What does it mean to lead through a trauma-responsive lens — and why does it matter across legal systems, government, and academia? For answers, host Bridgette Stumpf sits down with Anna Boucher, associate professor of Public Policy and Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney, solicitor, and global expert on migration, labor rights, and systems-level inequality. Anna works at the intersection of law, public policy, and comparative politics, surfacing what Bridgette describes as "quieter, often hidden forms of harm that live inside institutions.”

Anna maps three distinct ways that trauma surfaces in public institutions: through institutional responses (or non-responses) to traumatic events, through dehumanizing bureaucratic processes and leadership styles, and through the inherently re-traumatizing nature of adversarial legal systems. She discusses her upcoming fellowship with the Australian and New Zealand School of Government, where she will explore how senior executive leadership within the Australian Public Service can better understand trauma and protect staff from vicarious trauma. Anna also addresses how professional language itself can function as a form of compassion fatigue, where people dissociate from those they serve. “Professional language – whether it's policy jargon, legalese, or academic language – can be a form of separation from the person who we see as traumatized,” she observes, adding that such separation can be an attempt by the leader to insulate themself from the other person’s trauma. But that attempt always fails: “That is a fallacy, because all of us in our life will experience some form of trauma, even if it is not of the magnitude of our clients.” Tune in for her insights about how “new” ways of thinking about trauma in leadership models are actually very old and for her suggestion of a book that speaks to the deep, repeated nature of complex or developmental childhood trauma.

☑️ Anna Boucher | LinkedIn

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ TraumaTies Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

The word “inheritance” brings to mind images of a financial legacy, but Reesie Sims suggests another meaning: an inheritance of trauma that ancestors may have left behind. The director of therapeutic services at Volare, Reesie explains why she considers a client’s emotional inheritances in this conversation with hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg. “The tree remembers what the ax forgets,” she says. “Trauma either begins a story in a person, or it continues a story in a person.”

Traumatic “inheritances” can lie deep in a person’s genetic make-up, she says: “All of your pregnant grandma's experiences, including those that could have been traumatic, undoubtedly had an impact and influence on the expression of genes that were developed for you, for your mom, and for you in the womb.” She encourages clients to investigate their family's emotional history to identify whose trauma stories they might be carrying. “I think this type of self-awareness will encourage self-betterment, and it allows you to become an active writer in your trauma story. And I think that can lead to a feeling of agency.”

Reesie also discusses emerging trauma treatment approaches like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, and the flash technique. Tune in for her insights about why such modalities should always be done with skilled supervision and why she’s always thinking about a client’s culture when developing different tools.

☑️ Reesie Sims

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ TraumaTies Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

Healing from trauma doesn’t happen only in clinical spaces. Digital spaces can also be a lifeline, as Ila Kumar explains in this visit with hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg. A PhD candidate and research assistant in the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, Ila focuses her scholarship on non-traditional pathways that support mental health care, particularly for youth in foster care systems. “I don't necessarily see myself as someone who believes that these digital spaces will be sites of healing,” Ila says. “But I feel that the only way to try to get to that goal of digital spaces that are healing is to do so in a way that considers holistic wellbeing and centers the needs, voices, and context of those who are most impacted.”

In this conversation, Ila shares her approaches to helping vulnerable kids as they navigate the foster care system. As a technology designer, she explains that centering youth voice “leads to technologies that more effectively take youth's needs, barriers, cultures concerns into account and results in technologies that are definitely more impactful, engaging, and accessible.” And she stresses the balance between leveraging tools that carry potential risks – such as augmented reality platforms that claim to make lives easier – and tools that support youth self-expression, connectedness with others, and development of their identity.

☑️ Ila Kumar | LinkedIn

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ TraumaTies Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

For Dr. Jaz Robbins, the nervous system is “the soapbox that I live, die on, breathe in.” In this conversation with hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg, Dr. Jaz explains why. “In the work that I do with my patients in therapy, I'm aiming to balance their nervous system as opposed to targeting a single symptom, sleep or something, because I know that when the nervous system is balanced, all of those other symptoms will dissipate,” she says.

A board-certified holistic nutritionist, professor, author – and a trauma survivor – Dr. Jaz describes her “traffic light” framework for understanding different states in the nervous system: green when the body is in a state of “rest and digest”; yellow when the body is in “fight or flight”; and red when the body has been in yellow for too long and is now “zapped of resources.” She offers another metaphor as well, comparing self-maintenance to changing the oil in your car. “We need to be doing things for ourselves so that our ‘Check Engine’ light doesn't come on.”

What kind of things? Tune in as she shares practical tools that she suggests for her patients, such as keeping food mood journals and identifying personal "green light" activities for daily self-maintenance.

☑️ Dr. Jaz Robbins | LinkedIn

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ TraumaTies Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

As “TraumaTies” launches its fourth season, hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg reflect on Volare’s expansion over the past year and preview what listeners can look forward to in the year ahead. This season is about “taking and looking at the ways that people take old pain and create something new from it,” Lindsey says.

