Catherine Arnold, Founding Director at Trauma Informed First Aid, With-you Associate, and Trainee at St Johns Ambulance Cymru
For Catherine Arnold, understanding the impact of trauma is deeply personal.
Following responding to a serious road traffic collision, Catherine struggled with her mental health. At the time, she was working as a First Aid Trainer for the British Red Cross and found that returning to the training room could trigger traumatic memories and stress connected to the accident, to the extent that she had no other option but leave her job.
Although she was supported to continue her professional development, regularly delivering First Aid training became increasingly difficult. But the experience also made Catherine notice something she hadn't fully appreciated before.
Some of the people attending her courses were bringing their own experiences of trauma into the room. While some felt able to talk about what had happened, Catherine saw others becoming closed-off, distressed or needing to step outside.
It raised an important question: how can we teach people to respond to traumatic emergencies in a way that recognises the experiences they may already be carrying?
That question became the starting point for Trauma Informed First Aid, founded by Catherine in 2023 to explore how First Aid can be taught in a psychologically safer and more supportive environment.
As her work developed, Catherine wanted to deepen her understanding of trauma-informed practice in peer support. She collaborated with With-you Consultancy and joined their two-day Trauma Informed Approaches training, further exploring how trauma can affect people and how trauma-informed principles can be embedded into the environments and cultures we create.
At this point in my journey, I had already studied the theory of Traumatic Stress Studies and completed core training in Peer Support. What I wanted to gain from this course, therefore, was an understanding of how to bring lived experience and learnt experience of trauma together. How can an awareness of trauma informed peer support help me to create a safe learning and sharing space for people specifically seeking a trauma-informed First Aid learning environment?
For Catherine, the learning connected with her own lived experience of recovery and ambition to become practically, as well as theoretically, trauma-informed.
This course was fundamental to me developing a nuanced and boundaried approach to sharing my own traumatic experiences and facilitating boundaried disclosures in a safe and useful way. Small group breakout room discussions and triad exercises (supporter, supporter, observer) made this a practical course, rather than a theoretical one. The activity on how we can build hopeful and empowering perspectives resonated with me as it can be applied to a multitude of contexts, from a peer support group to a First Aid course. I had so much to learn from the other attendees, as well as the group facilitators.
The training has further helped inform the next stage of Catherine's journey. Alongside developing trauma-enhanced approaches to First Aid training, she has become an Associate with With-you and co-leads a new network space where people affected by emergencies can receive the kind of understanding and connection she recognised was missing.
Today, Catherine co-facilitates With-you's dedicated First Aiders Peer Support Network, bringing together First Aiders, Mental Health First Aiders, First Responders, bystanders and others impacted by witnessing or responding to a medical emergency.
The principles of trauma informed peer support have been central to the co-creation of the new With-you First Aiders Peer Support Network. The network lays the foundations for a more responsible First Aid culture in the UK where psychological impact is more than just an afterthought. Attending this course and collaborating to develop the network has boosted my confidence to move forwards with my ambition of developing a parallel career in First Aider follow-up and support.
It is a journey that has taken Catherine from experiencing the impact of trauma herself to using that experience, alongside knowledge and skills, to help create safer and more compassionate spaces for others.
With a rhetoric that focuses only on ‘saving lives’, a traditional First Aid training environment can make you feel like a ‘failed First Aider’ if you have been involved in providing support in a traumatic incident. From questioning ‘What use is a First Aider who can’t save a life?’, I now recognize that some circumstances are outside of our control. I now question ‘What use is First Aid training that doesn’t psychologically prepare First Aiders for the realities of serious emergencies?” This week I received my St. John Ambulance Cymru uniform, as a new part-time trainer. This marked a major milestone in my recovery journey, and I don’t think I would have taken this huge step if it wasn’t the sense of personal coherence I have gained from this course.
With a rhetoric that focuses only on ‘saving lives’, a traditional First Aid training environment can make you feel like a ‘failed First Aider’ if you have been involved in providing support in a traumatic incident. From questioning ‘What use is a First Aider who can’t save a life?’, I now recognize that some circumstances are outside of our control. I now question ‘What use is First Aid training that doesn’t psychologically prepare First Aiders for the realities of serious emergencies?”
This week I received my St. John Ambulance Cymru uniform, as a new part-time trainer. This marked a major milestone in my recovery journey, and I don’t think I would have taken this huge step if it wasn’t the sense of personal coherence I have gained from this course.
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Trauma Informed Approaches Training
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