Interagency Task Force on Trauma-Informed Care
Learn about the Interagency Task Force on Trauma-Informed Care and its work in addressing trauma.
What is trauma?
Trauma happens after an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that someone experiences as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening. It can have a negative effect on a person’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. Entire generations, communities, or cultures can experience trauma collectively.
What is trauma-informed care?
Trauma-informed care is a way to create safer environments for people who have experienced trauma. Programs and organizations that use trauma-informed care:
- Realize how trauma affects people and understand potential paths for recovery and healing
- Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, and staff
- Respond by creating policies, procedures, and practices that reflect knowledge about trauma
- Resist or avoid retraumatization
Learn more about SAMHSA’s concept of trauma-informed care and Practical Guide for Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach.
What are the goals of the Task Force?
The Task Force identifies, evaluates, and makes recommendations about:
- Best practices for supporting children, youth, and families affected by trauma
- How Federal agencies can better respond to trauma, like substance use disorders, in families
Task Force History
The Task Force was established on October 13, 2018 — of Public Law 115-271, the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act of 2018.
Learn more about the Task Force’s structure.
Highlights from the July 2024 Trauma-Informed Summit
In July 2024, the Task Force gathered experts from across the country whose work has focused on implementing trauma-informed approaches at a systems level. We invited them to share their work as part of our annual summit. The theme of the summit was The Power of Federal Collaboration in Trauma-Informed Care: Moving from Awareness to Action.
Over 2 days, we engaged in meaningful discussions that focused on our need to expand how we think about trauma-informed care — including how to address individual and systemic trauma. The following are snippets from the summit that bring together insights on the levels of trauma and creating safer spaces:
Levels of Trauma (4 minutes, 33 seconds)
The “Levels of Trauma” video provides considerations for changing our thinking about trauma and how to apply this change in practice.
Safer Spaces (3 minutes, 34 seconds)
The “Safer Spaces” video provides thoughts on evolving our concept of safer spaces and ways to build them.