Why I Started Trauma-Informed HR

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘐 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥.

Before I begin: I'm still a little stunned that a whopping 605 of you subscribed after just one newsletter. That kind of support means more than I can say, especially for what I'm about to share. Thank you for being here.

The Cover-Up

When I was young, someone in my community caused serious harm. I won't share all the details here but what I will say is this: the people and institutions that should have protected me chose to protect him instead. The church. The organization. My family. They knew. And they covered it up. Moved him along. Let him become someone else's problem. I was a child. I didn't have the language for what had happened, let alone the power to do anything about it. No support, counseling, or resources were provided to me. I became a pariah. They believed they 'caught it in time'. No one spoke about it. It was as if it never happened. So I did what many survivors do: I buried it. I moved forward. I built a life. But trauma doesn't disappear just because we stop talking about it. It waits.

The Sleeping Giant

I carried that experience into my career like a tumor I didn't know was growing. For years, I built HR systems. I sat in rooms where decisions were made about "how to handle" difficult situations. I believed in the work. I believed the systems I was helping to build were designed to protect people. Then I entered a trauma-informed care environment. Thinking I was untouchable, I could help. Instead, I found myself in a hauntingly familiar situation. This time, the organization did the right thing. They acted to protect the person who had been harmed. But the perpetrator? He turned to the system for protection. Filed a complaint. And walked away with a settlement. I was told, "This is just the way it is." I watched it happen. And something inside me that had been dormant for decades began to stir.

When the Past Came Back

Here's the part that's hardest to write. In that triggered state, processing what I had witnessed at work, while also confronting how little the religious institution of my youth had changed (the very one I was raising my children in), I made a decision I never thought I would make. I let the same person from my childhood back into my life. I won't go into all of it here. That story deserves its own space, and I'm still finding the words. But I will say this: the damage was significant. It touched my children. My home. My sense of safety. And it taught me something I couldn't unlearn.

The Realization

The systems I had trusted — the ones I had spent my career building — were never designed to protect people. They were designed to protect institutions. And when someone tries to operate outside those systems? When they push for real accountability? The larger system finds a way to keep them in check. I knew I couldn't keep building those same systems.

So I started asking different questions:

→ What if leaders understood the real cost of getting this wrong — and had a bigger incentive to fight for change?

→ What if HR had the tools and autonomy to prevent harm, not just document it?

→ What if we trained managers to recognize trauma responses instead of punishing them?

→ What if accountability didn't require a victim to fight for it?

What Comes Next

That's what Trauma-Informed HR is. It's not a framework I invented from theory. It's a response to what I survived and what I've watched others survive inside organizations that were supposed to be modern. Informed. Human-centered. This work is personal. It always has been. I'm sharing this story not because I have it all figured out, but because I believe the way we build organizations matters. The systems we design shape behavior, trust, burnout, and safety...whether we intend them to or not.

If you lead people, design systems, or sit in rooms where decisions are made, I hope you'll consider what it would mean to build differently. There's more to this story. I'll keep sharing it here. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being part of this.