choosing a trauma-informed practice teacher 101

Trauma-informed practice is becoming more visible across yoga, psychology, education, healthcare and organisational leadership. The approach sits on a continuum and looks different depending on context and specialty. Its basis are principles that are designed to recognise how trauma affects people and systems, and to avoid replicating the conditions that cause harm. The most commonly reference ‘SAMHSA framework’ outlines six key principles: safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment and choice, and cultural/historical/gender context.

But it’s a difficult landscape to navigate. There's no regulatory framework, plenty of people teaching single methodologies as though they're universal solutions, and a real risk of walking into a room where someone claims authority over your nervous system or prescribes exactly how you should work with the people in your care. 

I speak to so many people who have been put off using trauma-aware or trauma-informed methods in their work because the first time they've come across it they were told (sometimes explicitly) that this particular way of delivering trauma-informed practice is the only way. And if they don't do all of it they're failing themselves and everyone they support.

What a crock of shit.

The question of who to learn from matters enormously. I work with yoga teachers, health professionals, educators, organisational leaders, and people who are simply trying to understand their own nervous systems or support someone they care about. My background spans corporate learning and development, organisational design, and trauma-sensitive yoga facilitation. I also have lived experience of complex trauma and recovery and now devote a good deal of my time to facilitating yoga for recovery from PTSD/CPTSD and chronic stress - and teaching others to do the same. Whether you're considering learning trauma-informed practice for yourself or your professional work, here's what's worth considering about any potential teacher, school or company playing in this space - no matter if you’re there for your own healing or your profession. 

Do they teach principles or prescribe protocols?

How people experience learning in workshops at work and in yoga studios is often at odds with what actually works for adult learning and behaviour change. Teaching trauma-informed practice as a rigid methodology you're expected to replicate exactly contradicts the foundation of the work itself.  Focus too much on the ‘ideal’ and ‘feel good’ factors and while the workshop might be enjoyable - the learning simply will not stick. 

Look for facilitators who help you understand foundational concepts well enough to apply them in ways that make sense for your context. That application might look different for someone exploring their own nervous system responses than it does for a yoga teacher designing a class or a manager trying to create psychosocial safety in their team, but the core theory and competencies are similar.

Prescribed protocols position the facilitator as the expert on how you should work, rather than supporting you to develop informed, reflective practice. Methods marketed as complete systems, often branded or attached to a particular name, leave little room for you to think critically about what applies to your situation. 

Ask:

• How will this training help me understand why something works, not just what to do?

• What does successful learning look like six months later - how might I further upskill or apply these concepts more deeply?

• If the community I serve has different needs or cultural contexts than the examples you use, how does your teaching help me navigate that?

How do they position their expertise relative to yours?

A trauma-informed facilitator doesn't make assumptions about the people in the room. They don't know your nervous system, your expertise, your professional context, your lived experience of trauma, or the communities and clients you're working with. The premise that someone could walk into a room and tell you the right way to support yourself or others directly contradicts what trauma-informed work actually requires.

People are the experts in their own lives. Removing agency replicates the conditions that cause harm - this includes how we teach. 

Ask:

• How do you learn from the people you teach, particularly when they bring knowledge about contexts or communities you're less familiar with?

• What happens when my professional judgement about what my community needs differs from your approach?

What's their relationship to evidence and multiple frameworks?

Trauma-informed practice draws from research across neuroscience, psychology, social work, education, and organisational studies. No single framework or modality contains everything worth knowing.

A facilitator with a grounded approach will reference where their knowledge comes from, acknowledge gaps or areas of ongoing debate, and position their teaching within broader evidence. They won't claim their method is the only valid approach or dismiss other frameworks.

This is critical - as a very ‘normal’ approach to business is to position ourselves as the expert with the ‘right’ answer - this is very much at odds with trauma-informed thinking. Whenever I hear definitive advice about rigid frameworks it's an instant “ick - they don’t know what they don’t know yet” from me. 

Ask:

• Where does your understanding come from and what are the limits of what we currently know about trauma-informed practice?

• Who else doing this work do you learn from, and where do you disagree with common approaches in the field?

How transparent are they about scope of practice?

Trauma-informed practice intersects with mental health, but teaching trauma-informed principles is not the same as providing therapy or clinical treatment. A responsible facilitator is clear about what they are and aren't qualified to support, and they don't blur those boundaries.

Not all professionals that work with trauma and chronic stress are ‘trauma-informed’ - this is a specific term to let you know that they have a ‘trauma-informed practice’ that centres those 6 principles, likely includes a lot of ongoing professional education and likely supervision too. If that’s not the case - is it trauma-informed or just information about trauma?

Ask:

• What can you teach me versus what requires clinical training or therapeutic qualification?

• How do you maintain your own practice - do you receive supervision, engage in peer consultation, or undertake ongoing professional development?

• What complementary trauma-informed practice fields (other than the one specifically being trained in) have you had professional development/learning in? How has this changed your approach?

What this means for you

Choosing who to learn from is itself an exercise in trauma-informed thinking. You're looking for someone who respects your agency, teaches you to think rather than tells you what to do, and positions their knowledge as one resource among many rather than the only valid approach.

There are many valid, person-centred ways to support people. Look for facilitators who take their ongoing learning seriously, who name their scope of practice clearly, and who teach principles that you can adapt to your context. Avoid anyone selling a secret formula or implying that their method is the only way to do this work well.