TeamTech: 30 Years of Trauma-Informed Practices

For more than 30 years, TeamTech has partnered with organizations, primarily nonprofit and governmental, to help grow their capacity and leadership strength.

From the very beginning, we’ve done this through strategic planning and implementation – top to bottom – using all voices. For the past 25 years, we’ve utilized our innovative leadership curriculum, Everyone A Leader®, which teaches how to lead at all levels in a facilitative style grounded in trauma-informed principles.

Most of the organizations we work with serve the most vulnerable individuals in our communities who have often experienced trauma. We have learned that the people who work to help these individuals can and do experience secondary trauma and burnout.

In 2017, we added a service line to TeamTech that brings the neuroscience of trauma to the forefront, recognizing trauma as the root cause of so many of the societal challenges that touch those served by the organizations we serve. Challenges like substance use, mental health issues, and violence. Our service line, Remarkably Resilient®, strives to highlight the impact of trauma while providing insights on healing and strengthening resilience.

I first encountered “root cause analysis” while interning with Dr. W. Edwards Deming in the 1990s. A common problem-solving technique today, root cause analysis back then was a pioneering concept of systemic improvement theory, and we use it to move through challenges in our TeamTech work.

In 2017, I recognized that trauma was the root cause of my sisters and my lived experiences from our traumatic childhood. Through the learnings from the neuroscience of trauma, we identified the Why of so many of our chronic health conditions and the How – how had we been able to break the multi-generational cycle of abuse, incest and neglect in our family. This acknowledgement led to the three of us writing our journeys of resilience in our book, Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters, available on Amazon.

Our book led us to creating Remarkably Resilient, a series of workshops, keynote addresses, and presentations anchored in our lived experiences and rooted in the neuroscience of trauma. In our book and workshops, we share four Calls to Action for communities to help individuals impacted by trauma. One of our Calls to Action is echoed by the neuroscience of trauma community: Teach Regulation to Everyone! Our new Remarkably Resilient Together™ community awareness campaign does just that.

All three of our service lines: TeamTech, Remarkably Resilient, and Remarkably Resilient Together, are trauma-informed. All three work together to help individuals, organizations, and communities work to overcome the damage done by trauma, and move forward in a healthier, more productive way.

A recent Gallup poll identified employee wellbeing efforts as imperative to today’s workplace. Wellbeing starts with the individual, and moves through families, neighborhoods, communities, workplaces, and on and on.

TeamTech has always been focused on this aspect of wellbeing, partnering with your organization to serve the most vulnerable in our communities. As we work to constantly improve, reinvent, and innovate, this concept stays with us through all of our services and expertise:

● Capacity building
● Strategic planning
● Leadership development at all levels

Thank you for the important work that you do. We are proud to serve our clients and help them grow using trauma-informed practices and approaches.

-Kathleen Harnish McKune