Toolkit on Trauma-Informed Care
The Caring to Include trauma-informed care toolkit helps refugee-support organisations apply informed-trauma principles in everyday services and across their organisations. The toolkit combines practical guidance for staff and volunteers with tools for organisations to assess their current practice and identify priorities for improvement.
What is Trauma-informed care?
People who have experienced displacement may potentially face traumatic experiences and prolonged stress before, during, and after their journey. These experiences can affect people’s well-being and the way they engage with organisations and services. Therefore, a trauma-informed approach that recognises these possible effects and aims to create support can play a vital role in enhancing their safety, trust, choice, collaboration and empowerment, while reducing the risk of re-traumatisation.
This new toolkit supports organisations in translating trauma-informed principles into everyday practice, while also recognising the impact of this work on staff and volunteers.
Developed through the knowledge, research, and experience of project partners across seven European countries, the toolkit brings together practical resources for both individual practice and wider organisational reflection.
What does the Trauma-Informed Care Toolkit include?
Trauma-Informed Care – Practical Guide for Refugee Organisation Staff: A practical guide for staff, volunteers and practitioners. It explains the principles of trauma-informed care and provides tools for communicationwith refugees and people seeking protection, in addition to creating safer environments, responding to distress and protecting staff well-being.
Organisational Assessment on Trauma-Informed Care: A self-assessment resource that helps organisations reflect on how trauma-informed principles are embedded in their work. It looks at six areas: access to services, the physical environment, participation and feedback, staff training, organisational culture and leadership, and staff well-being and support. This part consists of two complementary documents that are designed to be used together:
- Organisational Assessment Guide: Provides the framework and guidance for conducting the organisational self-assessment.
- Organisational Assessment Tool: Accompanies the guide and helps organisations assess their current practice and identify strengths, gaps and priorities for further improvement.
Together, these resources can help organisations move from understanding trauma-informed principles to applying them in everyday services, organisational policies and working environments.
How was the toolkit developed?
The toolkit builds on the knowledge, research and practical experience of Caring to Include partners in Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Malta and the Netherlands.
Who is the toolkit for?
The toolkit is designed for refugee-support organisations, frontline staff, volunteers, practitioners and managers working with refugees and people seeking protection. The resources can be used for individual learning, team discussions, staff development and wider organisational reflection.
The Caring to Include is co-funded by the European Union through Erasmus+.
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