Our Approach

The Alma Center works from a trauma and healing-informed organizational culture and program practice.

Our experience has taught us that the men we work with have largely come to accept the prevailing narrative that something is wrong with them—they are a bad/evil/sick people.

Our trauma-informed approach fosters an alternate narrative, changing the question from what is wrong with you, to what happen to you.

From this vantage point, we take the radical step of treating abusive men like human beings—like imperfect people, as we all are, who have been hurt themselves and have consequently hurt others, but who are capable of profound and brilliant transformation.

We have a broad understanding of trauma, as not only the effects of direct adverse experiences, but also of the wounds inflicted by growing up in a culture with a deep and unresolved history of racism, sexism, gender and ethnic oppression.

We believe effective trauma-informed care is not contained in a specific program, practice or method of recovery, but rather in an approach to human services that involves all levels of the the organization– leadership, managerial, direct service and administrative staff. We believe that everyone must have a high level of training to understand the prevalence and consequence of trauma and the complex and diverse paths to healing.

We understand that learning about trauma is relevant not only to the lives of the men who participate in our programs, but also to all of our personal histories and vicarious experiences.   We believe it is absolutely critical that all agency staff engage in their own healing journey of personal growth and continuous learning to ensure that they do not consciously or unconsciously pass on their own pain to program participants, and that they are authentically and genuinely able to hold space for others to heal.

Compelling new cross-disciplinary research demonstrates that adult trauma debility can be healed and resolved through accessible evidence-based intervention strategies.

The Alma Center is successful.  Completion of our Men Ending Violence Program reduces domestic violence recidivism by 86%.