Describe one of the most successful trauma-aware strategies you've used to build trust and gain agreement from a multidisciplinary team.

How did you frame your ideas to ensure psychological safety for the athlete and confidence among the professionals?

One of the most successful trauma-aware strategies I have used to build trust and gain agreement from a multidisciplinary team was anchoring every decision around the athlete’s nervous system safety and long-term autonomy. Rather than entering with a clinical or performance-first agenda, I presented a unified goal: regulation before expectation.

To ensure psychological safety for the athlete, I reframed interventions as “opportunities for regulation” and avoided pathologising behaviour. I introduced the concept of adaptive survival responses rather than labelling actions as “non-compliant” or “oppositional.” This language shift immediately decreased defensiveness among team members and fostered empathy.

To instill confidence among professionals, I use science-backed frameworks to structure our approach, providing clarity through PETTLEP (for performance goals), Polyvagal Theory (for behavioural decoding), and Gibbs Reflective Cycle (for team processing). I facilitated the meeting with a balance of professional humility and strategic clarity, ensuring each professional’s perspective was acknowledged without allowing clinical hierarchy to dominate.

Instead of trying to convince anyone, I used the “present and propose” model:

• Present: I’d highlight observable patterns tied to dysregulation, not diagnosis.

• Propose: I’d outline 2–3 low-risk interventions with anticipated neurophysiological outcomes, always leaving space for feedback.

This approach positioned me not as “the expert,” but as a performance partner advocating for a shared outcome: a safe, high-functioning young person.

3 Science-Backed Trauma-Informed Strategies I Use

1. Environmental Cue Control (Neuroception-First Design) it is Based on: Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2011) We train others to modulate lighting, seating, entry/exit dynamics, and tone of voice during meetings and sessions. The goal is to shift neuroception from threat to safety, without needing verbal reassurance. When this environmental consistency is in place, we see the young persons physiological signs of regulation improved (e.g., slower breathing, open body posture), allowing cognitive engagement in planning conversations.

2. Micro-Choice Autonomy Mapping this is Based on Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) I embedd micro-choices into the athlete's daily routine, everything from the order of there morning and night time routine including chores but coaches can put these methods into the athletes training drills to preferred cooldown methods. This gives a trauma-impacted athlete a sense of agency, which significantly reduced oppositional behaviour and increased training buy-in. We coach coaches to see resistance not as disobedience, but a biological need for control due to past relational betrayal.

3. Reflective Team Calibration Using a 3-Phase Debrief Cycle this is based on the Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988) adapted with trauma-informed lenses. Post-incident or after strategic shifts, we engage in a structured, non-blaming debrief:

   • What happened? (Facts)

   • How did that feel, for them and for us? (Emotions)

   • What patterns are emerging and what’s needed next? (Plan) This reflection not only strengthens relational trust among professionals, but leads to improves decision-making because everyone involved processes collectively, rather than defaulting to reactive changes.

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