Every outpatient and inpatient mental health setting, child protection service, parenting program, domestic violence shelter, school, and homeless shelter today must contend with the issue of a past history of exposure to trauma in their clients. But how can professionals – some with extensive professional training, and some with very little formal training – address the issues that arise surrounding past abuses and exposure to violence without “opening up a can of worms”?

The most elementary aspect of becoming trauma-informed is education. The S.E.L.F. Psychoeducational Group Curriculum is a good way to begin addressing the fundamental problems surrounding exposure to violence within a group setting. Unlike most of the theoretical jargon that informs so much of mental health treatment, educating people about the psychobiological effects of serious, recurrent, and chronic stress “rings bells” for them. The S.E.L.F Psychoeducational Group Curriculum is designed to provide clients – and staff – with an easy-to-use and coherent cognitive framework that can create a change momentum.

 Each lesson includes:

• An Introduction to S.E.L.F. and some S.E.L.F. Group Guidelines
• A Script for a group that focuses on one of the four key topics: Safety, Emotion, Loss, or Future. 
• A Handout for the clients to use during or after the group.
• A Resource - written course material for therapists that - taken as a whole - represent an course in trauma studies

For the most part, each lesson is independent of every other lesson and there is no fixed order within which the lessons must be taught. We arranged the curriculum this way for some very specific reasons:

• The turnover rate in many settings is so rapid, that if clients are to benefit from attending only one or two groups, then each group must stand alone as a valuable lesson, without necessitating prior attendance. 
•  We wanted the curriculum to be responsive to the immediate and pressing needs of each environment at any point in time.

It is not necessary to read the Resource material in order to have the groups be beneficial. However, we believe that as staff members watch the outpouring of new information that will inevitably arise from the group process, their curiosity is likely to be stimulated and we wanted some material to be readily available to them. In some of the lessons we have also suggested some relevant movie titles pertaining to the topics.

Although this is a trauma-informed curriculum, we do not frequently address head-on the issue of trauma, maltreatment or abuse. Again, this was intentional - words like "trauma" and "abuse" are highly charged for many people and are frequently misunderstood. We focus instead on the results of exposure to trauma - experiences that everyone can relate to, whether they have been traumatized or abused in the past or not : 

• loss of safety
• inability to manage emotions 
• overwhelming losses 
• a paralyzed ability to plan for or even imagine a different future

Likewise, many of the lessons can be used for family groups without the need to create an atmosphere of recrimination, guilt or accusation.

Unfortunately, failure to create a safe group atmosphere wastes an enormous human resource for positive change. Recognizing this dilemma, we have tried to create scripts for group leaders that will create an interactive but contained process, even while opening up painful subjects. Using an educational format - that includes handouts, flipcharts, a question-and-answer format - promotes a containing environment quite different from a typical process group that can be far more difficult to manage. In this way, staff members can discover the power of the group process in helping people to learn, grow and change, while simultaneously building community within their setting.