Volare’s milestones include launching its Survivors’ Rights Watch Project, a program where volunteers can monitor judges and prosecutors in D.C. courts for compliance with the Federal Crime Victims Rights Act. Volare has also formed a partnership with its largest corporation yet, with over 70,000 employees, to bring trauma-informed knowledge to the workforce. And it received the UNA-NCA Community Human Rights Award – “recognition that reflects the courage, clarity, and commitment shared by our staff board and partners,” Lindsey says. Meanwhile, “TraumaTies” was honored with a Purple Ribbon Award for outstanding podcast that addresses issues related to domestic violence.

In season four, “TraumaTies” will focus on new practices, narratives, and visions for individuals and communities. “We're going to be exploring the champions of change, maybe people who practice reshaping how we understand trauma, healing, resiliency, and really unique ways,” Bridgette explains. Guests will include a licensed psychologist who bridges mind-body medicine with expressive arts; an associate professor who examines how systems create conditions of trauma, especially for migrants and communities navigating structural power imbalance; and a researcher whose work focuses on centered frameworks, particularly with youth in foster care.

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ TraumaTies Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

In this season finale, hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg are joined by Executive Assistant Christina Hadad to reflect on Season Three's exploration of trauma-informed storytelling as a resilience tool. They discuss key insights from conversations with guests including Sandy Hook teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis, Columbine survivor Missy Mendo, and trauma-informed architect Todd Medd. Recurring themes emerge: the power of connection as an antidote to trauma, finding purpose through helping others, and the importance of creating moments of joy amid suffering. The hosts preview Season Four, where they will explore neuroscience and emerging trauma treatment modalities while emphasizing how ethical storytelling builds resilience and creates trauma-responsive communities.

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn 

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

Hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg welcome Todd Medd, an expert in healthcare and mental health architecture. Todd shares his journey into the field of trauma-informed design, beginning with his work on a pediatric facility focused on trauma-informed design and neurodivergent challenges. As he explains, trauma-informed design leverages features like lighting, temperature regulation, wayfinding, and moments of joy. Todd also discusses the 4-6-3 Foundation, which he and his wife established to prevent suicide and reduce the stigma of mental health.

☑️ Todd Medd | LinkedIn

☑️ JLG-Healthcare Practice Studio on LinkedIn | X | Facebook | Instagram

☑️ 4-6-3 Foundation

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn 

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

Missy Mendo uses these two Latin words to describe herself: ama odi. “It means I love what I do to help other people, but I hate what I do because it exists,” she explains to hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg.

At 14 years old, Missy was a freshman at Columbine High School School during the 1999 mass shooting. Since then, she has dedicated herself to supporting others as the director of community outreach for The Rebels Project, which supports and connects survivors of mass tragedy and trauma. She discusses the challenges communities face in navigating collective grief, rebuilding, and using their pain to create positive change. She emphasizes the importance of peer support, community resilience, and healing – reminding listeners that a timeline for grief is unique to each individual survivor. 

☑️ Missy Mendo | LinkedIn | The Rebels Project

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn 

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

Tanaya Winder and her friends in the indigenous community wanted to raise awareness about the estimated 1,181 missing and murdered indigenous women. They asked for donations of 1,181 single-sided earrings to represent each woman. They received 4,000. 

“There's so many metaphors, because sometimes people would send the earrings, and they would need repair. They got damaged in the shipment. Some were broken beyond repair. It's like, wow. Sometimes, we feel like trauma does that to us, too,” Tanaya tells hosts Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg. 

A member of the Duckwater Shoshone Nation, Tanaya is an author, singer, motivational speaker, and teaching artist who founded Dream Warriors Management in 2015. Tune in for her insights about honoring her culture and – as with the earring project, which became a public artwork – applying art to strengthen resiliency.

☑️ Tanaya Winder | LinkedIn | X | Dream Warriors Management   

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn 

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

December 14, 2012, will always be part of Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis. But, in the years since that tragic day, she’s refused to let it define her. And she’s worked relentlessly to take back control. 

A teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, Kaitlin saved her first-grade students from a mass shooter. She is now an advocate, author, and storyteller who shares her journey with audiences around the globe. In this visit with hosts Bridgette Stumpf Lindsey Silverberg, Kaitlin discusses her mission of eradicating hate and fostering connections. “Perspective is everything,” she says. “For me, choosing hope is that reminder – even on your hardest, darkest, lowest of days, you can always choose hope.”

Click here for Kaitlin’s book, “Choosing Hope: How I Moved Forward from Life's Darkest Hour,” and here to learn about her nonprofit, Classes 4 Classes.

☑️ Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis | LinkedIn 

☑️ Bridgette Stumpf | LinkedIn

☑️ Lindsey Silverberg | LinkedIn 

☑️ Volare | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

Brought to you by Volare, TraumaTies: Untangling Societal Harm & Healing After Crime is a podcast that creates space and conversations to dissect the structural and systemic knots that keep us from addressing trauma.

Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.