Scotland's Redress Scheme: combined annual report 2023

5. Trauma-informed workforce and services

The Scottish Government’s ambition, shared with COSLA and other partners, is for a trauma-informed and responsive workforce across Scotland, to ensure that people who have had adverse childhood experiences and traumatic experiences in adulthood, such as physical or sexual abuse, are supported.

Being trauma-informed means creating environments that aim to increase feelings of safety, choice, trust, collaboration and empowerment and decrease feelings of threat, stress and harm as well as reducing feelings of blame or stigma. This can support people to access services to support their healing and recovery through positive relationships and connections.

Scotland was one of the first countries in the world to publish a knowledge and skills framework for psychological trauma, developed by NHS Education for Scotland (NES). This framework sets out the different ways that workers from all sectors of the workforce, can respond to make a positive difference to children, young people and adults affected by trauma.

Since 2018, we have invested over £6 million in the National Trauma Training Programme (NTTP), which provides freely available, evidence based trauma training resources and support for implementation, developed by NES and informed by experts by experience.

The resources include the following animations:

• Opening Doors: Trauma Informed Practice for the Workforce on Vimeo, designed to support anyone to become trauma-informed, no matter what their job or role.
• Sowing Seeds: Trauma Informed Practice for Anyone Working with Children and Young People on Vimeo, which supports people to understand the impact of trauma and to know how to adapt the way they work to make a positive difference to the lives of children and young people who have been affected.

Support for training and implementation, across all sectors of the workforce, is provided by a team of Transforming Psychological Trauma Implementation Coordinators (TPTICs) based in every Health Board in Scotland. A network of ‘Trauma Champions’ has also been established, supported by the Improvement Service.

The network includes senior leaders from across local authorities, health boards, and key community planning partners who work collaboratively to influence change across local areas.

In Spring 2023, we will publish a Quality Improvement Framework for Trauma Informed Systems, Organisations and Workforces to support organisations to measure and reflect on their progress in implementing trauma-informed systems, services and workforces.

In 2023, we will publish a long-term delivery plan for the National Trauma Training Programme, which will set out the training and implementation support the Scottish Government and partners will continue to provide to help embed and sustain trauma-informed workforces, services and care.