Trauma-informed care aims to recognize, understand, and empathize with the impact of trauma on an individual and those around them. It considers how traumatic experiences may affect a person’s emotions, behavior, physical health, relationships, ability to trust, and sense of safety.
Rather than asking only, “What is wrong with this person?” a trauma-informed approach also asks, “What may have happened to this person, and what does this person need to feel safe?”
This approach is especially important when supporting survivors of sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, exploitation, and sex trafficking. It prioritizes safety, trust, collaboration, empowerment, and meaningful choice while working to reduce the risk of re-traumatization.
For children and adolescents rescued from domestic minor sex trafficking, trauma-informed care can provide a safer foundation for long-term healing, stability, hope, and restoration.
Trauma-Informed Care at a Glance
Trauma-informed care:
- Recognizes that trauma can affect every part of a person’s life
- Understands the signs and effects of trauma
- Responds with empathy, patience, and respect
- Prioritizes physical and emotional safety
- Gives survivors an appropriate voice in decisions affecting them
- Seeks to prevent re-traumatization
- Builds trust through consistency and transparency
- Recognizes that every survivor’s experiences and recovery needs are different
Instead of approaching sexual, physical, or emotional trauma victims in an environment that may create re-traumatization, healthcare providers and other professionals are being educated on how they should interact with patients through trauma-informed care.
Trauma-informed care seeks to reduce the anxiety and triggering environment that can surround medical treatment, interviews, residential care, counseling, legal proceedings, or other services for people who have experienced trauma.
When implemented appropriately, trauma-informed care can improve communication, strengthen trust, increase engagement, and support more effective treatment and interactions with patients and survivors.
Learn how Bridging Freedom provides trauma-informed services for rescued survivors.
What Is Re-Traumatization?
Re-traumatization occurs when a person experiences something that recalls, recreates, or intensifies the emotional or physical effects of a previous traumatic experience.
After experiencing trauma, especially sexual-related trauma, seeking medical attention can be a very intimidating and even triggering process for many people. A patient may be asked to remove clothing, answer highly personal questions, or undergo testing that feels invasive. Without proper communication, consent, sensitivity, and support, these experiences can cause distress or trigger memories of previous abuse.
Practices involving restraints, force, isolation, unexpected sounds, a lack of privacy, or certain interactions can re-traumatize a patient. Being ignored, rushed, blamed, pressured, or denied reasonable choices may also make a person feel powerless or unsafe.
As a result, some patients may:
- Mentally or emotionally shut down
- Become frightened, distressed, or defensive
- Respond with anger or aggression
- Refuse treatment
- Avoid future appointments
- Experience flashbacks or heightened anxiety
- Feel shame or guilt about their trauma or response
- Become less willing to seek medical, therapeutic, or legal help
These responses should not automatically be viewed as resistance or unwillingness to cooperate. They may be protective responses developed after a person experienced danger, coercion, or a loss of control.
For this reason alone, many individuals may choose not to seek medical attention or legal help following a traumatic event.
Avoiding Re-Traumatization
Trauma-informed care seeks to avoid re-traumatization with each and every patient or survivor. Rather than treating each person like a number, diagnosis, or case, professionals aim to understand the individual as a whole.
Re-traumatization can be costly to a person’s overall health and well-being by resurfacing past trauma. It can affect their comfort, confidence, sense of security, trust in other people, and willingness to seek medical or professional help in the future.
Healthcare providers, social workers, residential-care teams, educators, legal professionals, law enforcement personnel, advocates, and community organizations should therefore approach people with empathy, dignity, and trauma awareness.
Nobody ever fully knows what another individual has experienced in their life. Practicing patience, kindness, transparency, and respect can help create safer interactions for everyone.
Practical ways to reduce the risk of re-traumatization include:
- Explaining what will happen before beginning
- Asking permission before physical contact
- Offering appropriate choices whenever possible
- Allowing the person to ask questions
- Respecting personal boundaries
- Avoiding unnecessarily confrontational language
- Providing privacy
- Watching for signs of distress
- Allowing breaks when appropriate
- Using a calm, respectful tone
- Avoiding victim-blaming language
- Clearly explaining why information is being requested
- Ensuring that staff understand trauma responses
Watch “What Is Trauma-Informed Care?”
