Trauma-Informed Workplace Stress Education
Workplace trauma is a real thing. It can be very covert and passive or be more blatant and become a legal issue. As trauma is an individual experience that is not immediately processed- workplace trauma can and does exist within any kind of workplace. I have served hundreds of employers and have seen it within every sector of business.
As all traumas are systems traumas- part of the work that I do is Systems Change Work. I’m not only a person with a disability and a criminal background- I also am a former Fellow at The Harkin Institute (former Senator Harkin was the co-sponsor of the ADA), Professor at Drake University in the Counseling Program teaching medical systems + systems of society + disability/chronic illness, and a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC) who specializes in dual-sided relationships (employers/systems and individuals/families), as well as a Trauma-Informed Certified Mental Health Integrative Medicine Provider- I always work to BOTH pull folks out of the river AND swim upstream to repair systems that harm.
From my own experiences and serving both individuals with chronic physical/mental illness and disabilities, and working with systems- I have seen firsthand how pervasive trauma is within our workplace culture. Workplace trauma is a disease and the remedy is awareness, education, and a massive cultural shift.
As the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) had its 31st anniversary- I am sharing the ADA’s definition of “disability/” To be protected by the ADA, one must have a disability, which is defined by the ADA as a” physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.” The ADA does not specifically name all of the impairments that are covered.
90%+ of employees are set to leave their employers this next year- we have to really lean into repairing our workplaces from the top-down, at a cultural level. By doing so, this not only makes workplaces more healing (I believe that work can be therapeutic) but also boosts your bottom-line. Less FMLA and short/long-term disability claims. Increase in employee satisfaction & reduce turnover. And increases your customer’s loyalty as they see you treating marginalized folks with humanity and dignity.
The sad irony of the pandemic and work from home is that many folks with disabilities have been asking to work from home as part of an ADA reasonable accommodation and have been largely left out of the conversation. As leaders were collectively traumatized, our world finally leaned into work from home (for some). Yet so many have had to leave the workforce already because of lack of accommodations in the workforce due to disability, to balance work-life, or for childcare responsibilities. Many who have left because of these traumas, may never return.
Finally, I am an advocate of the social model of disability. Most of our workplace & healthcare systems work from the medical model of disability: meaning that the problem is the person. The social model of disability shows us that it is the environment that creates barriers for the person (the environment is disabling.) Hence we also need to implement Universal Design within all of our systems in order to reduce traumatization. When systems are designed with those most marginalized in mind- everyone wins.
Resources :
Disability Defined under the ADA: https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm#:~:text=To%20be%20protected%20by%20the,as%20having%20such%20an%20impairment.
Job Accommodation Network https://askjan.org/
A to Z Search of Accommodations https://askjan.org/soar.cfm
Find a Vocational Rehabilitation office https://askearn.org/state-vocational-rehabilitation-agencies/
Find a Career One Stop https://www.careeronestop.org/
If your organization would like to be more Trauma-Informed, I am creating a Trauma-Informed, Disability-Inclusive, & Universal Design Training to start my local & virtual roadshow this fall to help repair our workplaces.
Rooting for Workplaces to Heal,
-The Integrative Counselor, Shannon Myers, MS, CRC, CMHIMP