The Trauma Informed Academy

The gap between the need for better mental health and the number of people in need will never close. Unless caused by a pathogen (bacteria, virus, head injury, parasite), many things called mental disorders have their foundations in overwhelming, traumatic experiences or conditions.

Emotional Intelligence skills, and lifestyle factors like quality relationships and exercise, are the same as skills factors required for trauma recovery, which dramatically reduce the need for professional mental health care and medication. This increases the mental health system's capacity to care for those for whom learning and relationships are inadequate.

We would use the funding to increase the marketing and delivery of our tools, training, and techniques, all of which are evidence-informed. .We would also use funding to develop and pilot a social reward system for demonstrated use of these tools, which reduce the impact and risk of traumatic experiences.

My vision is to reduce the time, trauma, and costs of healing from adverse experiences for everyone involved--survivors, caregivers, healthcare and society. My purpose is to use my speaking, teaching and writing skills to fulfill this vision.

My firm is a micro-corporation with a cadre of contractors, with clients on multiple continents. I am currently supporting Japan in the development of their national models of trauma-informed and trauma-responsive processes.

Our goals are
1. to help people recognize that learning doesn't require a diagnosis, and that many of the mental and emotional challenges we face can be helped by becoming an "athlete" of the mind and emotions, learning the skills we might have learned if childhood environments were "good enough"

2. to reduce the "othering" that occurs by reframing the focus on mental health from a diagnosis-based medical model to a trauma-responsive model, where the maladaptive behavior is viewed through the lens of how it helps, what behavior might be more helpful, and how to develop the skills associated with the new behavior. 

3. to see the inclusion of trauma-responsive skills naturalized in lesson plans in schools, talent development plans in corporations, leadership and character development training, and in clinical training for mental health professionals.

People affected.The experience of trauma is universal, both in current time and as a result of epigenetics. More specifically, think of survivors of natural disasters, crime, medical crises, economic injury, relational crises, accidents and other overwhelming experiences. We also carry the impact of what has happened to our ancestors, which may or may not express.

The impact of these, especially in childhood, is dramatic impairment in earning, learning, and health. For a narrow view, focused only on 11 events in childhood, read the ACEs study. An archived report from the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/media/rele...) places the costs of "non-fatal child maltreatment" at $210K per child using a baseline of 579,000 reported cases. Many more go unreported. The total lifetime costs for one year of reported nonfatal child maltreatment costs exceeds $124 billion. Imagine what happens when the impact of all the other traumatic events, and estimates of non-reported maltreatment are added in. Kuhn, 1988, estimated the cost of stress (often caused by traumatic experiences) at $50 billion.

Factors contributing to the problem that we address. Currently, the responsibility for response is in the medical model, relying on diagnoses and often medication for treatment that stigmatizes and is often unavailable. The person instead of what happened to them

In simple terms, what we do is help people reduce the time, trauma, and costs of healing through learning. Research tells us that when the brain activated in fight or flight more, all learning stops because the brain's only focus is survival at that point in time. In situations where caregiving is "good enough" and caregivers have adequate support, learning resumes quickly because caregivers help the child re-regulate. However, overwhelmed adults care unable to help overwhelmed children, and the resulting development leaves us with "Swiss cheese" patterns. We overlearn some things, under learn and have big holes where other learning should be.

Learning doesn't require a diagnosis, and doesn't colonize people with medication.

Why not begin to transmit this learning in talent development, personal and professional development, in the simplest ways possible to help people fill in the holes in the Swiss cheese? Why not look at their problematic behavior as adaptations, and help them learn additional tools? How does all of this fit in with existing models?

How we address this is to incorporate research into learning that fosters self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, social skills and empathy for use at home and at work. We support our models with merchandising, books, videos, webinars and more. We know we make a difference.

It's multidisciplinary, drawing on education, sociology, social work, psychology, anthropology and more.
It's grounded in research.
It's filtered through the voice of lived experience of our founder, and guided by the most current thinking and practice relative to adult learning, trauma-informed process, and visionary thinking.
It honors the necessity of the medical model for specific kinds of mental disorders and offers a developmental learning model outside of the clinical models that exist.
It's ultimate expansion includes a loyalty-reward program, full series of workbooks and accompanying learning, video games, merchandising, and more.

1. Increase presence: guest on at least two podcasts a month, upcoming radio tour, upcoming interviews for print media, campaign for social media presence for book, regular emails to give people a taste what they might learn and why it matters. 

2. Present at conferences: present annually at five or more international conferences.

3. Market to appropriate agencies: reach out with talent and professional development packages to facilities and corporate campuses.

4. Increase service to others: contribute as consultant to Japan in the development of their national model of trauma informed care, authorize AA churches to teach materials without licensing fee, donate trainings and books.

5. Diversiy delivery methods: online instruction, book series, instructor led webinars and on site delivery