The Manchester City Council Public Health team are leading the strategic and operational activity to enable Manchester to become an ACE-aware, trauma informed and trauma responsive city by 2027. 


A city with a co-ordinated approach to reducing exposure to ACEs, where all practitioners work with residents to prevent or mitigate the consequences of trauma; helping children, families, and communities to build resilience; and improve outcomes for residents by working in a trauma responsive way. 


Trauma Responsive Manchester

Our Priorities

Delivering the Programme Objectives


Support organisations across the city to embed ACEs and trauma informed approaches into their everyday practice. 


  • Understanding ACEs and Trauma Informed Practice Training underpins the programme of work. As of October 2024, over 7,000 staff have been trained.


  • We are working with organisations across different sectors to embed trauma informed approaches. We have been working with colleagues in Adult Social Care to support the Directorate to adopt trauma informed approaches through the Better Outcomes, Better Lives (BOBL) transformational programme. Following staff training a one-page toolkit was produced to support delivery of trauma informed approaches, together with nominated Champions and implementing Communities of Practice.


  • Staff working in education have been enabled to undertake the Trauma Informed Schools UK Diploma. The learning and subsequent good practice are being shared across the system.


Make sure people with lived experience of adversity and trauma have a voice.


  • Public Health have led the establishment of the Manchester Trauma and Sexual Violence Network. Members include Manchester Women’s Aid, MCC Community Safety, We Are Survivors, GM Rape Crisis, Manchester Action on Street Health (MASH), Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) and Safety 4 Sisters. Members are working together to achieve a range of outcomes including:


  • To improve accessibility of services to people who have experienced sexual violence across the city by working in a trauma responsive way and promoting this way of working to all partners working in the field;
  • To build trusted relationships between organisations in Manchester, from voluntary to statutory, that work in the sexual violence field;
  • To create a shared understanding across the city of that work that the members are carrying out;
  • To avoid re-traumatisation of survivors of sexual violence.


  • Through the Manchester Age Friendly Board, Public Health have supported the production of ‘Dark, Chaste and Beautiful – it’s easier to support a child than mend a broken adult’. The play is written, directed and performed by an all-female cast and forms the basis of a series of workshops that will be delivered as part of the Age Friendly Programme. It can also be performed in its own right. It is based on Wythenshawe women’s real-life stories of childhood adversity and how this impacted their mental health.


Create ACE-aware, trauma informed, trauma responsive and resilient communities.            


  • Trauma-responsive community hubs have been established to support local communities in addressing the effects of trauma and adversity, while also promoting individual, family, and community resilience. Being a trauma-responsive hub entails an ongoing commitment to operating in an inclusive, kind, and person-centred way. The current hubs vary in their operations but share a common focus on promoting social connectedness, providing safe spaces and positive activities that support well-being. Hubs are set up in Ardwick, Blackley, Cheetham Hill, Clayton Longsight and Moston.


  • The M8 Collective Hub at the Welcome Centre in Cheetham Hill provides support with advice and guidance on immigration, disability services and finances. It also provides a range of activities to promote good health and wellbeing including art classes, gardening projects, chair-based yoga and volunteering opportunities. Partners involved include the North Manchester Community Partnership, Mood Swings, Breakthrough, Manchester Local Care Organisation, Barnardos, Wai Yin Society and Be Well.


Ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion are central to our approach. 


  • Public Health are working with Bollyfit and Dignifi to design and deliver a culturally appropriate trauma course. Content has been informed following consultation with the Pakistani Sounding Board and Bollyfit participants and covers the normalisation of trauma (including coercion and control); helping people to identify when someone may be experiencing trauma symptoms; shame sensitive practice; and offering tools that will support recovery and emotional regulation. Pilot sessions have been delivered by women in the community prior to a wider roll-out in 2025.


  • The ACEs and trauma team provide consultancy support for the Oglesby funded Families of the World Project that creates space for families with under 5’s seeking sanctuary in Manchester. The project is rooted in the spirit of welcome; a focus on refugee children and families; improved access and inclusion to cultural and civic spaces; cross cultural learning and sharing, including food.


Develop a range of approaches to measure the impact of the strategy and ACEs and trauma activity in the city and ensure that practice is evidence based.


  • A range of case studies have been produced highlighting good practice and the impact of adopting trauma informed approaches in education, health visiting, primary care, community safety, the arts, and voluntary sector.


  • The GM trauma responsive group are currently piloting an evaluation framework developed with Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU). To measure progress towards a system wide approach across GM a core list of indicators has been developed based on research carried out by LJMU to develop a logic model. The evaluation framework presents information on data sources and data collection tools to define and measure the trauma systems outcomes identified in the logic model. The Manchester Department of Public Health have agreed to pilot the framework with the University.



