New book chapter applies trauma-informed principles to health services evaluation practice
A book chapter authored by CCHE’s Monika Sanchez and Lisa Schafer highlights the importance of integrating trauma-informed approaches into evaluation of health services to avoid re-traumatization and support healing among evaluation participants.
What is trauma-informed evaluation practice?
There is growing recognition of how trauma affects health and wellbeing. To support the populations they serve, some public health and healthcare organizations are introducing trauma-informed approaches. In CCHE’s experience, embedding trauma-informed approaches into evaluation practice can benefit evaluation generally but 
In the book chapter, Healing practices: Evaluating trauma-informed health services, the authors discuss and provide examples for how to apply SAHMSA’s six trauma-informed principles to the evaluation of trauma-informed programs. A high-level, visual summary of how trauma-informed practices can be incorporated into different phases of evaluation is available on our website.
Considerations
Evaluating trauma-informed programs is an emerging field. Traditional evaluation methods can unintentionally perpetuate trauma, especially when they are top-down, punitive, or fail to share results with participants. Intentionally using the principles of trauma-informed care as a guide can ensure safety and respect for participants, as well as increase the quality of the data collected and the utility of the evaluation results overall.
For more information
Purchase the chapter Access the visual summary
Prepared by the Center for Community Health and Evaluation, for questions or to learn more about trauma-informed evaluation, contact Monika Sanchez (monika.a.sanchez@kp.org) or Lisa Schafer (lisa.m.schafer@kp.org)