Sustaining the Practice

Trauma-informed practice in museums cannot be sustained through one-time workshops or isolated projects. They should become part of the museum’s everyday culture—woven through exhibitions, staff interactions, policies, and partnerships.

Sustaining this approach is difficult. Staff turnover can mean institutional knowledge is lost. Deadlines and funding requirements often push trauma-informed practices aside. What matters is not perfection but steady reinforcement: embedding trauma-informed principles into onboarding, meetings, and evaluations so they remain visible and actionable.

Embedding in Onboarding and Orientation

One effective way to sustain trauma-informed practice is to introduce it at the beginning of employment. Every new staff member—whether in visitor services, curation, collections, or administration—should receive orientation in trauma-informed principles and strategies. This creates a shared foundation and signals that these practices are central to how the museum operates.

Onboarding is often rushed, with competing demands for attention. Trauma-informed content may be postponed or abbreviated. Treating it as essential rather than supplementary is important. Even a brief orientation—an hour or two—can introduce core concepts: what trauma is, how it affects people, why self-awareness matters, how to notice activation in oneself and others, when to ask for help. More detailed training can follow once the person has settled into their role.

Onboarding should also normalize the fact that working at the museum means exposure to difficult content. New staff need to know that strong reactions are normal, that support is available, that taking breaks is encouraged. They need to know whom to contact if they feel overwhelmed. They need to know that trauma-informed practice is not about never struggling but about having resources and community to turn to when struggles arise.

Toolkits and Documentation

Written resources can sustain practices when memory or staff availability is limited. The museum should develop concise toolkits with checklists, sample language, and reminders tailored for different roles. A toolkit for visitor services staff might include: how to recognize signs of visitor distress, prompts for offering support (It seems like this has been intense…), when to call for backup, where to direct visitors for further resources. A toolkit for curators might include: questions to ask when designing exhibitions (How might this content activate trauma? What regulation spaces can we provide?), guidelines for content advisories, suggestions for community consultation.

Documentation may sit unused if it is inaccessible, overly complex, or disconnected from daily workflows. Integrating resources into existing systems makes the difference. Checklists could be added to exhibition planning templates. Sample language could be included in staff communication guidelines. Reminders could be posted in break rooms or included in team meeting agendas.

Documentation should be living rather than static. As staff gain experience with trauma-informed practices, they will discover what works and what doesn’t. The toolkits should be revised regularly to incorporate this learning. Staff should be invited to contribute: What would have been helpful to know when you started? What language works well for you? What strategies have you found effective?

Leadership Modeling

Leaders play a central role in sustaining culture. Supervisors model trauma-informed behaviors: taking breaks, acknowledging emotional challenges, welcoming feedback, admitting limits. When a director says That exhibition planning meeting was harder than I expected. I need to step outside for a few minutes, they give permission for others to do the same. When a manager checks in with their team after a difficult project—How are you all doing? That was intense work—they signal that care matters as much as productivity.

Leaders may feel constrained by external pressures and the expectation to project strength, competence, invulnerability. Organizational culture has long equated leadership with not showing struggle. Redefining authority as authenticity—the capacity to show up fully human, with limits and needs, while still holding responsibility—is the shift this work requires. This shift is difficult because it asks leaders to be vulnerable in ways that feel risky. But it is also powerful, because it creates permission for everyone else to be human too.

Leaders also sustain trauma-informed practice by making it a priority in resource allocation. If training is valued, budget is allocated for it. If peer support is important, time is protected for it. If toolkits need development, staff hours are devoted to creating them. Without resources, even the best intentions remain aspirational. Leaders who back their words with budgets and policies demonstrate genuine commitment.

Policy and Systems Alignment

Policies shape culture in ways that are often invisible until someone bumps against them. HR policies should allow flexibility for staff who need mental health support. Evaluation metrics should reward collaboration and care, not only productivity. Exhibition planning should include trauma-informed checkpoints at every stage. Visitor services protocols should include clear guidelines for responding to distress.

Policies often lag. They were written before trauma-informed principles were adopted, and revising them requires navigating bureaucracy, legal review, union negotiations. Reviewing policies through a trauma-informed lens—and adjusting where feasible, even in small ways—is part of this work. Can sick leave be used for mental health days without requiring extensive documentation? Can staff rotate off high-exposure roles periodically? Can performance reviews include assessment of how well someone supports colleagues, not only their individual outputs?

