How Trauma Informed and Chronic Illness Aware Programmes Are Delivered

Phase R Readiness

Psychological safety and trauma-informed assessment. TRIUMPH baseline assessment across all seven pillars. Establishing the conditions for engagement before employment-focused activity begins. Polyvagal theory suggests that goal directed behaviour is harder to access when the nervous system is in a threat response. This phase addresses that directly.

For chronic illness: Her individual action plan starts from her real health and capacity, not an assumed one.

Phase E Empowerment

Identity, values, and narrative. Separating her capability from her history. First distance travelled data captured. Practitioners are trained to distinguish expected therapeutic dip from clinical deterioration before delivery of this phase is permitted.

For chronic illness: She builds her energy architecture and self care foundations, and begins deciding what she will and will not share about her health at work.

Phase C Capacity

Energy management and sustainable foundations. Practical systems for managing fluctuating capacity alongside employment goals. Equality Act 2010 reasonable adjustments framework introduced. This phase responds to the scale of long term sickness among economically inactive women, which TUC analysis in 2024 put at 1.54 million.

For chronic illness: A personal working week energy budget, pacing instead of boom and bust, flare planning, reasonable adjustments and communication scripts.

Phase L Life and Career Design

Skills development and employment planning. CV work, Individual Action Plans co-created with each participant, and DiSC-informed communication strategies. Employment targets set collaboratively, not imposed. Outcome: she is genuinely ready, not pushed.

For chronic illness: Her plan includes the reasonable adjustments she will ask for and what she will disclose, built on honest capacity.

Phase A Aspiration

Supported job searching and employer engagement. Employment starts recorded and tracked against agreed outcome measures from this phase. Volunteering, education, and self-employment are valid programme outcomes at this stage. Interim outcome report produced at week 26, at the end of active delivery.

For chronic illness: Her sustainability plan is an energy plan. Which adjustments must hold, and what recovery looks like when a flare comes.

Phase I Integration

In-work support and workplace navigation. Support intensifies at job entry rather than withdrawing. The 13 week sustained employment milestone is tracked from this phase and evidenced as each participant reaches it. This is a phase many employment programmes do not include. Research suggests that in work support improves sustainability.

For chronic illness: Energy checks track whether her sustainable rhythm is holding. The 13 week milestone confirms her work is sustainable, not maintained through depletion.

Phase M Mastery

Self-direction, future planning, and sustained achievement. The 26 week sustained employment milestone is tracked and evidenced. Final TRIUMPH pillar re-scoring produces the complete transformation trajectory. Comprehensive final outcome report produced at week 48.

For chronic illness: Relapse prevention includes health signals as well as employment signals, so she knows what she will do, who she will tell and what boundary she will keep.