Trauma-informed care and racialised communities: moving from language to practice
“Trauma-informed care” has become part of the everyday language of health and social services. Policies reference it. Training is delivered. Organisations increasingly describe themselves as trauma-informed. But an important question remains: trauma-informed for whom?
A new report from Centre for Mental Health and Coffee Afrik CIC, commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory, finds that people from racialised communities in the UK experience disproportionately high levels of trauma, and that public services often reproduce this trauma rather than alleviate it.
The report invites us to look more closely at what trauma-informed care actually means, particularly at the intersection of racism and mental health.
Trauma is not just individual
Trauma is often described as an emotional response to distressing events. Yet for many racialised communities, trauma is cumulative and structural. Racism, socio-economic exclusion, migration experiences and systemic injustice intersect to create layered forms of harm.
Participants described racism in schools and workplaces, hostile immigration systems, housing discrimination, and experiences of being dismissed or disbelieved by professionals. Some spoke about intergenerational trauma linked to colonial histories and displacement. For others, trauma did not end once they reached safety.
The message is clear: trauma cannot be separated from its social context. When racism is ongoing, trauma is not simply something in the past. In a social and political climate where racial tensions and anti-immigration rhetoric have become increasingly visible, this context cannot be ignored.
The report also highlights how public services can, at times, deepen distress, even retraumatise individuals. Participants described feeling stereotyped, misdiagnosed or unheard within healthcare systems. While professionals demonstrated awareness of trauma, there was inconsistency in how trauma-informed care was implemented across organisations.
As a psychologist working within the NHS, I have seen the growing emphasis on trauma-informed approaches. There is genuine commitment, and important work is underway. The language of trauma-informed care is present in policy documents and service development conversations.
Yet there can sometimes be a gap between trauma-informed language and trauma-informed culture. Embedding this work requires more than training sessions or revised frameworks. It requires sustained reflection on how racism and bias may operate within our systems, and accountability for addressing inequities in access and outcomes. Without explicitly engaging with structural inequality, trauma-informed care risks remaining incomplete.
The report makes a compelling case that trauma-informed practice must be explicitly anti-racist if it is to be meaningful.
From policy to practice
A key conclusion is that one-size-fits-all approaches are insufficient. Trauma among racialised communities is shaped by intersecting identities - race, gender, sexuality, faith, neurodiversity and migration status.
Culturally responsive trauma-informed care therefore requires:
a human rights perspective
cultural humility
recognition of community strengths
genuine collaboration with those who use services.
At Careif, we recently delivered a trauma-informed workshop in Lahore, Pakistan, for mental health professionals grounded in these principles. We explored how trauma is shaped by cultural narratives, spiritual frameworks and political histories, and how practitioners must work with cultural context rather than around it.
Trauma-informed care cannot reduce people to diagnoses or checklists. It must honour lived experience and recognise the resilience within communities.
This aligns closely with the report’s call for culturally grounded, anti-racist practice.
Listening as leadership
The report outlines structural recommendations, including full implementation of the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF), stronger accountability and sustained investment in community-led organisations.
But beyond policy reform, one theme stands out: listening.
Listening without defensiveness
Listening to lived experience as expertise
Listening with humility rather than assumption
This report represents an important step in that direction. It brings clarity, accountability and lived experience into a conversation that must continue to evolve. The real work now lies in how we carry its recommendations forward - with humility, partnership and sustained commitment.
