Flying the Plane While We’re Building It: Defining and Operationalizing a Trauma-Informed, Healing Centered Illinois

• In Event: Trauma Informed and Subtance Use Mental Health Care

Abstract

Background: Policymakers have increasingly embraced trauma-informed approaches (TIAs)—and more recently, healing centered practices—in response to the widespread impact of trauma. Despite their popularity, TIAs remain difficult to define and operationalize, have limited rigorous evaluations, and risk reinforcing structural harm if applied without attention to context. These challenges raise important questions about how trauma-informed frameworks are translated into state policy. In Illinois, a cross-sector group of professionals from public health, behavioral health, criminal justice, and education collaborated to make the state trauma-informed and healing centered. This study examines how meaning-making shaped the policy design process. Specifically, I ask: How did cross-sector professionals construct a shared definition and operationalization of a trauma-informed, healing-centered state?

 

Methods: This paper draws from a longitudinal case study of the collaborative’s work. I observed 72 working meetings (on Zoom) from January 2023 to March 2025. I also attended 10 public events, held ongoing informant conversations, and collected meeting artifacts (e.g., meeting minutes and document drafts). For this paper, I draw on sensemaking theory, which explains that meaning is constructed through an ongoing, social process. I analyzed meeting data at the level of the interaction. For interactions related to the meaning of becoming a trauma-informed, healing centered state, I inductively coded interactions to identify 1) the nature of the interaction, 2) the content of the interaction and 3) evidence of sector-specific perspectives. I triangulated these analyses with data from informant conversations and meeting artifacts. 

 

Findings: Preliminary findings indicate that both the defining and operationalizing of a trauma-informed, healing centered state unfolded as iterative, non-linear processes across more than two years of collaborative work. Cross-sector engagement shaped each process in distinct ways. In the definitional process, collaboration across sectors contributed to a more expansive and values-driven understanding of what trauma-informed, healing centered engagement could mean. Activities such as identifying core principles (e.g., equity, inclusion, and community voice) and determining key constituencies to involve (e.g., youth, people with lived expertise, state agency directors) were central to this process. However, in the operationalizing process, the same cross-sector dynamics created friction. Divergent priorities and capacities made it difficult to reach consensus on concrete actions and metrics. As a result, while shared language and values were established, translating those into coordinated policy implementation remained unresolved.

Conclusion: This study highlights the promise and complexity of cross-sector collaboration in designing trauma-informed, healing-centered policy. While collaboration deepened the shared definition and values guiding this work, it also exposed institutional differences that complicated operational decisions. These findings suggest that building trauma-informed, healing centered systems requires more than consensus on the meaning of the terms, but also attention to prioritizing key action steps that can be implemented across diverse systems.

Author

• Lara Altman, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author