Systems alignment also means ensuring that trauma-informed practices are integrated across departments. If the Exhibitions team embraces these practices but HR does not, staff will experience disconnect. If leadership supports trauma-informed work but facilities doesn’t maintain the quiet spaces needed for regulation, good intentions falter. True sustainability requires alignment across the entire organization.

Continuous Learning

Trauma-informed practice evolves. Research advances, cultural understanding deepens, new strategies emerge. The museum should offer ongoing learning—refresher workshops, peer exchanges with other museums, guest lectures from community partners or trauma specialists. These opportunities keep the work alive, prevent stagnation, and introduce new perspectives.

Time and budgets may limit formal learning opportunities. Embedding learning into the rhythm of work—even in modest formats—keeps the practice alive. Team meetings could include brief case discussions: A visitor became very distressed last week. Let’s talk about what happened and what we might do differently next time. Monthly emails could highlight a single trauma-informed principle with practical examples. Staff could be encouraged to attend external conferences or trainings and then share key learnings with colleagues.

Ongoing learning also means learning from mistakes. Things will go wrong. A visitor will be retraumatized despite best efforts. A community partner will feel unheard. A staff member will burn out. Trauma-informed culture is not one where mistakes never happen but one where mistakes are acknowledged, examined, and learned from. Leaders who say We got this wrong. Here’s what we’re going to do differently model the honesty and accountability that sustain trust.

Measuring Progress

The museum should gather feedback from staff, visitors, and community partners to measure progress in trauma-informed practice. Surveys, focus groups, and conversations can show whether people feel safe and supported. Do staff feel they can speak honestly about emotional challenges? Do visitors know where to find support when needed? Do community partners feel their contributions are valued?

Evaluation may be inconsistent or incomplete. Staff may fear consequences for honest feedback: If I say I’m struggling, will I be seen as weak? Will it affect my career? Using multiple methods—anonymous surveys, facilitated discussions, one-on-one conversations with trusted people—and focusing on learning rather than compliance helps address this. The goal is not to prove that the museum is doing trauma-informed work perfectly but to understand where the work is strong and where it needs strengthening.

Metrics might include: percentage of staff who report knowing how to access mental health support; number of visitor distress incidents and how they were resolved; frequency of community consultation in exhibition development; staff retention rates in high-exposure roles; feedback from community partners about satisfaction with collaboration processes. These numbers do not tell the whole story, but they provide information for ongoing improvement.

A Culture of Care

Ultimately, sustaining trauma-informed practice is about creating a culture of care. Staff feel their well-being matters as much as visitor experience. Visitors feel their reactions are valid and supported. Community partners feel their contributions are honored. This culture is not built through mandates or policies alone but through countless small moments, repeated over time, until care becomes “how things are done here.”

What does this look like day to day? It looks like a Collections staff member noticing a colleague seems withdrawn and saying Just checking in… It looks like a curator building regulation spaces into an exhibition plan from the beginning, not as an afterthought. It looks like a director ending a meeting by saying That was a lot. Let’s take a few minutes before moving on. It looks like a visitor services staff member recognizing a family is overwhelmed and offering There’s a quiet space just around the corner if you’d like a break. None of these moments is dramatic, but together they weave a fabric of care.

Culture of care also means acknowledging that care cannot be individualized entirely. It is not enough to tell staff Practice self-care when structural conditions make care impossible. If staff are overworked, underpaid, exposed to traumatic content without adequate breaks or support, no amount of individual resilience will prevent harm. Trauma-informed practice must address both individual capacities and organizational conditions. It must ask not only How can we help staff cope? but also How can we change conditions so there is less to cope with?

Looking Forward

Sustaining trauma-informed practice is long-term work requiring humility and persistence. There will be moments when the museum falls short, when well-intentioned efforts cause harm, when constraints prevent best practices. Learning from these moments and keeping moving forward—recognizing that trauma-informed practice is not a destination but a direction of travel—is the path.

By embedding principles into onboarding, creating practical toolkits, ensuring leaders model authenticity, aligning policies and systems, offering ongoing learning, gathering feedback, and creating a culture of care at every level, the museum can strengthen its role as both a site of truth-telling and a place of healing. Trauma-informed practice is not something the museum simply does—it is something it continually becomes, through the daily choices and commitments of everyone who works within its walls and everyone who walks through its doors.

The work is never finished. But the work is worthy. And in that ongoing commitment—to care, to honesty, to growth, to repair— museums can embody the values they seek to illuminate for the world.

