With Gov. Josh Green’s signing of Executive Order 24-01 declaring Hawaii a “trauma-informed state” this week, all state departments are now obligated to work with the Office of Wellness and Resilience to integrate safety, transparency, peer support and other trauma-informed care principles into their workplaces and services. 

What You Need To Know

  • As a first step, researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa are working with OWR to conduct a pair of surveys on health and quality of life

  • One survey, aimed at adult residents of the state, asks for respondents’ thoughts and experiences regarding their neighborhoods, health, housing and disaster preparedness via an online questionnaire that takes an estimated 15 to 20 minutes

  • Another survey focuses on worker wellbeing in state government and will be distributed to employees via their respective departments

  • UH psychology professor and principal investigator Jack Barile said the community research that will drive the effort recognizes that governance often goes “in directions that may or may not reflect everyday people’s lived experience of the day-to-day challenges”

 

“This executive order and survey are just our first actions to become a trauma-informed state,” said Governor Green. “With the results, we will develop better services and programs that support the wellness and resilience of our people, including addressing community traumas we’ve lived through in the past several years, like the pandemic and Maui fires.”  

As a first step, researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa are working with OWR to conduct a pair of surveys on health and quality of life in the state. 

One survey, aimed at adult residents of the state, asks for respondents’ thoughts and experiences regarding their neighborhoods, health, housing and disaster preparedness via an online questionnaire that takes an estimated 15 to 20 minutes. Another focuses on worker wellbeing in state government and will be distributed to employees via their respective departments.

Both research survey studies have been approved by the UH Institutional Review Board and are part of a larger partnership between the Health Policy Initiative housed in CSS and the OWR. 

“We believe in data driven work,” Green said. “I think it’s very important in this field, especially because, as we lead the country with this kind of effort, we want to make sure that it’s effective, and that it’s what people actually need to help improve their lives.”

OWR director Tia Hartsock called Green’s action a “celebration” of individual state departments and community organizations have that have already been performed “healing-centered work” for the last 10 to 15 years.

“Becoming a trauma-informed state will help us alleviate the impacts of adverse childhood experiences known as aces and trauma and build our resilience in our families, communities and our state workforce rooted in trauma informed principles,” she said.

UH psychology professor and principal investigator Jack Barile said the community research that will drive the effort recognizes that governance often goes “in directions that may or may not reflect everyday people’s lived experience of the day-to-day challenges.”

“The point of this survey is to gather your voices, your expectations, the things that you see that are issues and challenges in the community, as well as what are the proposed solutions—how we don’t fix this?” Barile said. “The goal is really to develop a roadmap to success for the state. And this sort of kind of really deep data collection, this process, will allow us to really know that what we’re doing is addressing the issues that are voiced and identified by the people.”