From Crisis to Sustainable Recovery: Operationalising the Trauma-Informed Behavioural Recovery (TIBR) Framework Through a Community-Based Recovery Programme for Women Following Domestic Abuse
Keywords:
domestic abuse; trauma-informed care; behavioural science; long-term recovery; coercive control; community intervention; parenting; children; behavioural activation; lived experience; ecological recovery; intergenerational traumaAbstract
Domestic and gender-based violence remains a significant public health issue with profound and enduring consequences for women, children, families and communities. While progress has been made in crisis intervention, safety planning and advocacy, comparatively less attention has been given to sustainable recovery following the achievement of immediate safety. Many women continue to experience trauma-related difficulties, social isolation, reduced self-efficacy, disrupted identity and diminished community participation long after leaving abusive relationships, with consequences extending to parenting, family relationships and children’s development.
This paper introduces Trauma-Informed Behavioural Recovery (TIBR), an evidence-informed framework integrating behavioural science, trauma-responsive practice, lived experience, community psychology and holistic wellbeing. Rather than defining recovery solely as crisis resolution or symptom reduction, TIBR conceptualises recovery as the gradual reconstruction of behavioural repertoires, personal agency, social connectedness and meaningful participation. Behavioural principles including reinforcement, environmental contingencies, behavioural activation, motivating operations and response effort are integrated with trauma-responsive principles of safety, trust, choice, collaboration and empowerment to create environments that support sustainable behavioural change.
The framework is operationalised through The Uplift Project, a community-based recovery programme developed in response to women’s experiences of services structured around organisational processes rather than individual recovery needs. The programme integrates longer-term therapeutic, educational, creative, physical activity and peer-support opportunities alongside trauma-specific interventions to promote confidence, autonomy, psychological flexibility, social connection and wellbeing.
Central to TIBR is the proposition that recovery is relational and extends beyond the individual. Changes in women’s agency, emotional regulation and social connectedness can influence parenting, family relationships and children’s developmental environments, while concurrent trauma-responsive programmes provide children with opportunities to develop resilience, adaptive coping and emotional regulation.
The paper proposes Behavioural Recovery Architecture as a novel approach to designing behavioural, relational and community environments that facilitate long-term change, offering an evidence-informed framework for commissioning, implementing and evaluating sustainable recovery services capable of supporting individual, familial and intergenerational change.
References
Aarons, G. A., Green, A. E., Palinkas, L. A., Self-Brown, S., Whitaker, D. J., Lutzker, J. R., Silovsky, J. F., Hecht, D. B., & Chaffin, M. J. (2012). Dynamic adaptation process to implement an evidence-based child maltreatment intervention. Implementation Science, 7, 32. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-7-32
Aarons, G. A., Hurlburt, M., & Horwitz, S. M. (2011). Advancing a conceptual model of evidence-based practice implementation in public service sectors. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 38(1), 4–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-010-0327-7
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
Biglan, A. (2015). The nurture effect: How the science of human behavior can improve our lives and our world. New Harbinger Publications.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
Devries, K. M., Mak, J. Y. T., Bacchus, L. J., Child, J. C., Falder, G., Petzold, M., Astbury, J., & Watts, C. H. (2013). Intimate partner violence and incident depressive symptoms and suicide attempts: A systematic review of longitudinal studies. PLoS Medicine, 10(5), e1001439. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001439
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The adverse childhood experiences (ACE) study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8
Fixsen, D. L., Blase, K. A., & Van Dyke, M. (2011). Mobilizing communities for implementing evidence-based youth violence prevention programming. American Journal of Community
Psychology, 48(1–2), 133–137.
Fixsen, D. L., Naoom, S. F., Blase, K. A., Friedman, R. M., & Wallace, F. (2005). Implementation research: A synthesis of the literature. National Implementation Research Network, University of South Florida.
Gallagher, J. (2026). From control to choice: A trauma-informed behavioural model for recovery among women survivors of domestic violence. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 10(1), 4137–4160. https://doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2026.10100321
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
Hughes, K., Bellis, M. A., Hardcastle, K. A., Sethi, D., Butchart, A., Mikton, C., Jones, L., & Dunne, M. P. (2017). The effect of multiple adverse childhood experiences on health: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Public Health, 2(8), e356–e366. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30118-4
Katz, E. (2015). Domestic violence, children’s agency and mother–child relationships: Towards a more advanced model. Children & Society, 29(1), 69–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12023
Kazdin, A. E. (2013). Behavior modification in applied settings (7th ed.). Waveland Press.
Leamy, M., Bird, V., Le Boutillier, C., Williams, J., & Slade, M. (2011). Conceptual framework for personal recovery in mental health: Systematic review and narrative synthesis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 199(6), 445–452. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.110.083733
Nelson, G., & Prilleltensky, I. (2010). Community psychology: In pursuit of liberation and well-being (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Prilleltensky, I. (2001). Value-based praxis in community psychology: Moving toward social justice and social action. American Journal of Community Psychology, 29(5), 747–778. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010417201918
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Press.
Satyen, L., Sharda, A., & Robinson, C. (2025). “You feel like an individual who matters”: The Beyond DV Recovery Pillars framework: Its impact on the recovery and healing of
victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence. BMC Public Health, 25, 4119. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-25458-2
Sinko, L., Dubois, C., & Thorvaldsdottir, K. B. (2024). Measuring healing and recovery after gender-based violence: A scoping review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(4), 2907–2926. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241229745
Sinko, L., & Saint Arnault, D. (2020). Finding the strength to heal: Understanding recovery after gender-based violence. Violence Against Women, 26(12–13), 1616–1635. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801219885185
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. Macmillan.
Skinner, B. F. (1968). The technology of teaching. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
Stokes, T. F., & Baer, D. M. (1977). An implicit technology of generalization. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10(2), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1977.10-349
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). Trauma-informed care in behavioral health services (Treatment Improvement Protocol Series 57, HHS Publication No. SMA 14-4816). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Sullivan, C. M. (2018). Understanding how domestic violence support services promote survivor well-being: A conceptual model. Journal of Family Violence, 33(2), 123–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-017-9931-6
Turnbull, P., Hunt, I. M., Woodhouse, T., Monk, H., Kapur, N., & Appleby, L. (2025). Domestic violence and suicide in women under the care of mental health services in the UK, 2015–2021: A national observational study. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, 55, 101350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2025.101350
Wathen, C. N., & Mantler, T. (2022). Trauma- and violence-informed care: Orienting intimate partner violence interventions to equity. Current Epidemiology Reports, 9(4), 233–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-022-00307-7
World Health Organization. (2021). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2018. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240022256
World Health Organization. (2021). Violence against women: Key facts. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Studies (JAMS) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise stated. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant JAMS the right of first publication.