Final Reflections

Trauma-informed practice is more than a collection of strategies. It is an orientation—a way of being that emphasizes safety, trust, belonging, empowerment, and empathy as guiding values. For museums dealing with difficult content, these values might align with the institution’s mission to advance dignity, equality, or human rights. The challenge, and the opportunity, is to ensure these values are embodied not only in exhibitions and programs but also in everyday interactions among staff, with visitors, and with community partners.

Ideally, the museum becomes a place where difficult truths are presented honestly, without avoidance or dilution, while also providing pathways for resilience and healing. The museum cannot prevent every visitor from experiencing distress, nor can it eliminate all risks of retraumatization. It cannot ensure that every staff member always feels fully supported or that every community partnership unfolds smoothly. Constraints of resources, staffing, and institutional inertia are real. But trauma-informed practice does not demand perfection. Instead, it calls for aspiration: the steady pursuit of conditions where people feel safer, more respected, and more empowered than they might otherwise.

This aspiration requires humility. It requires acknowledging when things fall short and learning from those moments. It requires leaders who model care, staff who support one another, and systems that prioritize well-being alongside productivity. It requires exhibitions that tell hard stories while also offering space for reflection, regulation, and resilience. It requires community engagement that is prepared, facilitated with care, and followed up with gratitude and genuine partnership.

Perhaps most importantly, sustaining trauma-informed practice requires recognizing that it is not primarily about outward actions but about inward orientations. Empathy cannot be reduced to a technique; it must be cultivated through ongoing self-reflection, healing, and growth. Supporting a colleague in distress is not about having the right words but about being present, grounded, and authentic. Designing a trauma-informed exhibition is not about following a checklist but about holding the question How can we honor both truth and care? throughout the entire process.

In this sense, trauma-informed practice is not something the museum “does” but something it continually becomes. It emerges from daily choices: the curator who builds regulation spaces into an exhibition from the beginning, the Collections staff member who checks in with a struggling colleague, the visitor services attendant who notices a family is overwhelmed and offers a quiet space, the director who admits difficulty and asks for help, the researcher who follows up with a community partner weeks after a consultation. These moments, accumulated over time, become culture.

Museum architecture often embodies powerful metaphors. Many museums present visitors with journeys from darkness toward light, ascending through galleries that confront painful truths. But these metaphors can be reimagined: visitors might also carry light with them as they move through darkness, creating their own illumination rather than only seeking it at journey’s end. They might pause along the way to engage with creative activities, to make something with their hands, to breathe and reflect and regulate. They might choose their own paths through the material. Architecture may be fixed, but within it, infinite variations become possible.

This is what trauma-informed practice offers: not rigid protocols but flexible frameworks, not prescriptions but possibilities. It invites us to notice patterns, to honor variability, to create conditions where safety and growth can emerge. It asks us to attend to what the environment invites, to recognize constraints without being defeated by them, to trust that people have their own wisdom about what they need. It reminds us that healing happens not through control but through connection, not through expert intervention but through presence and accompaniment.

Trauma can be a wound, yes, but it can also be a teacher if handled with skill and compassion. The path of healing does not lead us back to who we were before; trauma shapes us, reframes our perspectives and values. Authentic healing acknowledges that wisdom often lies hidden in the wound, and that meaning and purpose can be discovered through even the most difficult experiences. This is the journey that the museum invites its visitors to undertake: not a journey away from difficulty but through it, not seeking to avoid pain but to metabolize it, to find within it seeds of understanding, resilience, and perhaps transformation.

For staff, the journey is similar. Working with traumatic content day after day, year after year, carries real cost. Vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, burnout—these are not failures but natural responses to sustained exposure. Trauma-informed practice does not eliminate these risks but creates conditions where they can be acknowledged, supported, and addressed. It normalizes the reality that this work is hard, that needing help is not weakness, that we carry this weight together rather than alone.

For community partners, the invitation is to genuine collaboration: to be heard, valued, and included not as subjects of study but as co-creators of narrative. It is to be recognized as holders of expertise, deserving of compensation and respect. It is to experience the museum not as an institution that extracts stories for its own purposes but as a partner committed to relationship, accountability, and shared meaning-making.

What visitors create and carry with them—whether a physical object, a written reflection, or simply a moment of meaningful engagement—becomes a symbol for all of this work. Creative engagement does not eliminate darkness. It does not promise that the journey will be easy or that pain will be erased. But it offers orientation in the dark. It reminds us that we are not alone. It suggests that even in the midst of difficulty, we can create something meaningful. And when many people engage together in this way, their collective presence becomes something greater than any single encounter: a community of shared experience, a testament to human creativity and resilience.

