Why does it matter?
TSI supports individuals and practitioners in exploring the intersection of faith and mental health, leveraging faith as a protective factor while addressing maladaptive thinking shaped by doctrinal influence.
Currently, few structured frameworks fully account for both the cultural relevance of spirituality or the prevalence and continued potential for religious harm within integrative care. TSI fills this gap by helping service providers establish and maintain safety when a client brings up a spiritual or religious dimension to treatment, fostering conceptual clarity and increasing sensitivity to doctrine and power dynamics.
Through its approach, TSI centers choice, mutuality, and collaboration in addressing harmful or maladaptive beliefs formed in spiritually unsafe environments, allowing individuals to reclaim and access the full resilience-building potential of faith.
Research Vision & Objectives
-
Validate and refine the TSI framework
-
Pilot psychoeducational and therapeutic interventions
-
Measure outcomes related to trauma, hope, spiritual well-being, and reconciliation
-
Scale development on TSI constructs
-
Publish peer-reviewed conceptual and empirical papers
-
Build culturally responsive and spiritually sensitive interventions
-
Train clinicians, ministries, and wellness organizations
Purpose
The purpose of Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention® is to promote holistic health across service industries by providing a structured framework for establishing safety when navigating doctrine, religious differences, and trauma sustained in spiritually unsafe environments.
This approach supports individuals who want to explore the intersection of faith, lived experience, and mental health. It recognizes that spiritual care, when not grounded in trauma-informed, multi-level practices, can unintentionally reinforce harmful power dynamics. These dynamics often shape belief systems through judgment, coercion, or force rather than through safety, consent, and understanding.
-
What is the Intervention?
The intervention is a reflective process that fosters reconciliation within the belief system and to the knowledge of God as revealed by the Gospel of Grace. It supports individuals in examining beliefs shaped by formative experiences and aligning them with their current faith perspectives in ways that are coherent, consistent, and self-directed.
This process brings awareness to spiritual bypassing within thought patterns and faith practices by intentionally slowing down belief formation. Through inquiry and guided reflection, individuals are encouraged to examine unchallenged assumptions influenced by doctrine and lived experience.
The goal is to cultivate autonomous reflection and curiosity, enabling individuals to develop coherence across all aspects of their belief system and engage in faith-integrated problem solving with greater clarity, safety, and personal agency.
Accreditation & Continuing Education
We are committed to offering high-quality continuing education that is meaningful, practical, and professionally responsible. Our path toward CE Credit Authorization has been shaped by careful review, additional research, and a deep commitment to making this course available in a way that aligns with professional standards.
Our CE Journey
April 21, 2026
We received notice that the course was moved to not approved at this time.
The review noted that portions of the Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention framework appeared to "fall outside the scope of social work practice" and that the course needed clearer connections to research demonstrating effectiveness and outcomes for clients.
February 2025
ASWB ACE prequalification and application process. Since then, we have continued refining the course material, reviewing feedback, and strengthening the research foundation behind the work.
January 20, 2026
Flamingo Trauma Recovery board of directors approves the start of the research project to establish Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention as a conceptual foundation for faith-integrated care in clinical fields, including psychology and medicine.
"'a dimension of holistic care that focuses on the edification of an individual’s soul through spiritual gifts and principles'... falls outside the scope of social work practice"
We Continue to Address the Gap
Faith-integrated support is often difficult to access because spirituality is too often treated as something that falls outside of professional care altogether. In many settings, there is room to acknowledge a client’s adopted doctrine, but not enough room to explore how doctrine may shape harm, identity, meaning, or healing.
There is also limited guidance for professionals who need a framework for navigating spiritual beliefs, spiritual language, and common assumptions about the spirit realm in a way that is both clinically responsible and faith-aware.
Our work helps define trauma-informed spiritual care and ministry for leaders who need a clearer, more thoughtful way to integrate faith, care, and clinical wisdom without losing the integrity of either.
What's Next
We are continuing this work with care, accountability, and a commitment to making sure it is both spiritually meaningful and professionally responsible.
May 11, 2026
We received confirmation that once the research is completed and we are ready to reapply, we may submit a new individual course application without repeating the prequalification application. We were also invited to send the course content in advance for a brief social work review before submitting again.
May 23, 2026
Dr. Rashida Davis, CRP presents at the ESCAPE Retreat -- Empowering Sickle Cell Adults through Patient Empowerment -- exploring how faith can be a source of both hope and suffering for people living with chronic illness
July 2026
We received approval to showcase Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention at the SCCAPE Conference (Sickle Cell Care Coordination or Achieving Patient Empowerment) and the SCDAA's 54th Annual National Convention (Sickle Cell Disease Association of America)
What we are working toward
We are working toward CE Credit Authorization so that this course can be offered in a way that meets professional standards and serves practitioners well. That process takes time, research, revision, and financial investment.
Accreditation is not only a content process — it is also a cost process. In practical terms, this means government accreditation and CE authorization are a significant investment, often ranging from several hundred dollars to well over $1,000, depending on the approval path and number of offerings.
We share this because we want you to understand the care, rigor, and resources required to make this course available for CE credit. This is part of the work we are building toward.