What Does a Trauma-Informed Care Approach Look Like?
Since trauma comes in many different forms and affects each person uniquely, the trauma-informed care approach needs to be responsive to each patient’s or survivor’s needs.
What works with one person may not work with another, so it is essential to approach every interaction with understanding, patience, and flexibility.
Trauma-informed care provides policies, procedures, environments, and guiding principles intended to help people feel safer when receiving medical attention, counseling, residential services, education, advocacy, or other forms of support.
This approach can involve a healthcare provider customizing an interaction for a patient who appears nervous or uncomfortable while answering questions. Rather than rushing, the provider may explain why the questions are necessary, offer an appropriate choice about how to proceed, and ask what would help the patient feel more comfortable.
Staff trained in trauma-informed care can learn how to recognize possible signs of trauma and continue with treatment in a more comfortable, respectful, and safe manner.
A trauma-informed approach may include:
- Predictable routines and expectations
- Clear communication
- Emotional and physical safety
- Respect for personal boundaries
- Private and appropriate spaces
- Opportunities for meaningful choice
- Collaboration in treatment or recovery planning
- Staff trained to recognize trauma responses
- Consistent and trustworthy behavior
- Awareness of cultural and personal differences
- Efforts to avoid shame, blame, coercion, or unnecessary control
What Are the 5 Principles of Trauma-Informed Care?
Healthcare providers and service organizations often teach the 5 principles of trauma-informed care to help staff handle sensitive interactions more safely and respectfully.
The five commonly cited principles are:
- Safety
- Trustworthiness
- Choice
- Collaboration
- Empowerment
Frameworks may organize these principles differently. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, commonly known as SAMHSA, identifies six guiding principles by including peer support and cultural, historical, and gender considerations as distinct elements.
Both frameworks emphasize that trauma-informed care should be implemented throughout an organization rather than treated as a single technique.
1. Safety
Safety includes both physical and emotional safety.
People receiving services should feel that the environment, professionals, procedures, and interactions are as secure and predictable as possible. This may include protecting privacy, explaining procedures, maintaining appropriate boundaries, and recognizing when a person appears distressed.
For trafficking survivors, safety can be especially important because exploitation often involves coercion, threats, manipulation, violence, instability, or repeated violations of personal boundaries.
2. Trustworthiness and Transparency
Trust is built when professionals communicate clearly, follow through on commitments, explain decisions, and avoid misleading or unexpected actions.
A person who has experienced trafficking or abuse may have learned that adults, caregivers, authority figures, or other people cannot be trusted. Rebuilding trust therefore requires consistency, honesty, patience, and transparency.
Professionals should avoid making promises they cannot keep. They should explain what information will be collected, how it will be used, and what the person can expect next.
3. Choice
Trauma often involves a loss of control. Providing reasonable, age-appropriate choices can help restore a survivor’s sense of autonomy and personal agency.
Choice does not mean that every option is always available. It means explaining available options honestly and allowing the individual to participate in decisions whenever possible.
Examples may include:
- Choosing where to sit
- Deciding when to take an appropriate break
- Selecting between available activities
- Asking who may be present during an interaction
- Receiving an explanation before a procedure begins
- Participating in personal goals and recovery planning
4. Collaboration
Collaboration means working with the person rather than making every decision for them.
A trauma-informed professional recognizes that survivors possess valuable knowledge about their own feelings, experiences, needs, triggers, strengths, and goals.
Collaboration may involve healthcare providers, therapists, advocates, residential staff, educators, case managers, families, and other trusted professionals. It should also include the survivor’s voice whenever developmentally and clinically appropriate.
5. Empowerment
Empowerment focuses on recognizing strengths, developing confidence, and helping survivors understand that their voices matter.
A trauma-informed approach does not define a person only by what happened to them. It recognizes their dignity, abilities, resilience, goals, and potential.
Empowerment can involve helping a survivor:
- Identify personal strengths
- Develop healthy coping skills
- Express appropriate preferences
- Set achievable goals
- Build life skills
- Establish safe relationships
- Participate in education
- Regain confidence and hope
Information on the original five-principle framework was sourced from the Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care, 2015.
