Department for Work and Pensions: Mental Health

The Trauma Informed Approach recognises the pervasive impacts that trauma may have on an individual’s life; these impacts can span social, emotional, physiological, neurological and spiritual functioning. The impacts of trauma can make interacting with services a difficult and potentially retraumatising experience, the trauma informed approach is a way of trying to avoid and mitigate this risk whilst creating a safe and empowering environment for all colleagues and customers. The approach has six core pillars: safety, trustworthiness, choice, empowerment, collaboration and cultural consideration (Office for Health Improvements and Disparities, 2022).

The DWP has a dedicated Trauma Informed Approach Integration Programme and we are at the start of an ambitious journey. Our integration programme applies the six core pillars of the approach within the framework of, our colleagues, our customers, our culture and the context of our interactions (whether that is physical, telephony, digital or postal). The design of the programme has been informed by close working with operational teams across the department and is being tested in our Trauma Informed ‘Pulse points’ and innovation hubs. Alongside internal and external experts, we have established an eight-stage roadmap for implementation across the DWP with a core focus on co-production with colleagues, customers and stakeholders. We anticipate we will have completed the eight stages of design by 2030, making trauma informed approaches fundamental to our business-as-usual approach.