Focus on:

Trauma-Informed Care

About sixteen months ago, MHA-Kentucky embraced a national initiative by MHA to promote Trauma-Informed Care, an approach to mental health and other human services that acknowledges that many if not most of the people who enter mental health service systems have a history of abuse or other traumatic events.

Trauma-informed care seeks to reduce the likelihood that mental health services will traumatize the person again. However, common interventions like seclusion and restraint often force patients to revisit the trauma they've experienced in their lives. As a result, people don't respond to treatment and sometimes get worse, and staff become frustrated and sometimes get injured.

We began our interest in trauma-informed care in October, 2010, by providing a continuing education session for professionals led by national consultant Dr. Brian Sims; we also recognized a half-dozen Kentucky programs who were becoming trauma-informed. We also began a dialogue with the KY Department of Behavioral Health, which similarly sees trauma-informed care as a priority in the organizations it oversees.

Last October we instituted MHA-Kentucky's first Annual Award for trauma-informed care and named it after a beloved consumer, the late Nick Baumgardner, who spoke openly of his history of abuse and its effects on his recovery from mental illness. We awarded it to the Children's Alliance, an association of child-serving programs headquartered in Frankfort that's been promoting trauma-informed care among its members.

This month we're heartened by the news that the Department has been awarded significant funding to engage Kentucky communities in conversations about trauma-informed care, and that MHA-Kentucky has been selected as a partner in the initiative. You'll be hearing more soon; in the meantime, we've established a special web page where we'll post resources and news about trauma-informed care.

--Bruce Scott
Interim Executive Director