In 2017, Exodus Transitional Community (ETC) was funded by CJII to develop the Center for Trauma Innovation (CTI). The CTI aims to serve participants who have experienced chronic trauma related, but not limited, to incarceration, poverty, racism, and experiencing/witnessing community violence. It does so through three core prongs: direct services, training and technical assistance, and a learning community.

The CTI partnered with the Center for Complex Trauma (CCT) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai evaluate the center’s impact, employing a community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework to ensure participant perspectives were at the heart of the analysis. This research brief explores how participants in the CTI have learned to navigate their healing processes and cope with trauma, emphasizing the impact of key factors—like gender, race, ethnicity, and time spent in the program—that influence these journeys.

This analysis provides a deeper understanding of participants’ healing experiences and offers actionable insights to improve trauma recovery programs. It identifies characteristics critical to successful healing journeys, setting the stage for more nuanced, data-driven approaches to trauma-informed care.

To learn more about what the survey aimed to capture and see some of the results, check out our blog.

Download the memo.

As part of this partnership, the CCT produced a process evaluation as well as a series of briefs that explore these core prongs in theory, how they were put into practice by the CTI, and their impact on participants and the community. The first memo explores the role of learning communities in this evaluation. In the second memo, the focus shifts to the use of data and collaboration to inform future program recommendations. The above memo is the third.