P19 Trauma-informed public administration and adaptive leadership: theory and practice
Panel Members & Contact Details
Corresponding and review group chair: Associate Professor Jim Rooney (Director, Public Service Research Group), University of New South Wales, Australia. Email: james.rooney@unsw.edu.au
Co-Chairs:
Professor Catherine Althaus (ANZSOG Chair of Public Service Leadership & Reform), University of New South Wales, Australia
Professor Gerda van Dijk, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Summary
This panel explores how complex trauma shapes public institutions, not only through frontline service delivery but also within organisational structures, leadership, and workplace cultures. It argues that wellbeing in public administration is inherently relational and political, requiring trauma-informed approaches that address systemic harm and promote psychological safety. Through two streams—trauma-informed public administration and adaptive leadership—the panel invites interdisciplinary contributions that examine inclusive, compassionate, and ethically responsive public sector practices.
Description
Complex trauma is not merely a phenomenon in society, it permeates the structure, practice and leadership of public organisations as well as influencing how employees experience their work environment. Hence, public institutions face the ongoing challenge of supporting trauma and wellbeing in contexts shaped by structural harm, resource constraint, and organisational change.
In this context, wellbeing is often framed as a matter of individual resilience or workplace culture, but this panel begins from the premise that wellbeing is fundamentally relational and political (Ospina & Fold 2010). It is shaped not only by interpersonal dynamics but also by broader structures, histories, and technologies that influence how public work is organised and valued.
Consequently, scholars appreciate the need to not only provide trauma-informed care through frontline public services, but being trauma-informed organisations that are characterised by psychologically safe work environments led by compassionate, caring and reflexive public leaders.
In response, the panel seeks to encourage investigation along two key dimensions of trauma-informed public services: (i) The theory and practice of trauma-informed public administration; and (ii) The role of adaptive leadership in navigating harm, healing and wellbeing in public sector organisations.
Stream 1 – Trauma-informed public administration: theory and practice
This stream explores the development of trauma-informed responses to wellbeing within public administration, informed by the complex and varied nature of trauma.
Although traditionally focused on fields such as public health, social work and psychology, trauma-informed public administration has gained momentum as public problems become more complex, and the lived experience of societies become more fractured. From a global pandemic to local, contextually laden disasters, they all require a public administration response through policy and leadership that recognises the importance of an ethic of care and compassion.
If we accept that many public officials choose a career in the public service as a reflection of their commitment to service, then we should also acknowledge that those tasked with providing compassionate and caring public services cannot do so properly if they are exposed to vicarious trauma without receiving adequate support and training to safeguard their own mental wellbeing. For example, Foley et al. (2021) write about the importance of determining the nature of secondary trauma experienced by police officers while concomitantly recognising the stigma associated with officers asking for help. Alnassar Anas (2018) talks about the nature of PTSD and vicarious trauma among emergency workers necessitating targeted trauma care and counselling from employers. In a study conducted among refugees, Nojoum (2022) reported that developing a trauma-informed response means developing '[a] program, organization, or system that … realizes the widespread impact of trauma and understands potential paths for recovery; recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, staff, and others involved with the system; and responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices, and seeks to actively resist re-traumatization”.
Stream 2 – Adaptive leadership for public sector wellbeing: Navigating harm, healing, and (more than) human futures
This stream explores how adaptive leadership can support public institutions to engage with the challenges of providing trauma-informed public services in ways that are reflective, responsive, and ultimately more just.
Whether responding to discrimination and gender-based violence in the workplace (Fitz-Gibbon et al 2023; Bishu, Guy & Heckler 2019), addressing the psychosocial effects of vicarious trauma (Miller & Drury 2022), or engaging with the ethical complexities of emerging technologies (Flynn et al. 2024), public sector leaders are often asked to navigate situations where there are no simple solutions, no clear lines of authority, and competing definitions of what is ‘right’ (Althaus et al. 2021; O’Flynn 2021). In this context, adaptive leadership (Heifetz, 1994; Heifetz et al., 2009) becomes a useful lens through which to understand how individuals and institutions respond to complexity, discomfort, and the need for cultural change.
In addressing these two complementary streams of research, this panel seeks to bring together scholars and practitioners from diverse fields and research paradigms. It will accept papers, works in progress – both conceptual and empirical – that investigates how public organisations may develop as trauma-informed spaces, including:
- How trauma-aware approaches to public administration and leadership can support more inclusive and sustainable public sector workplaces;
- How gendered harm (such as discrimination, domestic and family violence, sexual harassment) demands new forms of organisational leadership and accountability; and
- How the integration of AI and data-driven technologies into public service provision poses new ethical dilemmas that require ongoing reflection, adaptation, and critique.
Within this scope, the panel encourages papers that explore:
- Theoretical models for trauma-informed public policy, leadership and/or practices;
- Case studies where trauma-informed practices have been implemented;
- Studies reviewing new and innovative trauma-informed training methodologies; and
Studies proposing innovative research methods through which trauma-informed practices can be studied.
Relevance
This panel will be of interest to those working across public administration, gender and violence prevention, digital ethics, and organisational change. It offers space to reflect not only on what public institutions are facing, but on how trauma-informed public administration and leadership might be enacted differently, across boundaries, and toward more relational, reparative, and responsive ways of working.
Together, the contributions from this panel will highlight the limits of technical or procedural responses within the two dimensions highlighted in the panel topic described above to consider what it means to administer and lead well in conditions of uncertainty, contestation, and social transformation. Rather than offering a single model of public administration and leadership, the panel explores these dimensions as an evolving set of practices concerned with learning, care, and shared responsibility.
In doing so, the panel engages with the conference theme by framing wellbeing not as an outcome to be measured, but as a process to be cultivated through ethical relationships, institutional responsiveness, and critical engagement with the present and future of public work. The notion of ‘(more than) human futures’ gestures to the ways in which wellbeing is increasingly entangled with digital systems, technological infrastructures, and environmental conditions, all of which complicate conventional ideas of what public leadership entails.