Introduction to Trauma-Informed Values and Definitions - 6th May 2026

About the course: 

The term trauma-informed is increasingly used across services but it is not always clearly defined and can sometimes become a buzzword or be overclaimed. This workshop creates space to explore what we mean by trauma-informed practice, what we don’t mean, and why clarity matters for meaningful and ethical application.

Together, we will build an introductory shared understanding of the core ingredients of a trauma-informed lens. This includes exploring the 9 core values that underpin trauma-informed practice and organisational change, alongside their purpose and real-world relevance. We will also introduce the 4 R’s framework and consider key guiding principles and definitions that shape this approach.

Importantly, the session will explore the distinctions between:

• Trauma-informed and trauma-specific approaches;
• Trauma-informed practice at an individual/practitioner level and at an organisational/system level.

Through discussion and practical examples, we will bring these ideas to life supporting participants to recognise how trauma-informed values show up in everyday interactions, environments, and decision-making.

This workshop is designed for speech and language therapists and those working alongside them. It is facilitated by a clinical psychologist specialising in trauma and trauma-informed and trauma-infused approaches to practice. While not profession-specific training, it aims to complement and sit alongside your existing expertise, offering a lens that can be meaningfully integrated into your work.

This is not an “all-singing, all-dancing” training or a one-day route to becoming trauma-informed. Rather, it is intended as a thoughtful starting point- a springboard for reflection, curiosity, and ongoing development. It supports participants to begin (or deepen) their understanding, and to consider realistic, meaningful ways this lens can be integrated into their own roles and settings over time.

By the end of the workshop, participants will have a clearer, more grounded understanding of what trauma-informed practice is (and is not), why it can be helpful, and how it can begin to inform their practice.

Some objectives and aims:

• Develop a shared understanding of what trauma-informedmeans and does not mean; recognising where the term can be misused or overclaimed.
• Describe the core values, guiding principles, and frameworks (including the 4 R’s) that underpin trauma-informed practice.
• Understand the distinction between trauma-informed and trauma-specific approaches, and how these relate to different roles and responsibilities.
• Explore the differences between trauma-informed practice at an individual/practitioner level and at an organisational/system level.
• Identify practical, realistic ways to begin integrating a trauma-informed lens into everyday work with people and within services.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Karen Treisman, MBE, is an award-winning Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist, organisational consultant, trainer, author, and trauma specialist who has worked in the National Health Service and children’s social services for several years. Karen has also worked cross culturally in both Africa and Asia with groups ranging from former child soldiers and asylum seeking young people to those living with HIV/AIDS and survivors of the Rwandan Genocide. She is the bestselling author of several books and workbooks, including The Therapeutic Treasure Box for Developmental Trauma, The Treasure Box for Creating Trauma-Informed Organizations, Trauma-Informed Health Care, seven children’s workbooks, and five sets of therapeutic card decks (trauma, strengths, feelings and sentence completion, parenting patchwork, regulating, grounding and soothing, trauma and stress). (Check out Karen’s Amazon page sharing all of her resources- https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/page/BD57A40E-2602-44B5-A3A8-F72EA04950C4)

Karen has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, adversity, loss, child protection, fostering, adoption, refugee and asylum-seeking contexts, trafficking, and attachment. She works clinically using a range of therapeutic approaches with families, systems, and children in or on the edge of care, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, and adopted children. She is also a supervisor, reflective practice facilitator, expert witness for court, creative consultant, and trainer.

Karen also specialises in supporting teams, organisations, and systems to become, and sustain, adversity, culturally, and trauma-informed, infused, and responsive in practice (at language, policy, culture, and practice levels). She is an organisational consultant to numerous organisations worldwide, including social services, health services, schools, nurseries, the police, prisons, charities, residential and nursing homes, churches, and many more. This work focuses on creating meaningful, multi-layered cultural and paradigm shifts across whole systems. This was the focus of Dr Treisman’s Winston Churchill Fellowship Award, during which she visited several places in the USA to study whole system and organisational approaches to trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care (https://www.wcmt.org.uk/sites/default/files/report-documents/Treisman%20K%202018%20Final.pdf). This topic is also central to Dr Treisman’s bestselling two-volume books, A Treasure Box for Creating Trauma-Informed Organizations: A Ready-to-Use Resource for Trauma, Adversity, and Culturally Informed, Infused and Responsive Systems.

In addition to holding a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, Karen has completed specialist training in EMDR, Narrative Therapy, Narrative Exposure Therapy, Court Work, Trauma- focused CBT, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Video Interaction Guidance, Sensory Approaches, Theraplay, Testimonial Psychotherapy, among several others. Karen is also trained in using numerous specialist measures such as the Child Attachment Interview, the Adult Attachment Interview, and the Story Stem Profile. Karen previously worked in Milton Keynes’s and Kensington and Chelsea’s Children in Care and Fostering Services, and within the National Implementation Service for evidence-based interventions for “Looked After Children, Children on the Edge of Care, and Children in Custody” at the Michael Rutter Centre in the Maudsley Hospital. She also served as Clinical Lead for a court assessment and intensive intervention team for children on the edge of care and in proceedings in Islington.

Karen is an external consultant, trainer, speaker, and assessor to various UK and international local authorities, child welfare and health care teams, schools, prisons, nurseries, charities, and organisations including (currently or previously) TACT, Pause, Barnardos, AdoptionPlus, BAAT, Action Trauma, Candle Trust, Grandparents Plus, and the Fostering Network. She is also an expert witness and regularly completes assessments for court. Additionally, Karen is an associate editor for the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma and a reviewer for the Journal of Adoption and Fostering; she also reviews for several book publishers including Routledge and Jessica Kingsley.

Karen was awarded the 2018 Psychology Professional of the Year Award for Excellence in Attachment and Trauma and Youth Psychology Professional of the Year in 2020. She received an MBE for outstanding services for children on the Queen’s 2020 Honours list. Karen regularly attends and presents at local, national, and international trauma, parenting, and attachment conferences (see the Events tab on this website). She is also a TEDx speaker on the power of relationships and viewing behaviour as communication (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTsPdMqVwBg).