Skip over main navigation
  • Sign up
  • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
WAVE Trust
  • Search
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
Donate Become an Ambassador Back to WAVE Trust
Menu
  • Join our 70/30 campaign
  • Training & Consultancy
  • Trauma Informed Communities
    • What is the TiC project?
    • Start a TiC project
  • About us
    • WAVE's impact
    • Our people
      • WAVE team
      • Trustees
      • Patrons
      • Strategic Advisers
    • Contact us
    • How WAVE began
    • Support the 70/30 Campaign
  • Library
  • Admin
    • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
  • Transforming local areas

Transforming local areas

Until 2018, most of the UK had never heard of trauma-informed approaches, never mind trauma-informed communities. Yet since then, interest in this approach has sky-rocketed, with many local authorities and community activists across the UK and Ireland beginning their journey towards this goal. We have been supporting them since the start.

 

What is a trauma-informed community and why is it needed?

A trauma-informed community is an area where knowledge of how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect the brain – and how best to respond to this impact – is commonplace. All key local services integrate this knowledge into the way they interact with people every day. Residents across communities work together to not only help mitigate and resolve the effects of trauma for the current generation, but to also prevent it, insofar as they can, for future generations.

An early example of this approach began in 1990s Washington State, which ran a major initiative to set up community networks across the state. From 2001 onwards, it made addressing ACEs a key priority. Over the course of 10 years, the results they achieved were staggering, including:

  • reducing rates of 7 major social problems (child abuse and neglect, family violence, youth violence, youth substance abuse, dropping out of school, teenage pregnancy and youth suicide)

  • lowering caseload costs in child welfare, juvenile justice and public medical costs associated with births to teenage mothers, calculated to save over $601 million

  • saving an estimated average of $120 million per year for a public investment of $3.4 million per year

 

The root of social issues

A 4-year study by WAVE into what causes people to suffer severe and multiple disadvantage (SMD) – for instance, combinations of addiction, mental health issues, homelessness, unemployment and criminality – identified ACEs as a prime cause of severe disadvantage.

The resultant report (see link below) recommends that trauma-informed care and trauma-informed communities are the most effective antidote for people who have suffered ACEs. In order to put our findings to good use and to support the growing interest in ACEs across the UK, we launched the Trauma-informed Communities (TiC) project in May 2018.

Read the report:
Age 2 to 18 - systems to protect children from severe disadvantage (Walsh 2018)

 

What is the Trauma-informed Communities (TiC) project?

In May 2018, we launched the Trauma-informed Communities (TiC) project in partnership with 70/30 Ambassadors, other community champions and later, worked with third sector organisations rooted in their local areas.

Our aim is to continue supporting existing groups working towards making their communities trauma-informed, and to increase the number of groups across the UK. From Orkney to Kent, Cumbria to Belfast and Warrington to Reading, we have been collaborating with an amazing network of professionals and activists to transform their towns, cities and counties.

This project is already revealing the power of local grassroots campaigners to lead transformation in their communities. Many of the local projects we train and support are having a profound impact on awareness and uptake of trauma-informed approaches within their areas, including by:

  • Introducing statutory personnel and services, third sector organisations and politicians to ACE research and studies

  • Compelling statutory services to explore trauma and ACEs (e.g. by setting up multi-sector steering groups) and to begin their journey towards becoming trauma-informed.

  • Spreading awareness about ACEs, and prevention of ACEs, to thousands of local residents.

  • Bringing decision-makers together to encourage them to adopt trauma-informed policies.

All this has proved to us that local activists truly can make large-scale change happen in their communities.

 

If you would like support to set up a trauma-informed community group in your area, see our guidance here.

WAVE is seeking funding to support existing groups and the creation of new ones. If you would like to support this project, click here.

 

Trauma-informed Communities training

WAVE provides CPD-accreditted training on how to set up a sustainable trauma-informed community project in your area that will be guided by the views, desires and efforts of local residents. If you would like to find out more, enquire below.

Enquire

Published: 21st August, 2018

Updated: 19th February, 2021

Author:

Related topics:
  • Infographics
Share this page
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest

  • Alex Williamson - 70/30 ambassador and APPG Development Officer

    Alex Williamson - 70/30 ambassador and APPG Development Officer

    'Whilst I don’t share the vocational background of many of my fellow ambassadors, I was drawn to the 70/30 campaign because, at the root, it’s about social justice.'

  • Rob Robinson

    Rob Robinson

    'I saw an advert back in 2015 asking if I wanted to make a difference – yes I did. It was an advert for the 70/30 campaign.'

  • Linda Dee

    Linda Dee

    'I am very excited to be part of a new movement challenging the status quo and pushing for change.'

  • Deborah Davies

    Deborah Davies

    'I work in a secondary school with children in care, post order children, those subject to a child protection or child in need plan.'

Related

  • Stress in Childhood

    Stress in Childhood

  • Childhood Trauma & Trauma-Informed Care

    Childhood Trauma & Trauma-Informed Care

  • Breastfeeding

    Breastfeeding

  • Adverse Childhood Experiences

    Adverse Childhood Experiences

Most read

  • Age 2 to 18 - systems to protect children from severe disadvantage

    Age 2 to 18 - systems to protect children from severe disadvantage

    'Age 2 to 18 - systems to protect children from severe disadvantage' details how a national shift to a user-focused, trauma-informed care system would protect against severe, multiple disadvantage throughout society.

  • How WAVE began

    How WAVE began

    The founding of WAVE Trust

  • The impact of WAVE's work

    The impact of WAVE's work

    Impact of WAVE's work

  • Conception to age 2 - the age of opportunity

    Conception to age 2 - the age of opportunity

    WAVE Trust report - a Department for Education invited response to Supporting Families in the Foundation Years - March 2013.

  • How we transform children's futures

    How we transform children's futures

    Tackling the root causes of childhood adversity to create a better future.

  • Start a Trauma-informed Community (TiC) project

    Would you like to bring all the benefits of a trauma-informed community to your area?

  • 21st Century policing

    21st Century policing

    From the perpetrators and victims they engage with to the stress they experience, police officers encounter trauma on a daily basis.

  • How we will use your donation

    How we will use your donation

    Your generosity will enable us to work with communities to tackle the root causes of childhood trauma, improving the futures of thousands of children and their families. Thank you for your support.

  • Transforming local areas

    Transforming local areas

    Since early 2018, we've been supporting local activists in their aims to transform their towns, cities and counties into trauma-informed communities.

  • 1001 Critical Days: The Importance of the Conception to Age Two Period

    1001 Critical Days: The Importance of the Conception to Age Two Period

    This cross-party manifesto was produced - in partnership with WAVE - by Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom, Labour MP Frank Field, Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.

Connect with us

  • Search
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Login
  • Logout
  • Manager

Info

The WAVE Centre, 61 Ballards Way, Croydon, Surrey, CR2 7JP
Tel: 020 8688 3773

Windyhill Farm, Windyhill Road, Newmilns, East Ayrshire, KA16 9LR
Tel: 01560 322805 but during Covid please use 07714 764370

Registered charity in England & Wales no. 1080189, and Scotland no. SC044168. Co. Reg. No 386310

Contact us


The WAVE Centre, 61 Ballards Way, Croydon, Surrey, CR2 7JP

Tel: 020 8688 3773/ 07714 764370

Scotland: Windyhill Farm, Windyhill Road, Newmilns, East Ayrshire KA16 9LR

Tel: 01560 322805 but during Covid please use 07714 764370

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]