"While many leaders in the field emphasize the importance of integrated, systemic change, psychologist Kathryn Becker-Blease has pointed out that in practice, the term “trauma-informed” is often used to describe a variety of discrete services delivered in isolation. 8 Change efforts often focus on individual healing, rather than on broader organizational or policy reform. An agency may describe itself as trauma-informed when in fact all it has done is added a new trauma clinician or...

As the COVID-19 pandemic began its devastating sweep through African American communities in April, Andre Chapman, CEO of the San Jose, California-based Unity Care , saw a glaring need for developing a COVID-19 prevention campaign that spoke directly to African Americans. “Many of our young folks and families really didn't understand the impact of this virus, nor did they believe much of the information that was coming through the media,” says Chapman. His organization provides housing and...

In the spring of 1982, Susan Burton turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the death of her 5-year-old son, who had run into the street and was hit by a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer . Over the course of the next 17 years, Burton was in and out of prison. “Each time I left, I felt a little more broken,” she told me recently. What would have made a difference, she said, was “if there could have been a way to have therapy from traumatic childhood events, disappointments and...