Trauma Training

Although prevalence estimates vary, there is consensus that high percentages of justice-involved women and men have experienced serious trauma throughout their lifetime. The reverberating effects of trauma experiences can challenge a person’s capacity for recovery and pose significant barriers to accessing services, often resulting in an increase risk of coming into contact with the criminal justice system.

To raise awareness about trauma and its effects among criminal justice professionals, SAMHSA’s GAINS Center developed a training curriculum, How Being Trauma-Informed Improves Criminal Justice System Responses.

How Being Trauma-Informed Improves Criminal Justice System Responses is a half-day training for criminal justice professionals to:

• Increase understanding and awareness of the impact of trauma,
• Develop trauma-informed responses, and
• Provide strategies for developing and implementing trauma-informed policies.

Trauma-informed criminal justice responses can help to avoid re-traumatizing individuals, and thereby increase safety for all, decrease recidivism, and promote and support recovery of justice-involved women and men with serious mental illness. Partnerships across systems can also help to link individuals to trauma-informed services and treatment for trauma.

This highly interactive training is specifically tailored to community-based criminal justice professionals including:

• Police
• Community corrections (probation, parole, and pre-trial services officers)
• Court personnel

For more information about this training, including details about making this training accessible in your community, contact the GAINS Center.