Mission Statement
Between Trust and Trauma exists because trauma-informed care is more than language — it’s a paradigm shift the mental health field refuses to complete. It is past time.
We are survivors and peers who have lived the gap between what trauma-informed care promises and what it delivers when power, control, and ego still drive the system. We learned the hard way: institutions mastered the vocabulary without internalizing the values.
Our Mission: Mutual Aid and Relentless Accountability.
We support one another as peers. We document violations, name institutional harm, and hold providers accountable when they weaponize trauma-informed language while perpetuating the same damage. We don’t accept trauma-informed care as a checklist or a marketing claim. We demand it be embedded in every policy, every interaction, every power dynamic
When systems resist, we build pressure from the outside through survivor voices they can’t ignore.
Vision Statement
A Mental Health System where every provider in the United States operates from genuine trauma-informed principles – not just in language but in action, policy and structure.
Where survivor voices have power, not pathology labels.
Where providers who cause harm face real consequences, not protection from institutions.
Where Trauma Informed means actual safety, choice and collaboration – not control disguised in therapeutic language.
Where survivors stand together and force the paradigm shift the system refuses to make on its own.
We envision a system where survivors are believed, providers are held accountable and trauma informed care is lived – not marketed.
How We Work
Between Trust and Trauma operates through public documentation, complaint navigation, and peer solidarity. We publish documented accounts of institutional harm, name specific providers and organizations when warranted, and build a public record that oversight bodies and communities can’t easily ignore. We help survivors understand their rights and options within complaint processes. And we create space for survivors to find each other — because isolation is one of the primary tools institutions use to protect themselves from accountability.
We are not a formal nonprofit and we accept no funding that compromises our independence. We answer to survivors, not systems.
Learn More
Learn more about who we are and what we stand for:
About Malene — the story behind BTAT and why this work exists
Guiding Principles — the values and commitments that shape everything we do
Contribute — how you can support this work
Between Trust and Trauma 