Key Documents

Envisioning Plymouth as a Trauma Informed City.

Our Approach to Envisioning Plymouth as a Trauma Informed City is the Trauma Informed Plymouth Network’s pivotal document. Borne out of the earliest Network meetings and created by the founding members of the Network, it seeks to define trauma and lay out the vision and values that define Plymouth’s trauma-informed approach. It cites our city’s history in the context of trauma and places equal emphasis on resilience.

How we will achieve this is set out ‘on a page’ below.  Our hope is that our membership, through the individual branches, will find this helpful in drawing all our expertise and wisdom together under three main aims to: Support the Network, Support People and Support the System.

Our Kindness Charter – Towards a Kinder Plymouth

  • 1

    Our Plymouth workforce will be Trauma Informed, Adverse Childhood Experiences aware and able to use our trauma lens to inform their on-going reflective and responsive practice.

  • 2

    Our Plymouth workplaces will be trauma informed. We will always use the trauma lens to support the health and well-being of our workforce, who we recognise and celebrate as the cornerstone of our trauma informed approach.

  • 3

    Plymouth will be united in being courageously prevention focussed, taking a public health approach to tackle childhood adversity and trauma in all its forms. We recognise that trauma can impact on the full life course and across generations.

  • 4

    Plymouth will base its emerging trauma informed practice on the best available evidence. This will always include actively listening to the voices of people with lived experience across all services and organisations. We will develop a reflective and supportive learning culture, where we feel safe to innovate and challenge what needs to be changed. This will include being open in sharing what has worked and what hasn’t.

  • 5

    Our services will develop a trauma informed leadership culture based upon kind relationships that are safe and collaborative. Our leaders at all levels will support the Plymouth workforce to implement the Plymouth trauma lens into daily practice.

  • 6

    Envisioning Plymouth as a trauma informed city requires a long-term commitment to our journey, progressing from being trauma informed to responsive and specialist as appropriate to each relationship and setting. We will work together to record and celebrate the real changes we achieve and support the people who champion our Trauma Informed Plymouth Network.

  • 7

    Plymouth as a trauma informed city is about ‘all of us’. We will take an inclusive approach which recognises the strengths and supports the resilience of our community. We will seek to collaborate with all organisational sectors, to foster empowerment and work towards more equal power relationships.

  • 8

    We will share responsibility for communicating and actively promoting our Trauma Informed Approach across Plymouth. We will work within our communities, aiming to reach people of all ages and backgrounds. We will champion and look to encourage public debate, influence local policy and inform national and international conversations on trauma informed approaches.

Join our movement for change

Our ambition is for Plymouth to be a trauma-informed city. Our independent network is open to anyone connected with Plymouth with a desire to learn about and promote trauma informed ways of being. You too can join our Network and help Plymouth become a safer and kinder place, where the impact of trauma and adversity is both recognised and responded to with sensitivity and compassion.