Reports and Documents

List of services


Case Studies

Homelessness Partnership Case Study

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This Homelessness Partnership case study illustrates how the Rough Sleeper Support Service and partners at the Street Engagement Hub supported an individual. Kindly supplied by Phil Doherty from the Entrenched Rough Sleeper Social Work Team at Manchester City Council.


As part of the Better Outcomes Better Lives transformation programme, we have worked with colleagues in Adult Social Care to produce a one-page aide memoire for use by practitioners.


Rough Sleeping Videos - Ellie Atkins the Manager & Safeguarding Lead for the Rough Sleepers Social Work Team at MCC has produced 3 insightful videos. You can view these one the TRGM Resource Page here.

Helath Visiting Case Study

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This case study from Health Visiting shows the impact a trauma informed approach can have on an individual. Kindly supplied by Helen Whelan from the Chorlton Health Visiting team.

Families of the World at The Manchester Art Gallery

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Manchester Art Gallery’s Families of the World project creates space for families with under 5’s seeking sanctuary in Manchester.


The project is rooted in: the spirit of welcome; a focus on refugee children and families; improved access and inclusion to cultural and civic spaces; a trauma-informed dimension to cultural activity; cross cultural learning and sharing, including food.


Working in partnership with Sure Start, Read Manchester/National Literacy Trust, Manchester’s ACEs & Trauma Informed Practice team and the City of Sanctuary, the project welcomes displaced families who are living in Home Office hotels and other accommodation across the city to a weekly Stay and Play session.


At this joyful playgroup families are connected to vital services and signposted to other cultural venues and the city's amazing offer for our youngest residents.


The project has been shortlisted for a ‘Museums Change Lives’ Museum Association Award. 

Coop Academy New Islington Primary School

Download Report Here

Coop Academy New Islington Primary School became the first school in Manchester to achieve the Trauma and Mental Health Informed award from Trauma Informed Schools UK and the Centre for Child Mental Health.


The school have invested in creating calm, decluttered classrooms with calm corners in each one; established a Forest School to provide all children with the opportunity to connect with nature; invested in chickens and a school dog to help children regulate; deliver a nurture timetable offering some children bespoke forest school and music therapy.


All staff are trained in trauma-informed practice, the power of empathy and how to have supportive and restorative conversations with children. Weekly circle time models, builds and maintains positive peer-on-peer interactions. The report and a short video are in the Manchester section.

TICTAC Progress Report

(Trauma-Informed Care for Trauma-Informed Communities)

Download Report Here

4CT a multi-purpose community organisation based in Beswick are delivering a project on behalf of a partnership of the local care health organisations in Ancoats, Bradford and Clayton; Cheetham and Crumpsall; Miles Platting, Newton Heath and Moston and MCC Public Health.


The project called TICTAC (Trauma Informed Care for Trauma-Informed Communities) aims to raise awareness of ACEs and how they impact the lives and health of children and adults and Trauma Informed Practice, that is, how we can all help and support people to achieve better outcomes. TICTAC is focused on raising awareness in the voluntary sector and the wider community.


The project is engaging with residents to provide key messages about attachment and protective factors such as play, exercise and sleep hygiene. One of the key engagement tools is a 6m x 4m x 4m tall bouncy, inflatable brain!

The Art of Resilience

Progress Report

Download Report Here

The Art of Resilience project has been running for almost two years with three successful cohorts of primary-age children enjoying the opportunity to build resilience through creative practice.


The project has been delivered in collaboration with the Manchester Art Gallery, its resident Creative Practitioners and Population Health and funded by both organisations but with additional funding from the Violence Reduction Unit.

MADE Manchester’s Cultural Education Partnership

Download Report Here

The Health and Wellbeing strand of MADE Manchester’s Cultural Education Partnership facilitated a youth-led programme with 4 secondary schools and 4 cultural organisations. Funded by MCC Public Health the outcome for each school and cultural partner as to explore what trauma is and how it might present; inform how others can be supported; have fun and create a piece of art (in any form: theatre, film, art, poetry). 


Projects included Z-Arts and Burnage Academy for Boys working with years 7 to 9, all of whom had experienced displacement from their country of birth, to explore what it means to connect with others and have a sense of belonging in the school community. Afrocats and Our Lady’s worked with recently arrived children from Ukraine and the Middle East to produce an art book representing their happy and safe places. Odd Arts and Levenshulme produced an animation ‘Brian’ representing a young person struggling at school



For further information relating to Manchester please contact:


Gareth Nixon

Programme Lead - ACEs and Trauma Informed Practice

Department of Public Health

Email: gareth.nixon@manchester.gov.uk


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