Enrich Your Board: The Vital Role of Trauma-Informed Professionals
The benefits of having an expert in trauma informed care on your board
Weekly Trauma Informed Yoga Meet-Up (Online+Virtual
Monthly Trauma Informed Leadership Meetings (on+virtual
New BLOG: Enrich Your Board: The Vital Role of Trauma-Informed Professionals (keep scrolling)
Trauma-Informed Yoga and Leadership Meet-Ups
Hello Everyone! It’s Julie Johnson. Integrate’s Co-Founder and Platform Designer.
During the past winter, I started exploring the idea of bringing Integrate Network to MeetUp.com to create groups for those not active on social media. I'm thrilled I pursued this, as the meet-ups and groups I've led there in the first half of 2024 have truly enriched our platform and community. Currently, we have two active groups on MeetUp. Scroll down to read more about each group
Our Trauma-Informed Yoga Meet-Up: Join us for a supportive and nurturing space where we blend the healing practice of yoga with trauma-informed techniques. Our meet-up group is designed to support individuals on their healing journey, honoring each person's unique experiences and needs.
🧘 What to Expect:
Experience gentle yoga practices focused on mindfulness, self-care, and empowerment. Our sessions are led by Julie Johnson, an experienced instructor in trauma-informed practices. Julie has been teaching and training trauma-informed yoga for nearly a decade. She is the Co-founder of Integrate Trauma-Informed Network, a professional network of solopreneurs and business professionals who prioritize leading themselves and others by developing trauma-informed leadership skills to develop a more compassionate world. Julie is also a vetted member of The Breathe Network, a directory of trauma-informed healing arts professionals that serves sexual assault survivors. You can read more about Julie's work at www.letsintegrate.org.🌟 Who Should Join:
This group is open to anyone seeking a mindful approach to healing, relaxation, and self-discovery. Whether you're new to yoga or have been practicing for years, you'll find a welcoming community ready to embrace your journey.📅 Upcoming Events:
Stay tuned for our upcoming sessions, workshops, and special events tailored to promote healing and well-being. Connect with like-minded individuals, share experiences, and cultivate a sense of connection and resilience together.Join me to explore the transformative power of trauma-informed yoga and embark on a journey towards healing and self-discovery. We look forward to welcoming you to our meet-up group! 🌸
Disclaimer
Our Trauma-Informed Yoga Group offers supportive sessions with mindfulness practices, but it is not a substitute for professional therapy. We recommend seeking therapy for mental health concerns. Participation in our group should complement, not replace, therapy. Your well-being matters most.Our Trauma-Informed Leadership Meet-UP: This group is all about fostering community collaboration and uncovering the potential within ourselves and others while promoting the values of empathic leadership, community organizations, and fun healthy living. Join us as we discuss and learn about trauma-informed practices, empower each other, and discover innovative ways to lead with compassion and resilience. Let's come together, share experiences, and develop a community that supports trauma-informed leadership development.
Trauma Informed Yoga Meet-ups Next week:
Thursday: Gentle Trauma-Informed Yoga and Yoga Nidra in the downstairs of Joy of Yoga in Brentwood. Register and see details
Online+ In-person: Please email me integratenetwork@gmail.com 72 hours in advance if you want to attend the yoga event live online.
Sunday: Somatic Mindful Movement and Yoga Nidra
(In-person only in St. Louis) 1:30-2:45 at Om Old Orchard in downtown Webster Groves, MO See details and register
Enrich Your Board: The Vital Role of Trauma-Informed Professionals
Written by Sarah O’Brien, Contributed by Nicole Lewis-Keeber
Whether a non-profit or big corporation; whether a healthcare system or a financial system; whether a service-based industry or a product-based industry makes no difference when it comes to the need for trauma-informed professionals to be included in your decision-making. Why? Because trauma-informed professionals are about people, bottom line. People over profits. People over power. People over productivity. We are the ones that ensure any product, design, marketing, business practice, HR policy, service delivery, information collection, data storage, new tech and innovation, and on and on, keep the people at the forefront of your brain when making decisions. Trauma-informed professionals put the humanity back into business.
My colleague and trauma-informed clinical social worker, Nicole Lewis-Keeber plainly says, “It is not a matter of whether trauma is impacting an organization's well-being; it is how trauma it is impacting it. This is why I believe that having board members who have been trained to be trauma-informed is crucial to an organization's growth and innovation.”
Let’s start with venture capitalists funding technology innovation. On the surface, a good thing. Under the surface, a not-so-good thing. Why? Venture capitalists are just that…capitalists! Which, if I need to remind you, focuses on making money, a.k.a. capital. They invest in companies, often new companies or companies with new ideas, with the purpose of making money. Now, I’m not allergic to money (thanks to Tonya Eberhart for the phrase!) but when making money comes BEFORE the people that help make the money, or the people that the product or service is supposed to benefit, then, to me, there is a real problem. Any VCs looking to invest in new products, new companies, new services/service delivery, and/or new tech should do their due diligence and consult with at least one trauma informed professional to determine the humanity in the new product, tech, whatever. And that’s just the beginning. Just the tip of what trauma informed professionals can bring to the table.
