Trauma Informed Care

The Kansas Consumer Advisory Council for Adult Mental Health (CAC) is proud to be an innovator and change agent in providing information and leadership to create a Trauma Informed Care system in Kansas. RECOVERY FOR REAL is a CAC project funded by SAMHSA for development of a Trauma Informed Care (TIC) model.

What is TIC?

• Trauma informed care (TIC) asks not what’s wrong with you? Instead it asks what happened to you? The current model of mental health care asks about your symptoms (what‘s wrong with you?) and focuses on prescribing medications and treatment plans to you cope with your symptoms. It rarely asks what happened or looks at the symptoms as coping/survival strategies. TIC recognizes the coping/survival skills and doesn’t traumatize an individual or re-traumatize them when they seek help.

• Trauma Informed Care is a monumental breakthrough because of the causal link between trauma and later health problems. Early trauma has been correlated to later life mental health and physical health issues in a research study conducted by the CDC in partnership with Kaiser Permanente called the Adverse Childhood Experiences study (www.ace.org).

• Trauma Informed Care takes into account that most people who receive help in the public mental health system have been exposed to underlying trauma. That exposure creates vulnerabilities which must be taken into account for real recovery to occur. Recovery from a trauma-informed perspective makes choice, voice and trust central to the healing relationship.

For more information on TIC contact:

kscacgrantssbcglobalnet  (kscacgrantssbcglobalnet)