From Trauma to Sustainable Wellbeing

On 13 November 2025, I’ll have the honour of speaking at the Wellbeing at Work Summit in Melbourne — a global event bringing together leaders, HR professionals, and wellbeing experts committed to reimagining the future of work.

But for me, this moment is more than a professional achievement.
It’s a deeply personal milestone in a journey that began with trauma — and transformed into purpose.

When trauma enters the workplace, it doesn’t stay at the door.

It lingers in silence. In absenteeism. In burnout. In the fear no one dares name.

After writing my book “Stronger Than Your Trauma - How to transform from victim to hero”, I created an online platform to support people after one-time traumatic events — guided by Dr. Edith Shiro’s 5-phase model of post-traumatic growth.

But soon I realised personally as well in my HRM role:
Healing cannot stop at the individual level.
It must be carried into organisations — into culture, leadership, and policy.

To navigate this challenge, HR can draw inspiration from psychology. Dr Edith Shiro’s five-stage model of post-traumatic growth – originally developed for individual recovery – offers a lens through which organisations can better understand the emotional trajectory of trauma. 

This model is not designed as a leadership framework, but it can provide valuable insights into how people rebuild capacity, identity and resilience over time.

Each stage offers opportunities for HR to support recovery in a structured and sensitive way.

To embed trauma-informed leadership at scale, HR teams can adopt my 8-step strategy a roadmap to embed trauma-informed leadership into HR, ESG frameworks, and wellbeing reporting.

When Trauma Enters the Workplace

We need to have a foundation to build on.

That’s exactly what I’ll explore in my session at the summit.

Let’s discover together how trauma-informed leadership becomes more than a policy — it becomes a heartbeat within your organisation.

1. Move beyond compliance.
Discover how trauma-informed leadership can evolve from policy to purpose — transforming wellbeing into a living, breathing part of your vision, mission, and strategy.

2. See the person behind the process.
Learn how Dr. Edith Shiro’s 5-phase model, viewed through an HR lens, helps leaders and teams rebuild trust, foster connection, and turn recovery into growth.

3. Bridge people and performance.
Explore an 8-step strategy that translates human healing into organisational design — making wellbeing both people-centred and a measurable driver of success.

4. Turn awareness into impact.
Experience how linking trauma, wellbeing, and sustainability leads to real outcomes — fewer absences, deeper trust, stronger retention — and workplaces where people and organisations truly thrive together.

Why this matters now

Today’s challenges demand more than good intentions.
They call for cultures that can hold emotional complexity — and still choose care, clarity, and connection.

Trauma-informed wellbeing is about building workplaces where people feel safe, seen, and supported to grow — not despite what they’ve been through, but because of it.

Join me

If you’re attending the Wellbeing at Work Summit, I warmly invite you to join my workshop:

🗓 13 November 2025
🎤 When Trauma Enters the Workplace — We Need to Have a Foundation to Build On

Let’s reimagine what wellbeing can look like — when it becomes part of who we are, not just what we do.

👉 Learn more and download my free e-book “Sustainable Wellbeing After Trauma” at