This is the aspiration: that the museum becomes a place where people encounter truth, however painful, while also encountering support, however modest. Where difficult histories are told with honesty and honored with care. Where staff feel empowered to bring their full humanity to the work, including their struggles. Where visitors leave not only informed but also held, not only challenged but also accompanied. Where community partners experience genuine partnership built on respect and sustained through ongoing relationship.

At its heart, trauma-informed practice is about honoring the fullness of human experience—the pain and the resilience, the wounds and the wisdom, the darkness and the light we carry through it.

The journey continues. The work continues. And in that continuation, in that ongoing commitment to becoming a little more trauma-informed with each choice, each interaction, each day, a museum might fulfill its deepest mandate: to illuminate what it means to honor humanity in all its complexity, fragility, and enduring strength.

References and Resources

The following works have informed the development of this guide and the broader framework of trauma-informed museum practice. They represent an integration of research, professional experience, and reflective practice across fields of mental health, museum studies, education, and embodied care. Together, they form a foundation for understanding how emotional safety, ethical awareness, and intentional design can support both visitors and staff in museum contexts.

Key Publications by Ross Laird and Collaborators

• Laird, Ross. 2020. Trauma-Informed Practices in Museum Settings. In Brenda Cowan, Ross Laird, and Jason McKeown (Eds.), Museum Objects, Health & Healing. Routledge Research in Museum Studies Series. — Explores how object-based experiences in museums can support well-being and trauma recovery.
• Laird, Ross. 2020. Mental Health and Trauma-Informed Care in Heritage and Outdoor Environments. In Thomas Kador and Helen Chatterjee (Eds.), Object-Based Learning and Well-Being. Routledge. — Connects material culture, learning, and psychological health in heritage contexts.

Foundational Sources on Trauma-Informed Practice

• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2014. SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach.
• Bloom, Sandra L., and Brian Farragher. 2011. Destroying Sanctuary: The Crisis in Human Service Delivery Systems. Oxford University Press.
• Hopper, Elizabeth, Ellen Bassuk, and Jeff Olivet. 2010. “Shelter from the Storm: Trauma-Informed Care in Homelessness Services.” Open Health Services and Policy Journal 3: 80–100.
• Menakem, Resmaa. 2017. My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Central Recovery Press.

Empathy and Communication Skills

• Rogers, Carl R. 1957. “The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change.” Journal of Consulting Psychology 21(2): 95–103. — Rogers’ foundational paper identifying empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard as core conditions for therapeutic change.
• Rogers, Carl R. 1980. A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. — A comprehensive exploration of person-centered principles and empathic understanding.
• Elliott, Robert, Arthur C. Bohart, Jeanne C. Watson, and David Murphy. 2018. “Therapist Empathy and Client Outcome: An Updated Meta-Analysis.” Psychotherapy 55(4): 399–410. — Contemporary research demonstrating empathy as a consistent predictor of therapeutic outcomes.
• Howick, Jeremy, et al. 2023. “The Current State of Empathy, Compassion and Person-Centred Communication Training in Healthcare: An Umbrella Review.” Patient Education and Counseling 117: 107995. — Comprehensive review of effective empathy training methods and design principles for healthcare contexts.

Museum and Heritage Contexts

• Kavanagh, G. 2000. Dream Spaces: Memory and the Museum. Leicester: Leicester University Press.
• Chatterjee, Helen J., ed. 2008. Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling. Oxford: Berg.
• Chatterjee, Helen J., and Guy Noble. 2008. Museums, Health and Well-Being. Ashgate.
• Gallace, Alberto, and Charles Spence. 2008. “A Memory of Touch: The Cognitive Psychology of Tactile Memory.” In Helen J. Chatterjee (Ed.), Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling, 163–182. Oxford: Berg.
• Phillips, Laura. 2008. “Object Reminiscence and Difficult Memories.” In Helen Chatterjee (Ed.), Museums, Health and Well-Being.
• Salom, A. 2008. “The Therapeutic Potentials of a Museum Visit.” International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 27: 1–6.
• Chatterjee, Helen J., and Guy Noble. 2009. “Object Therapy: A Student-Selected Component Exploring the Potential of Museum Object Handling as an Enrichment Activity for Patients in Hospital.” Global Journal of Health Science 1(2): 42–49. http://ccsenet.org/gjhs.
• Ahmed, Sara. 2010. “Happy Objects.” In Melissa Gregg and Gregory Seigworth (Eds.), The Affect Theory Reader, 29–51. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Camic, P.M., J. Brooker, and A. Neal. 2011. “Found Objects in Clinical Practice: Preliminary Evidence.” The Arts in Psychotherapy 38: 151–159.
• Ander, E.E., L.J. Thomson, G. Noble, U. Menon, A. Lanceley, and H.J. Chatterjee. 2012. Heritage in Health: A Guide to Using Museum Collections in Hospitals and Other Healthcare Settings. London: UCL.
• Froggett, Lynn, and Myna Trustram. 2014. “Object Relations in the Museum: A Psychosocial Perspective.” Museum Management and Curatorship 29(5): 482–497.
• Butler, Tony. 2015. The Happy Museum Project. Derby Museums.

