Trauma-Informed Practice
An approach that recognises the possible effects of trauma and emphasises safety, trust, choice, collaboration and empowerment.
SAMHSA trauma-informed approach
This page is a plain-English practice summary. It attributes the source field and avoids presenting the framework as Positively Devious intellectual property.
What this framework helps with
- designing safer youth environments
- training staff to avoid re-traumatising practice
- thinking about trust, choice and predictability
Three questions it helps teams ask
- How does this setting build safety and trust?
- Where can young people exercise choice?
- What support do staff need to respond consistently?
How to use it in youth and community work
Use Trauma-Informed Practice as a lens for better decisions, not as a script. Start with the local context, invite the people affected by the work into the interpretation, and turn the framework into practical questions, design choices and learning habits.
For Positively Devious, this framework matters because it helps explain one part of the wider conditions around positive deviance: the relationships, opportunities, skills, systems and power arrangements that make uncommon positive outcomes more likely to be noticed and learned from.
What to watch out for
- do not diagnose or label young people casually
- trauma-informed does not replace clinical support when needed
- safety includes emotional, cultural and relational dimensions