What Are SAMHSA’s 6 Principles of Trauma-Informed Care?
SAMHSA’s widely recognized framework identifies the following six guiding principles:
- Safety
- Trustworthiness and transparency
- Peer support
- Collaboration and mutuality
- Empowerment, voice, and choice
- Cultural, historical, and gender considerations
The five-principle and six-principle frameworks are closely related. The six-principle model gives additional emphasis to peer support and the ways culture, history, and identity can affect a person’s experience of trauma and care.
The appropriate goal is not simply to memorize a list. Organizations should incorporate trauma-informed values into their staff training, physical environment, communication, procedures, decision-making, and everyday interactions.
Explore SAMHSA’s guiding principles for a trauma-informed approach.
Trauma-Informed Care Versus Trauma-Specific Treatment
Trauma-informed care and trauma-specific treatment are related, but they are not identical.
Trauma-informed care is a broad organizational approach. It affects how staff communicate, how services are delivered, how environments are designed, and how policies seek to reduce re-traumatization.
Trauma-specific treatment refers to clinical therapies or interventions designed to address trauma symptoms and their effects. These treatments should be provided by appropriately qualified professionals.
An organization can be trauma-informed even when not every staff member provides therapy. Staff members can still promote safety, transparency, collaboration, choice, and respect within their roles.
Trauma-Informed Care and Sex Trafficking
When it comes to approaching trauma-informed care for victims and survivors of sex trafficking, the process is relatively similar, but it requires an understanding of the complex and repeated trauma that trafficking may involve.
In addition to the standard principles, healthcare providers and other professionals must remember that an individual’s trauma may not be limited to sex trafficking. There may be trauma before, during, or after the exploitation that calls for a more thoughtful and individualized approach.
This may include experiences involving:
- Sexual abuse
- Physical abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Neglect
- Family instability
- Homelessness
- Manipulation
- Threats
- Coercive control
- Isolation
- Exploitation
- Betrayal by trusted people
- Repeated disruptions in relationships or living situations
Rather than asking highly direct questions without context or rushing into treatment, professionals should consider what trauma the patient or survivor may have experienced and demonstrate that the individual’s voice matters.
A person should never be made to feel guilt or shame or be questioned in a way that blames them for their exploitation. Harsh, judgmental, or false accusations can be detrimental to their well-being and may prevent them from sharing important information or seeking further help.
Many victims have been manipulated, coerced, threatened, or conditioned by their traffickers. These experiences can make it very difficult for them to trust people, including professionals who are genuinely trying to help.
To avoid further harm, healthcare providers and other professionals should seek to understand the complexity of the person’s trauma. This includes not only possible physical or sexual trauma but also psychological, relational, developmental, and emotional harm.
Why Trauma-Informed Care Matters for Child Trafficking Survivors
Children and adolescents who have experienced trafficking may require specialized, long-term, and developmentally appropriate support.
Their behaviors may reflect attempts to survive danger rather than deliberate defiance. For example, a child may struggle to trust adults, follow routines, accept help, express feelings, establish boundaries, or feel safe in an unfamiliar environment.
Trauma-informed care encourages professionals to look beyond the behavior and understand the need or experience that may be influencing it.
This does not mean removing all rules, boundaries, or accountability. Safe and consistent boundaries can be an important part of care. However, expectations should be communicated clearly, respectfully, and without humiliation or unnecessary force.
A trauma-informed environment can help survivors experience:
- Greater predictability
- Safer relationships
- Consistent adult support
- Opportunities to rebuild trust
- Appropriate control over personal decisions
- Recognition of their strengths
- Support for education and life skills
- Healthy boundaries
- Space to process trauma with qualified professionals
- Hope for a safer future
How Bridging Freedom Applies a Trauma-Informed Approach
Bridging Freedom’s mission is to restore stolen childhoods by supporting rescued victims of domestic minor sex trafficking.
Trauma-informed care is not limited to a single counseling session or medical appointment. It can guide the full environment in which a survivor receives residential care, supervision, education, therapeutic services, life-skills support, and opportunities to develop safe relationships.
