We are making slow and steady progress in our efforts to promote trauma-informed care as policymakers in Virginia become more aware of trauma-informed policy and practices. We asked the House and Senate to include language in their budgets to create a workgroup to begin to define trauma-informed practices across state agencies.
We had also hoped that the budgets would include funding for small innovation grants to continue support for innovative practices at the local level. While the House and Senate budgets did not include either of these recommendations specifically, they did include some language and recommendations that will keep the conversation going around trauma-informed policy and practice.
The House budget includes the following proposals:
This recommendation is a good first step to promote trauma-informed policy, however, we believe two essential elements are missing: First, trauma-informed practices should align across many state agencies (Department of Education, Department of Social Services, and Department of Juvenile Justice). Second, trauma-informed policy and practice should not be limited to services and interventions, but should also apply to approaches—policies and procedures, training requirements, and professional competencies. We support this workgroup and ask for a broadening of its scope to incorporate these additional elements.
The Senate budget includes a different take:
Read more about other mental health budget proposals on our mental health blog.
These recommendations signal that our legislature wants to move forward with additional trauma-informed policies. We are heartened to see recommendations that touch on the Office of Children’s Services, education, and health care. We ask our legislators to move these recommendations forward in a coordinated direction, rather than in silos.
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