What we’re all about
It’s a bit of a buzzword lately. It’s popped up in SLP forums, in The ASHA Leader, and on a myriad of professional podcasts--often as a one-off episode.
But what actually is trauma-informed care (TIC)? Is it only for certain populations? Is it just teaching stress-relief strategies? And wouldn’t that really fall to the mental health professionals?
Taking a trauma-informed approach.
What happened
to you?
In truth, becoming trauma-informed is actually a complete paradigm shift away from the medical (i.e., pathogenic) model of thinking "what's wrong with you?" into a wellness-focused (i.e., salutogenic) model of thinking "what happened to you?" Per the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, using a trauma-informed approach includes, "an understanding of trauma and an awareness of the impact it can have across settings, services, and populations. It involves viewing trauma through an ecological and cultural lens and recognizing that context plays a significant role in how individuals perceive and process traumatic events, whether acute or chronic. In May 2012, SAMHSA convened a group of national experts who identified three key elements of a trauma-informed approach: '(1) realizing the prevalence of trauma; (2) recognizing how trauma affects all individuals involved with the program, organization, or system, including its own workforce; and (3) responding by putting this knowledge into practice' (SAMHSA, 2012, p 4)." -TIP 57, 2014
If that sounds like it requires a lot of knowledge, training, and practice to really become trauma-informed, you're right! It does! However, most resources that provide adequate detail to become trauma-informed are for mental health providers. This makes sense, because they are the ones who have to communicate A LOT with their clients. But you know who else has to communicate A LOT with clients? SLPs!!
Hence, I started The Trauma-Informed SLP. It started as a podcast, but will soon encompass other services such as trainings and professional forums where we can all discuss what it means to really be a trauma-informed SLP.
Meet the Team
Kim Neely
MM, MS, CCC-SLP
Kimberly Neely is a working speech-language pathologist (SLP) and is “pretty okay” at it. Prior to becoming an SLP, she was a (mildly successful) opera singer and voice teacher. She received her Master of Science from the University of Arizona in 2014 and was awarded the Jean R. Guloien Outstanding Graduate Student Award that year, which is pretty cool considering she didn’t even get into a graduate school the first year she applied. She also hung around for two years after that (i.e., attempted a PhD) and took a lot of doctorate-level neuroscience courses. (So if you’re an SLP who feels like Kim learned more about the brain in her masters than you — she didn’t. She just kept on going and going and going with her neuroscience-learning. ‘Cause…well…hyperfixations, mainly.)
Kim is neuroqueer (neurodivergent and queer) and is really, really hyperfocused on trauma-informed care. To this end, she took a graduate course on the topic during the COVID-19 shutdown (so it was basically her sourdough starter) and then continued her training through Trauma Institute International, where she received her certification as a Trauma-Support Specialist (CTSS), which she maintains through ongoing training.
Kim is also super tired of masking and recently ran out of hecks to give about it. Her brain is a veritable Olympic-level ping-pong match of facts, theoretical knowledge, in-depth research on hyperfixations, word-for-word scenes from movies she’s seen once or twice maybe 20 years ago, and weird references to niche TV shows. In her spare…all the time, Kim is a recovering forgetter-of-her-successes, perseverator-of-her-failures, and professional info-dumper.
The good stuff folks say about Kim’s talks: