About the Toolkit
This toolkit was created by the Building Healing Behavioral Health Systems (BHBHS) team to help Maryland’s Public Behavioral Health Systems become trauma-informed and healing-centered.
The BHBHS team includes people from:
- Maryland Behavioral Health Administration
- University of Maryland School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry
- Bowie State University
- Collaboration with community organizations and people with lived experience of public systems and trauma or adversity.
BHBHS aligns with the principles outlined by the Maryland Trauma-Informed Care Commission (TICC), including:
- Safety
- Trustworthiness and Transparency
- Inclusion of the Voice of Lived Experience (including Peer Support and Mutual Self-Help)
- Collaboration and Mutuality
- Empowerment, Voice, and Choice
- Cultural, Historical, and Gender Concerns
- Anti-Racism
- Anti-Bias and Social Justice
BHBHS has the following values:
- Our work is trauma-informed and healing-centered.
- We acknowledge trauma and its effects on people and communities.
- We support systems that understand the signs of trauma, respond to trauma-related needs, and resist re-traumatization.
- We use a healing-centered lens to avoid pathologizing communities harmed by historical trauma and social oppression.
- We engage communities in using strengths and healing practices to support thriving and wellness.
- We acknowledge that communities are resilient. We seek to undo harmful systems and practices that make resilience necessary.
- We aim to build supports for trauma-informed and healing-centered systems that are sustainable.