A Therapeutic Safe Home Environment
Bridging Freedom provides a therapeutic safe home campus where rescued minor sex-trafficking victims can find healing, hope, and purpose.
A safe environment is foundational because survivors may have experienced instability, coercion, exploitation, and repeated violations of trust.
Safety can be strengthened through:
- Consistent supervision
- Predictable routines
- Trained staff
- Respectful interactions
- Clear expectations
- Appropriate privacy
- Healthy boundaries
- Patient relationship-building
- Responses that consider the effects of trauma
Trauma-Informed Watchful Care
Bridging Freedom describes trauma-informed watchful care as an approach in which staff engage with the girls with understanding.
It involves recognizing and responding through a trauma-informed lens to assist with de-escalation, redirection, processing past trauma, and maintaining safety through consistent supervision.
This approach recognizes that recovery is not always linear. A survivor may experience periods of progress alongside moments of fear, distress, uncertainty, or difficulty trusting others.
Long-Term and Comprehensive Support
The effects of trafficking do not disappear immediately after a child is removed from exploitation.
Long-term recovery may require stable housing, trauma therapy, professional care, food, clothing, education, life-skills development, trusted relationships, and consistent support.
Bridging Freedom’s services seek to provide survivors with the stability and resources needed to rebuild their lives while protecting their dignity and privacy.
Learn more about the services Bridging Freedom provides.
Trauma-Informed Care in Tampa Bay and Florida
Bridging Freedom is based in the Tampa Bay region of Florida and has nationwide reach and impact.
The organization strives to combat domestic minor sex trafficking through restoration programs for rescued victims, including therapeutic safe homes and survivor-centered services.
In addition to providing services for victims, Bridging Freedom brings awareness to this important issue and educates communities about exploitation that may be occurring behind closed doors.
Through partnerships with the Clearwater and Tampa Bay Area Task Force on Human Trafficking, the Tampa Bay FBI Innocence Lost Initiative, and the St. Petersburg College Center for Human Trafficking Awareness, Bridging Freedom provides victims with a safe place and connects them with necessary recovery resources.
Community collaboration is essential because responding to human trafficking may involve nonprofit organizations, law enforcement, healthcare providers, child-welfare professionals, educators, advocates, donors, volunteers, and other community partners.
How Can You Become More Informed?
Want to learn more or become an advocate?
Education can help community members recognize trauma, respond more appropriately to survivors, avoid victim-blaming, and understand why long-term support is necessary.
Explore Bridging Freedom’s recommended trauma-informed care educational resources below.
Trauma-Informed Care Resources
- Trauma-Informed Care: What It Is and Why It’s Important — Harvard Health
- What Is Trauma-Informed Care? — University at Buffalo School of Social Work
- What Is Trauma-Informed Care? — Trauma-Informed Care Implementation Resource Center
- What Is Trauma-Informed Care? — Trauma Informed Oregon
Local Education Centers
- Tampa Trauma Education Center
- myPATH Collaborative Training — University of South Florida
- Trauma Therapy — Tampa Therapy Group
Trauma-Informed Care Video Lectures
- Introduction to Trauma-Informed Care
- What Is Trauma-Informed Care? A Comprehensive Overview
- Trauma-Informed Care
- How Trauma-Informed Care Saved My Life — Adrienne Rouan
Sexual Violence and Trauma Statistics
Statistics can help demonstrate the widespread effects of sexual violence, but they should always be presented with their dates, definitions, and source methodology.
Earlier findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported:
- Approximately 1 in 5 women had experienced rape at some point in their lives. Among those women, 12% were younger than 10 when it first occurred, according to the source originally cited in this article.
- Approximately 1 in 71 men had experienced rape at some point in their lives. Among those men, 30% were younger than 10 when it first occurred, according to the source originally cited in this article.
- Nearly 1 in 3 adult women had experienced at least one physical assault by a partner, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
- One secondary resource reported that people who had experienced some level of trauma were 15 times more likely to die by suicide.
