This paper will provide an overview of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), as well as how opioid misuse is both associated with past trauma in the home and community and correlated with increased risk of future poor health and social outcomes. It will also provide practical strategies to implement a trauma-informed response that fosters resilience and supports families impacted by opioid misuse.

On May 25th, 2023, the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative held the fifth annual Trauma-Informed Awareness Day: Building a Healing-Centered Future. The day featured a full lineup of events including a keynote address by Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton and interactive discussions highlighting solutions from the community for a healing-centered Illinois. Over 300 partners, advocates, policymakers, and community members from across Illinois gathered that day. Read the full report from the day's discussions, breakout sessions, and more here.

In this toolkit, you will find some ways you and your organization can support a trauma-informed Illinois. While this toolkit was developed for Illinois' inaugural Trauma-Informed Awareness Day on Wednesday, May 15, we hope that these resources and ideas will be helpful for others in the field.

Intended for hospital and health sector leaders, this report provides key background information about the science behind trauma-informed care; how provider and staff knowledge about trauma can improve patient health outcomes; the economics of trauma-informed care; and new understanding of the impact of secondary trauma on provider burnout.

Learn how health departments across the country and in Illinois are engaging in trauma-informed work. Brenda Bannor of Millennia Consulting presenta the results of the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative’s recent environmental scan of health departments doing this work nationally. The webinar concludes with a panel discussion featuring local health departments to hear successes and lessons learned from implementation.

This resource guide is designed to provide you with tools and strategies to establish and grow a Trauma-Informed Workgroup at your organization. It also includes resources on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), trauma, and trauma-informed care to share with each other and your organization as a whole. This guide will assist you in leading a workgroup that advocates for and implements trauma-informed practices that create safer, more supportive, and healing-centered environments.

Our Trauma-Informed Policymaking Tool outlines a policy approach to preventing and healing from trauma. The two-page Tool defines trauma-informed principles and describe their application to both the process of policymaking and its outcome.

Organizations, like people, are susceptible to negative effects of trauma, including fragmentation, numbing, reactivity and impaired relationships. These effects in turn prevent staff from responding effectively to each other and to the people they serve. In this webinar, Dr. Kenneth Epstein of the San Francisco Department of Public Health outlines the Trauma-Informed Systems Initiative (TISI) which is working to make SFDPH a more trauma-informed, safe, and supportive work environment and system of care.

This webinar aimed at health department staff features presentations on current practices from Illinois health departments including Chicago and Winnebago County.

Heartland Alliance's Social Impact Center 2017 Poverty Report explores the relationship between poverty, violence, and trauma and, through its findings, argues that addressing Illinois’s violence crisis must involve investing in reducing poverty and treating trauma. Webinar speakers Katie Buitrago and Samantha Tuttle of the Social Impact Center uplift data related to trauma as well as present policy recommendations based on the report.