Somatic, Neuroaffective, and Embodied Approaches

• Bentzen, Marianne, and Susan Hart. 2015. Through Windows of Opportunity: A Neuroaffective Approach to Child Psychotherapy. London: Routledge.
• Brantbjerg, Merete Holm. 2004. “Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others.” In Ian Macnaughton (Ed.), Body, Breath, and Consciousness: A Somatics Anthology, 227–240. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
• Jørgensen, Steen. 2004. “Character Structure and Shock.” In Ian Macnaughton (Ed.), Body, Breath, and Consciousness: A Somatics Anthology, 333–354. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
• Levine, Peter, and Ann Frederick. 1997. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. San Francisco: North Atlantic Books.
• Levine, Peter. 2004. “Panic, Biology, and Reason: Giving the Body Its Due.” In Ian Macnaughton (Ed.), Body, Breath, and Consciousness: A Somatics Anthology, 267–286. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
• Novak, Oleh, and Oleh Hukovskky. 2017. Statistical Data Processing Results of the “Overcoming Shock Trauma and PTSD” Bodynamic Trainings for the Ukrainian Veterans.
• Picton, Barbara. 2004. “Using the Bodynamic Shock Trauma Model in the Everyday Practice of Physiotherapy.” In Ian Macnaughton (Ed.), Body, Breath, and Consciousness: A Somatics Anthology, 287–306. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

Grief, Emotional Recovery, and Ethics of Care

• James, John, and Russell Friedman. 2009. The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses including Health, Career, and Faith. New York: Harper.
• Herman, Judith L. 1992/2015. Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books.
• van der Kolk, Bessel. 2015. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin.
• Brown, Brené. 2018. Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts. Random House.
• Neff, Kristin. 2011. Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. HarperCollins.

Content Advisories and Trigger Warnings

• Bell, K. M., Howardson, R., Holmberg, D., & Cornelius, T. L. 2025. “Warning—This content may trigger temporary discomfort, which is expected and manageable”: The effect of modified trigger-warning language on reactions to emotionally provocative content. Behavior Therapy, 56(2), 213–224.
• Bridgland, V. M. E., Jones, P. J., & Bellet, B. W. 2023. A meta-analysis of the efficacy of trigger warnings, content warnings, and content notes. Clinical Psychological Science. Advance online publication.
• Jones, P. J., Bellet, B. W., & McNally, R. J. 2020. Helping or harming? The effect of trigger warnings on individuals with trauma histories. Clinical Psychological Science, 8(5), 905–917.

Organizational Models and Toolkits

• museums dealing with difficult content (the museum). Trauma-Informed Museum Practices Project. 2024–2026.
• International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC). Guidelines for Ethical Engagement with Trauma Narratives.
• Museums Association (UK). 2022. Museums Change Lives: Trauma-Informed Practice Supplement.

Ecological Dynamics and Complex Systems Perspectives

• Gibson, J. J. 1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin.
• Chow, Jia Yi, Keith Davids, Chris Button, and Ian Renshaw. 2015. Nonlinear Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition: An Introduction. Routledge. — Comprehensive framework for understanding learning as an emergent process within complex, dynamic environments; particularly relevant for designing adaptive learning experiences.
• Davids, K., Araújo, D., & Seifert, L. 2015–2023. Selected works on Ecological Dynamics and constraints-led approaches in skill acquisition.
• Rietveld, E., & Kiverstein, J. 2014–2021. Skilled intentionality and sociocultural affordances.
• Fuchs, T. 2017–2022. Ecology of the Brain and related work on embodied intersubjectivity.
• Schiepek, G., & Tschacher, W. 2019–2021. Psychotherapy as a complex system; indicators of phase transitions in change processes.
• Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. 1991. The Embodied Mind. MIT Press.
• Juarrero, A. 1999. Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System. MIT Press.

We are asleep with compasses in our hands.

Introduction → ← Community Partners