Trauma-Informed Librarianship 101: A Resource List
Trauma-Informed Librarianship 101: A Resource List
Here are a few of my favorite resources, tools, and readings for building, supporting, and sustaining a trauma-informed librarianship practice.
This post is a primer on some of my favorite tools, resources, and readings that have shaped, supported, and sustained my trauma-informed librarianship work and practices.
This list is transdisciplinary, drawing from fields like harm reduction, peer support, disability justice, community care, boundary work, trauma healing, critical suicidology, and more.
Add your recommendations in the comments.
Trauma-informed librarianship readings
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein.
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown.
A Trauma-Informed Approach to Library Services by Rebecca Tolley.
Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom to Your Body by Peter A. Levine.
The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice by Staci K. Haines.
Boundaries and Protection: Honoring Self, Honoring Others by Pixie Lighthorse.
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem.
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky.
”Care webs: experiments in creating collective access” by leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha.
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman.
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movemen edited by Ejeris Dixon and leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha.
”Communities of care, organizations for liberation” by Naya Maya.
Trauma-informed librarianship tools and resources
peer support space
Peer Support Space is a peer-led organization where “we use our lived experience to support and hold space for one another as we navigate our unique journeys with life struggles, mental illness &/or substance misuse challenges, neurodivergence, disability, grief, trauma, or other obstacles to mental wellness. We use, & help others use, the power of lived experience to support, educate, and guide one another while providing additional, free options for mental wellness.”
Some of their offerings include supportive daily communal gatherings, as well as community specific gatherings which “are peer-led support groups that are non-clinical and led by a collective of individuals with lived experience in the group's topic or community. Each community gathering is unique to the population it serves and is created in a peer-led collaborative group process. There is no pressure to share to attend. We welcome anyone, anywhere that is 18+.”
suicide intervention (for weirdos, freaks, & queers)
Carly Boyce has a free webinar and zine on suicide intervention which serve as “a resource with peer and community-based strategies for supporting folks in our lives who might be suicidal, as well as examining the beliefs and structures that keep suicide conversations under wraps.”
PS: Want this workshop presented to your group? Contact Carly to discuss rates and possibilities.
trauma-Informed librarianship: creating communities of care with karina hagelin (me!) for the network of the national library of medicine (region 6)
I had such a great time leading this webinar for the Network of the National Library of Medicine.
This workshop introduces trauma-informed librarianship (TIL) as a vital practice that invites us to be intentional and deliberate about creating cultural shifts in how we approach our work to move towards healing, for our patrons, for each other, and for ourselves. I discuss:
What trauma is and how it impacts both individuals and communities
The principles and goals of trauma-informed librarianship
How we can apply this lens to library services in actionable ways to better support survivors in our libraries
How we can take care of ourselves too, through 10 concrete self-care practices
everything is awful and i’m not okay: questions to ask before giving up
A list of questions to ask yourself when you’re struggling, with actionable self-care tasks to support you in feeling a little better.
As a survivor with C-PTSD, I refer to this regularly when I’m struggling. I love having a printed copy on my wall as a reminder.
fireweed collective
Fireweed Collective (formerly the Icarus Project) offers mental health education and mutual aid through a Healing Justice lens.
They “support the emotional wellness of all people and center the needs of those most marginalized by our society,” seeking to “disrupt the harm of systems of abuse and oppression, often reproduced by the mental health system.”
Resources available include support groups, a crisis toolkit, webinars + workshops, and more.
Self-Love Rainbow
Self-Love Rainbow is a fabulous site that encourages you to love yourself and practice self-care. Their blog features articles on a variety of mental health topics, accompanied by the author’s signature cute, colorful, and informative illustrations. In addition to offering free downloadable e-books and worksheets, Self-Love Rainbow has a Patreon and Etsy shop.
national queer and trans therapists of color network
The National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network has lots of supportive resources available, including
QTPoC Mental Health Practitioner Directory: Interactive resource to connect QTPoC to QTPoC practitioners
Mental Health Fund: Supplemental financial assistance for QTPoC who can’t afford psychotherapy
surviving the apocalypse together: a mutual aid safety and wellness planning template for covid-19
Elliot Fukui, the facilitator, organizer, & trainer behind Mad Queer, has created this amazing workbook for mapping out safety and wellness strategies during COVID-19.
Elliot has also generously compiled some mad survival tools on his website.
trans lifeline (877-565-8860)
Trans Lifeline is a grassroots hotline and non-profit organization offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis – for the trans community, by the trans community, connecting trans people to the community support and resources we need to survive and thrive.
road map to trauma-informed care
An interactive road map to trauma-informed care which “offers phases to the implementation process. Each phase contains a marker(s) along the road that is integral to implementing that phase. When clicking on the road or phase sign, a hover box provides a description of that phase and leads you to the steps, actions, and resources that are helpful for implementation.”
trauma lens exercise: reframing challenging behavior through a trauma lens
This worksheet features a table with examples of common challenging behaviors from services users with what a trauma-informed response DOES NOT look like and an accompanying trauma-informed educational statement, including trauma-informed intervention strategies for such interactions.
trauma informed care in the classroom: a resource guide for educators in higher learning
This worksheet features tips for educators who want to incorporate the principles of trauma-informed care in their classrooms.
you feel like sh**: a self-care game
A self-care game that “guides you through a series of questions that help you practice self care” that is “especially useful for people who struggle with self care, executive dysfunction, and/or reading internal signals. it’s designed to take as much of the weight off of you as possible, so each decision is very easy and doesn't require much judgment.”
