Conferences & Training CentreMarymound has been offered the very unique opportunity to be the first organization to pilot a trauma-informed organizational model called P.R.E.S.E.N.C.E* created by world-renowned trauma expert Dr. Sandra Bloom and her partner Sarah Yanosy.
According to Dr. Bloom, organizations that implement trauma-informed care approaches see “tangible improvement in morale, decreases in staff burnout, worker’s compensation applications, and vicarious trauma, as well as violence and the need for seclusions and restraints.”
Marymound has been offered the very unique opportunity to be the first organization to pilot a trauma-informed organizational model called P.R.E.S.E.N.C.E* created by world-renowned trauma expert Dr. Sandra Bloom and her partner Sarah Yanosy. Trauma-informed care is an approach that asks: “What happened to you?” as opposed to “What’s wrong with you?” It’s an organizational approach that ensures clients receive the care they need based on the impacts of their previous experiences. It helps people to understand what’s behind behaviours and conclude that clients aren’t acting out because they are ‘bad’, but rather, they are responding to a memory or past experience. This holistic care approach focuses on the importance of relationship to prevent the client from experiencing further trauma as well as helping recovery from their adverse experiences, likely from childhood.
Thanks to generous grants from the Catholic Health Corporation of Manitoba and an anonymous donor, within 18-months Marymound will undergo an organization-wide transformation and become a forerunner of trauma responsive and resilient service delivery. Through a series of classroom and practical training opportunities, Marymound will be given a tangible set of tools to apply to clients and staff as service providers.
“We are overwhelmed with gratitude that Dr. Bloom has agreed to pilot her new trauma-informed model with Marymound,” says Nancy Parker, CEO of Marymound. “In working with some of the most traumatized children in Manitoba, it is our commitment to provide the very best in client-centered trauma-informed care that includes meeting our clients’ needs in a safe, collaborative, and compassionate manner.” All children and youth at Marymound have experienced profound trauma in their lives. The issues that our staff address on a daily basis are complex, challenging, and in many cases, overwhelming. Marymound prides itself by providing trauma-informed training to staff with the goal of helping children, youth, and families work towards recovery, healing, and hope. The organization also strives to provide continual training and growth to staff by offering tools to become trauma-responsive in a myriad of everyday situations so staff and clients feel empowered and safe in their relationship. Piloting Dr. Bloom’s trauma-informed model will only add to the skills and expertise that Marymound offers its clients and staff.
*P.R.E.S.C.E.N.C.E is an acronym for linking guiding values that consistently undergird and inform practice: Partnership and Power, Reverence and Restoration, Emotional Wisdom and Empathy, Safety and Social Responsibility, Embodiment and Enactment, Nature and Nurture, Culture and Complexity, Emergence and Evolution. Each set of values is associated with a knowledge base and a set of universally applied tools that are designed in sequence to provide 1) Brain regulation skills; 2) Communication tools; 3) Group engagement tools; 4) Complexity management skills.