First cohort of state employees certified in trauma-informed care

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Gov. Josh Green and other leaders gathered at the state capitol Wednesday morning to celebrate a milestone in wellness.

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They honored the first cohort of state employees to earn Hawaii’s certification in trauma-informed care.

The program was created as part of the governor’s 2024 executive order committing Hawaii to becoming a trauma-informed state.

Tia Roberts Hartsock serves as the director of the Office of Wellness and Resilience for the state of Hawaii.

“It’s a way for our state departments to help develop more skills on how to engage with people that have trauma histories, how to mitigate the impacts of trauma, how to address secondary Traumatic stress, how to understand how we work better with people who have severe trauma histories,” Hartsock said.

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The inaugural class of graduates have completed training through the state’s Office of Wellness and Resilience to learn how to better understand and support those with serious trauma histories and help them succeed in the workplace.

According to Hartsock, the training is meant for “state employees to build their skill set to be able to work better with people that have trauma histories and to help people understand how trauma shows up in the workplace, help managers, supervisors, administrators, better equipped people to know when those yellow flags go up for people in the workplace, so that we can help manage stress.“

Organizers say the training will eventually expand to interactions outside the office.

“Also as that relates and informs how we engage with other people in receiving social support services in our systems to help them do that better,” Hartsock said.

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