In partnership with Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, the City of Lancaster launched an initiative to create a trauma-informed community. While Penn Medicine is focused on training organizations like SWAN and companies, the Trauma Informed Training Specialist with the City of Lancaster is training residents.
“Whether they know it or not, everyone is impacted by trauma,” Zarita Herasme, the city’s Trauma Informed Training Specialist, said in a statement. “Our goal is to give residents the skills they need to acknowledge and address that trauma.”
Mental healthcare providers embracing the research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are changing their assessment approach from “What is wrong with you?” to asking, “What happened to you?” At the same time, there is still a need to equip direct service providers, first responders, and the community to understand trauma.
“A trauma-informed community is one that establishes and promotes healing so that people can be healthy enough to sustain opportunity and realize their full potential.” City of Lancaster
SWAN is actively providing trauma training to our teachers, assistants, and staff so we can better serve our students.
If you are a City of Lancaster resident, we would like to encourage you to use this training opportunity to become trauma-informed. The more informed we are, the stronger our community will be.