Mental health and wellbeing strategy: delivery plan 2023-2025

Trauma-informed and responsive

This Delivery Plan acknowledges that many of us will experience some form of trauma and/or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the course of our lives, which can affect our mental health and wellbeing. The majority of people will recover well, through supportive, positive relationships with family, friends, colleagues, people in their community and service providers. In some cases, they will also receive clinical psychological interventions of therapy.

Many people with lived experience of trauma report finding it difficult to feel safe and trust others, especially in situations that remind them of traumatic experiences. This can lead to difficulties accessing services and exclusion from other aspects of society. Our ambition is to embed trauma-informed and responsive practices and systems across Scotland. We can remove barriers to services and opportunities by training the workforce to recognise people who are affected by trauma. We can also do this by designing policies, systems and services to establish trust, safety, choice, collaboration and empowerment for people who have experienced trauma.

We have already seen significant progress and enthusiastic, trauma-informed leaders and staff are taking forward a range of activity right across Scotland. We will continue to drive that progress through our flagship National Trauma Transformation Programme.