The CDC has since updated and reorganized its sexual-violence resources. Readers should review the CDC’s current information about sexual violence for updated definitions, research, prevention information, and supporting data.
These statistics should never be used to reduce survivors to numbers. Each statistic represents individuals, families, and communities affected by trauma.
Anyone publishing or presenting these figures should review the original source, reporting year, definitions, and population studied before using them in educational or professional materials.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is trauma-informed care?
Trauma-informed care is an approach that recognizes how trauma may affect a person’s emotions, behavior, health, relationships, and sense of safety. It prioritizes trust, transparency, collaboration, empowerment, choice, and the prevention of re-traumatization.
What are the 5 principles of trauma-informed care?
The five commonly cited principles of trauma-informed care are safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment. Some frameworks organize or expand these principles differently.
Why does SAMHSA use six principles of trauma-informed care?
SAMHSA’s model separately identifies peer support and cultural, historical, and gender considerations. Its six principles are safety; trustworthiness and transparency; peer support; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice, and choice; and cultural, historical, and gender considerations.
How does trauma-informed care help trafficking survivors?
Trauma-informed care helps trafficking survivors by creating safer and more predictable interactions, avoiding victim-blaming, respecting personal boundaries, offering appropriate choices, building trust, and recognizing the complex effects of coercion and exploitation.
What is the difference between trauma-informed care and trauma therapy?
Trauma-informed care is an organization-wide approach to creating safer services and interactions. Trauma therapy is specialized clinical treatment provided by qualified professionals to address trauma-related symptoms and experiences.
How can trauma-informed care prevent re-traumatization?
It can reduce the risk of re-traumatization by explaining procedures, requesting consent, offering appropriate choices, respecting boundaries, protecting privacy, avoiding unnecessary force, and recognizing signs of distress.
Can trauma-informed care be used with children and teenagers?
Yes. Trauma-informed care can be adapted to a young person’s age, development, communication abilities, safety needs, and individual experiences. Children should receive support from appropriately trained professionals.
Why are safety and trust important in trafficking recovery?
Trafficking frequently involves coercion, manipulation, threats, instability, and betrayal. Consistent safety and trustworthy relationships can help survivors gradually rebuild confidence in themselves and others.
How does Bridging Freedom use trauma-informed care?
Bridging Freedom uses a trauma-informed lens within its therapeutic safe home campus and services. This includes watchful care, consistent supervision, de-escalation, redirection, therapeutic support, education, and efforts to create a safe environment for rescued survivors.
How can I help children recovering from sex trafficking?
You can support survivor restoration by donating, volunteering, educating others, connecting Bridging Freedom with potential partners or donors, and sharing trusted human-trafficking resources.
Bridging Freedom: Restoring Stolen Childhoods
Our mission is to restore stolen childhoods.
Based in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with nationwide reach and impact, Bridging Freedom strives to combat domestic minor sex trafficking through restoration programs for rescued victims, including therapeutic safe homes.
In addition to providing services for victims, we bring awareness to this important issue and educate the community about the exploitation occurring behind closed doors.
Through partnerships with the Clearwater and Tampa Bay Area Task Force on Human Trafficking, the Tampa Bay FBI Innocence Lost Initiative, and the St. Petersburg College Center for Human Trafficking Awareness, Bridging Freedom provides victims with a safe place and connects them to necessary recovery resources.
Trauma-informed restoration requires time, trained professionals, a safe environment, stable resources, and consistent community support.
In order to continue doing what we do, Bridging Freedom relies on the generosity and collaboration of our community of supporters.
Donations in any amount can help provide sex-trafficking survivors with trauma therapy, professional care, clothing, food, education, school supplies, healthy meals, and other necessities.
Support Bridging Freedom through online giving.
You can also explore additional ways to give or learn how to volunteer with Bridging Freedom.
Every child deserves safety, dignity, hope, and the opportunity to build a healthier future.
Need Help or Want to Report Suspected Human Trafficking?
Bridging Freedom is not an emergency-response service.
If someone is in immediate danger, contact 911.
For help, resources, or to report suspected human trafficking in the United States, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733.
Do not confront a suspected trafficker directly. Provide any relevant information to qualified authorities or the hotline.