A welcoming practice, grounded in care.
The Healing Initiatives was founded by an educator and certified trauma-informed practitioner. Every program is built on five pillars that keep our work honest, safe, and welcoming for people of all ages — with trauma-informed care as part of the approach, not the whole story.
Shantelle L. Fuller, M.Ed.
Shantelle founded The Healing Initiatives to hold the space she couldn't find as a young educator: one where the arts and trauma-informed care sit at the same table, and where children, families, and adults can be met exactly where they are.
As a certified trauma-informed practitioner and Master of Education, she designs every residency, class, and workshop around clinical best practice — filtered through the tenderness of a working artist. Her conviction: healing doesn't require perfect words. It requires a safe room, honest materials, and someone who will not look away.
"Healing begins with naming what needs tending — a trauma, a season of stress, a place of misalignment, or simply a longing to feel whole again. Our job is to build the room where that becomes possible."
The 5 pillars of trauma-informed care.
Not a checklist — a way of being with people. These pillars shape how every THI facilitator holds a room, from a first-grade classroom to a corporate offsite.
- 01
Safety
Every space we hold — studio, classroom, retreat — is designed for physical and emotional safety first. Predictability, clear boundaries, and consent aren't afterthoughts. They're the foundation.
- 02
Trustworthiness & Transparency
We do what we say we'll do. Program expectations, decisions, and outcomes are shared openly with participants, partners, and communities — because trust is built one honest interaction at a time.
- 03
Choice
You choose the medium, the depth, the pace. Trauma robs people of agency; our practice returns it. There is always a way to opt out, opt in differently, or invite something new.
- 04
Collaboration
Healing is not something done to you — it's co-created. Facilitators, participants, families, and community partners share power over how programming unfolds.
- 05
Empowerment
We build on strengths, not deficits. Programs surface each person's existing capacity to create, to speak, to move — and reinforce it as the engine of lasting change.
- In practice
See the pillars at work.
Join a class, book a session, or partner with us on a residency — every offering is built on this foundation.
Adapted from SAMHSA's Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach and refined through Shantelle's classroom, studio, and community practice.