Course Overview

The purpose of this course is to ensure that our behavioral health organizations provide trauma-informed care. As such, a trauma-informed organization needs to maintain an environment of care for staff (administrative, direct care staff, clinical staff, supervisors) that addresses, minimizes and treats secondary traumatic stress, and that increases staff resilience.

  • Duration: 1.0 hour
  • Credit Hours: MCBAP-R (1.0), MCBAP-S (0.0), Mi-CEC pending - under review, Nursing (0.0)

Topics Covered

Defining Trauma-Informed Approach, Trauma, and Secondary Trauma

This course offers similar information to the Secondary Trauma for Agency Staff course but provides the definitions of these three topics from the view of the overall organization. This course also provides information for organizations to help create a successful trauma-informed culture. 

What are the Impacts of Secondary Trauma to Your Organization?

This course provides an overview and discussion of the potential negative effects that secondary trauma has on staff and overall culture. This potential negative impact may force caregivers and internal staff to develop secondary trauma limiting their effectiveness and providing care for your clients. 

The Organization's Role

As leaders in various organizations, it is inherently important to create and uphold a successful culture of care for clients and internal staff. This section of this course provides important best practices for understanding the organization's role in creating this culture and ensuring adequate internal support and intervention services for those staff members afflicted with secondary trauma.  

Additional Considerations

By providing clear practices and procedures for staff that suffer from secondary trauma, the organization builds trust and reliance to support their staff in a very practical way that allows them space to treat secondary trauma and build prevention methods.

Course Objectives

  • Define Trauma Informed Approach, Trauma, and Secondary Trauma.
  • Understand the impact of secondary trauma and related conditions.
  • Identify the organization's role in:
    • The prevention of secondary trauma.
    • Providing/ensuring interventions to address secondary trauma.

What People Are Saying

I enjoyed the level of engagement and the pace at which information was presented. I was able to gauge my understanding in real time through the exercises within the module.

- Todd. B.