Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State the Home Department, if his Department will (a) develop a definition of trauma-informed in relation to the delivery of public services to (i) women and (ii) girls and (b) publish a toolkit explaining the implications of that definition.

Trauma informed practice is an innovative intervention to help frontline workers recognise and respond to trauma in the people they work with. It encourages a public health approach and effective multi-agency working, addresses barriers to accessing support, and reduces the potential for re-traumatisation.

The Department of Health and Social Care published their Women’s Health Strategy in July 2022, and committed to publishing a definition of trauma informed practice for use in the health and social care sector.

The Department of Health and Social Care published the working definition of trauma informed practice in November 2022, which provides the health and social care sector with a consistent foundation on which to build trauma-informed practice into their services and systems.

To better understand the potential impact of taking a trauma informed approach, the Home Office is providing up to £4m towards the Youth Endowment Fund’s (YEF) trauma informed practice grant round.