Vision & Values

Plymouth envisions a transformative approach that enables its people, its communities and its services to come together, to innovate and create a truly compassionate city.

A city where people can feel safe within their community environments and within the security of safe and healthy relationships; where people’s experience and choices matter; where communities are supportive and work with services to deliver outcomes that are truly person centred; where people seek connection with each other and are kind; where people trust each other, learn reflectively together and are truly collaborative; where people take responsibility, empowering each other to make a difference.

Our Vision
Our Values

Our Vision

A compassionate Plymouth is a trauma sensitive city.
Realise

It realises the potentially damaging consequences of traumatic experience and the opportunities that exist for healing to occur through safe relationships.

Recognise

It recognises the signs and expressions of trauma, but courageously seeks to address the underlying causes.

Respond

It responds with empathy, integrating the knowledge of trauma into its policies and professional practice.

Resist

It resists retraumatising people and seeks at all times to de-escalate the deep anxiety that adversity can cause.

Resilience

It develops resilience within people and communities, enabling people to build upon their strengths and continue to challenge the causes of adversity.

Our Values

Our values are depicted in the Trauma Lens which sits at the heart of our Plymouth Approach and drives all our work. Applying the Trauma Lens is about becoming trauma informed people – about being the change we want to see.

We particularly celebrate people, teams and organisations who approach us to review policies, documents, training programs or procedures they have adapted using the trauma lens.

We welcome you using the Trauma Lens. Please note, resources produced and developed within the Network remain the intellectual property of the Trauma Informed Plymouth Network CIC and should be properly referenced as belonging to the Network.

Safe

We prioritise emotional and psychological safety as a foundation for positive relationships and understanding the impact of shame for those affected by trauma and adversity. We endeavour to make people feel safe in all our Network activity.

  • We recognise the impact of shame
  • We create safe spaces
  • We make people feel safe
  • We build trusted relationships
  • We understand trauma

Person centred

We see the person in each and every interaction and seek to build upon the strengths each person brings to the Network, ensuring they have a voice and that their lived experience is recognised and valued.

  • My experience matters
  • My strengths count
  • My choices are important
  • My outcomes are first
  • My voice is heard

Kind

We avoid judgement and understand that shaming and blaming language can damage emotional safety and harm relationships. When we are required to challenge others or hold them to account, we will do so with compassion and with a view to maintaining positive relationships.

  • We stay out of judgement
  • We are shame sensitive
  • We seek connection
  • We are emotionally aware
  • We avoid blame

Empowering

We ‘dare to try’ to enact cultural change, seeking to make a difference and be the change we want to see.

  • We make a difference
  • We embrace culture change
  • We are transparent
  • We take responsibility
  • We innovate

Collaborative

We work together for the best possible outcome, being open when something hasn’t worked and being reflective about how we can be better together.

  • With people using services
  • With communities
  • With colleagues
  • With partners
  • We learn reflectively

The Plymouth Trauma Lens 

Our Kindness Charter 

  • 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.

Become a member