Building a trauma-informed community of practice

Abstract

This paper calls for a global community of practice to support people to enact trauma-informed practice in the archival profession. Building on the literature around archives and affect, decolonising spaces, and centring communities, it proposes trauma-informed practice is implemented in archives, and a community of practice be established to support those doing the work. It recognises the emotional labour of many in the archival field, and furthers conversations held at the Archival Education and Research Institute 2019 where the value of a community of practice was evidenced. The community of practice would bring together communities, academics, researchers, practitioners, volunteers, users, donors, and anyone with an interest in improving archival theory, education and practice to support trauma-informed approaches in archives, and support those undertaking the work. It ends with a call for co-creators of a trauma-informed community of practice.

A Vision for Community, Connection and Reinvestment

“…It is essential for communitybuilding and engagement efforts to be realistic and transparent about new opportunities and to be truthful about what we are offering. 6 Since becoming staffed in 2021, the past two years have been, and continue to be, critically important to build trust between JSC and the community it serves.…”

Relational and person-centred approaches to archival practice and education

“…The last decade has also seen a growing acknowledgement that emotions are an important factor in the use of archives for social justice. This literature includes calls for us to acknowledge the emotional dimensions of archives (Gilliland, 2014), work aimed at building a global community of practice to support archivists who work with difficult records (Laurent and Hart, 2021), and research that investigated the emotional impact of archival work (Sloan et al, 2019;Regehr et al, 2022). Australian archivists have led the way in developing resources to support archivists emotionally impacted by their work.…”

“…Laurent and Hart (2018) appealed for a community of care to support archivists experiencing vicarious trauma. More recently Laurent and Hart (2021) urged archivists to develop a global community of practice involving "academics, practitioners and other interested parties, to share resources, skills, learnings and ideas to improve the implementation of trauma-informed approaches and ensure everyone is supported while doing this often difficult and challenging work" (p. 27). The Australian Society of Archivists developed the first online course to prepare archivists who may be emotionally impacted by their work (Laurent & Wright, 2020).…”

“…Person-centred archival practice foregrounds the "perspectives of individuals and communities, especially those that have historically been harmed by archival work " (p. 11). A person-centred archival approach can also be traced to calls to better understand and consider the needs of archival users (Rhee 2015, Duff 2002) and applications of trauma-informed approaches to archival practice which focus on the needs of archivists, recordkeepers and creators and users of archives (Laurent & Hart 2021). It is not our intention in this paper to examine whether or not person-centred approaches represent a fifth emerging paradigm, but rather to analyse what person-centred approaches might comprise or how they might be better understood.…”

“…Person-centred approaches to archival science shifts the discussion from a focus on records to a focus on "the people that create, keep, use and/or are represented in records." A person-centred archival approach can also be traced to calls to better understand and consider the needs of archival users (Rhee 2015, Duff 2002 and applications of trauma-informed approaches to recordkeeping which focus on the needs of archivists, recordkeepers and creators and users of archives (Laurent & Hart 2021). This paper argues that a person-centred approach to archival theory and practice must acknowledge the deep emotional impact of working with records and the people whose lives are captured in records and who create and use archives.…”