC community, she is a part-time lecturer at California State University-Fresno in a master’s level counseling program and is co-owner of a proofreading and editing company, 3 Ladies & A Pen. She considers herself a social justice advocate, educator, and mental health professional for underrepresented populations.
Register at: haelanhouse.org/practicing-trauma-informed-care-where-you-work.
For more information contact Haelan House at HaelanHouse@gmail.com, or call 541-640-0597.
