Dr. Sandra Bloom
Dr. Sandra L. Bloom is a Board-Certified psychiatrist, graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and currently Associate Professor, Health Management and Policy at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University. From 1980-2001, Dr. Bloom served as Founder and Executive Director of the Sanctuary programs, inpatient psychiatric programs for the treatment of trauma-related emotional disorders and during those years was also President of the Alliance for Creative Development, a multidisciplinary outpatient practice group. Dr. Bloom is recognized nationally and internationally as the founder of the Sanctuary Model. Between 2005 and 2016 over 350 social service, juvenile justice and mental health organizations were trained in the Sanctuary Model.
The Sanctuary Model is a non-hierarchical, highly participatory, “trauma-informed and evidence-supported” operating system for human services organizations, which helps them function in a humane, democratic and socially responsible manner and thereby provide effective treatment for clients in a clinical setting.
Dr. Bloom is a Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and author or co-author of a series of books on trauma-informed care: Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies published in 1997 with a second edition in 2013; Destroying Sanctuary: The Crisis in Human Delivery Service Systems published by Oxford University Press in 2010 and Restoring Sanctuary: A New Operating System for Trauma-Informed Systems of Care, published by Oxford University Press in 2013. She is currently co-chairing a new national organization, CTIPP – The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice whose goal is to advocate for public policies and programs at the federal, state, local and tribal levels that incorporate up-to-date scientific findings regarding the relationship between trauma across the lifespan and many social and health problems (http://ctipp.org). Since 2012, Dr. Bloom has also served as served as Co-chair for the Philadelphia ACEs Task Force . Dr. Bloom’s website is www.sanctuaryweb.com and her many publications can be downloaded from that site.
TITLE: WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT TRAUMA?
Sometimes it seems as if “trauma” is everywhere. Certainly social service delivery systems now are supposed to become “trauma-informed” but is this just another fad? Why is it such a big deal and what does it really mean? In this keynote, Dr. Sandra Bloom, one of the pioneers of the field and the founder of the Sanctuary Model, will endeavor to explain just why this is such a critical issue and how important it is that helpers become not only trauma-informed but go even further and become “trauma-responsive”.