Now, diving into any kind of company, non-profit, organization, or corporation that has a Board of Directors, let me ask you a question: Do you have at least one trauma informed professional included on the Board? If not, then your Board lacks the knowledge and expertise needed to ensure people are not harmed through the course of business. Okay, some may think I’m being a little harsh, because they could say, “Well, Sarah, we have good people on the Board. In fact, Mark So-and-so really cares about people, isn’t that what you mean?” Sort of. Kind of. Not really though. Because it goes beyond caring about people, and caring about the outcomes for people. Trauma informed professionals elevate people. Especially the people that rarely, if ever, get elevated. And by elevated, I mean brought up, talked about, and considered when making decisions; this is not just the stakeholders or constituents, this is considering EVERYBODY when making decisions. This is the maintenance staff at a big art museum, not just the curators, but also the curators. This is the teacher’s aid in schools, not just administration, but also the administration. This is cafeteria staff at a large financial institution, not just the data analysts, but also the data analysts. Trauma-informed professionals ensure the smallest voice is also heard, accepted, celebrated. Trauma-informed professionals are the check and balance needed to course-correct where people have been neglected, and productivity and profits have been emphasized.
Where else can trauma -informed professionals be an asset? Community initiatives and volunteer projects. If you organize food banks, social care for the elderly, resources for the homeless population, after school reading program for kids, or anything else that falls into this category, are you considering the expertise of a trauma informed professional to ensure there is equitability, accessibility, and autonomy (or choices) for the folks you are trying to help? And potentially, for the folks volunteering to help? Without someone on board to consider, challenge, bring up, and advocate for reducing harm and increasing safety for all people in and around any initiative or project, then any organization runs the risk of actually causing more harm than good. If the way you organize and offer resources actually harms those volunteering to help (or those it was meant to help), then your initiative has missed the mark. We cannot harm some folks in the course of helping other folks; that simply just doesn’t work for everybody. And trauma informed principles model the standard for EVERYONE, not just this certain group, or that certain group. Trauma informed professionals are the daring leaders willing to speak up and address the things others leave unaddressed. We are the ones ensuring everyone is supported, cared for, and considered through the course of planning, organizing, and executing any initiative that aims to help or aid others, whether for profit or not.
Lastly (well for this article anyways), trauma informed professionals need to be consulted, or hired, in human resources departments. In fact, external consultation would be best to remain the most objective. Although I love the idea of HR and ‘being there for the employee’ in reality we all know many HR departments can’t be as objective as we need because they, too, are EMPLOYED by the company in which they are to protect other employees from wrongdoing and retaliation. Even HR employees can cause harm because they could (and I’ve heard first hand stories from MANY where HR actually threw them under the bus with their boss by exposing the complaint) end up more worried about their own position within the company, rather than making a wrong situation right for any employee that doesn’t carry role, title, position, or salary that warrants making the wrong situation right. You can disagree with me here, but I KNOW many, if not all of you reading this, has either experienced yourself, or know someone who has experienced, retaliation at work for filing a legitimate complaint with their HR department about a manager, supervisor, or boss. I believe this occurs because the folks in HR actually don’t hold as much power as the CEO or high-level supervisory staff, and they aren’t given open permission to ‘do what’s best for the employee’ if it means exposing a long-standing leader within the company for wrongdoing. First, this isn’t ethical. Second, how could HR departments be in full support of an employee exposing a high-level executive when it could cost them their job, as well? Right. Exactly. Nicole reminds us that, “Part of a board member's role is to curate a culture of trust and collective strategies that will inform growth. This growth and these strategies are built on the buy-in of the members and staff they impact. Trauma-informed strategies will inherently contribute to a culture of support, collaboration, and transparency because the trauma-informed approaches will create a sense of calm, connection, and nervous system regulation.” And this is exactly why including trauma informed professionals is crucial to creating a workplace culture of trust and transparency. Cultivating these in the workplaces produces outcomes that are most favorable to everyone involved…and that is the idea!
Back to my point about why outside consultation from a trauma informed professional should be considered when resolving HR disputes and/or developing employee policies. Why? I’ll remind you again. We are human-centered in every way. Trauma informed is HOW we interact; it’s how we communicate; it’s how we make decisions; it’s how we evaluate effectiveness; it’s how we do everything; it’s how we operate to ensure all people feel seen, heard, accepted, and celebrated, as well as, ensure we’re creating more pathways to safety, and reducing pathways to harm. The way business works, the way business operations are handled, the way businesses and leadership and top-down hierarchies operate in the current landscape is NOT trauma informed. In fact, many current accepted business and leadership practices are INCREDIBLY HARMFUL to people across the board—from employees, to customers, to service providers, to product innovators, to other leaders, and on and on. This has to change! The whole world would be healthier and more satisfied if this changed. Seriously. Even those high-level exec’s would be healthier and more satisfied if this changed; if the way we think about and do business changed. Because at the end of the day, we ALL need more humanity, more care, more space, more choice, more support, more connection, more authenticity, and more safety. Including, and especially, in workplaces. Whether a start-up or a 100-year-old company; whether a new product or a re-vamping an old product; whether offering a new service, or adjusting current service delivery; whether this initiative or that community organizing makes no difference when it comes to the need for trauma-informed professionals to be included in your decision-making. Because where there are other people, trauma -informed principles are applicable! And trauma-informed professionals are THE WAY to learning, understanding, adopting, practicing, and applying these principles and practices (a.k.a learnable, people-skills) to every workplace, community space, and any place there is more than one person.
100 Days of Trauma-Informed Leadership with Integrate and KHAOS Mindset
Follow us on Social Media where we are doing a microlearning of our Trauma Informed Leadership Course for the next 100 (or maybe it’s 95 by now—days)