What is the Sanctuary Model?
The Sanctuary Model is a blueprint for clinical and organizational change which, at its core, promotes safety and recovery from adversity through the active creation of a trauma-informed community. A recognition that trauma is pervasive in the experience of human beings forms the basis for the Sanctuary Model’s focus, not only on the people who seek treatment, but equally on the people and systems who provide that treatment.
Originating in the Philadelphia area, the Sanctuary Model was created by a team of clinicians working in a small inpatient hospital unit. This team, led by Dr. Sandra Bloom, combined their clinical knowledge with their own experiences to create a trauma-informed program they called Sanctuary.
In an effort to create safe and healing environments for children, families and adults who have experienced chronic stress and adversity, the Sanctuary Model is being used across a wide range of settings, including residential treatment, juvenile justice, drug and alcohol treatment, school and community-based programs, and domestic violence and homeless shelters.
What Adopting the Sanctuary Model Means for Townhall II
We have always understood that traumatic experiences can lead to other issues that, in turn, lead people through the doors at Townhall II. Our research shows that 95 percent of our clients have experienced trauma. In fact, all of us will endure trauma at some point in our lives. Sometimes we have trouble dealing with these traumatic events by ourselves. This is where Townhall II can help.
By requiring trauma education for the entire staff at Townhall II, not just our counselors, we are creating a community that understands the underpinnings of what is causing the issues our clients are facing.
Our trauma-informed community can then provide better, compassionate care for our clients from the ground up.
The Seven Sanctuary Commitments
The set of values that Sanctuary outlines as a way to lead individuals and organizations away from trauma-reactive behaviors are the Seven Sanctuary Commitments (hyperlink: https://www.thesanctuaryinstitute.org/about-us/the-sanctuary-model/). As a Sanctuary organization we are committed to:
- Nonviolence – building and modeling safety skills.
- Emotional Intelligence – teaching and modeling affect management skills.
- Inquiry and Social Learning – building and modeling cognitive skills.
- Democracy – creating and modeling civic skills of self-control, self-discipline and administration of healthy authority.
- Open Communication – overcoming barriers to healthy communication, reducing acting out, enhancing self-protective and self-correcting skills and teaching healthy boundaries.
- Social Responsibility – rebuilding social connection skills and establishing healthy attachment relationships.
- Growth and Change – restoring hope, meaning and purpose.
Learn More About the Sanctuary Model
Visit the Sanctuary Institute’s website at thesanctuaryinstitute.org to learn more about the trauma-informed model for change.
