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Dr. Sandra Bloom, a professor of health management and policy at the School of Public Health, was invited this month to serve on the Child Welfare Advisory Board for the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services. The appointment is for a one-year term. Dr. Bloom is a board certified psychiatrist who is internationally known for her work on the impact of traumatic experiences on individuals, families, organizations, and cultures. At the School of Public Health, Dr. Bloom plays a key role in professional training and research at the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice. She also serves as a faculty member at the school’s DrPH program in Health Policy and Social Justice. |
Dr. Bloom is also a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and President of CommunityWorks, an organizational consulting firm committed to the development of nonviolent environments and serves as a Distinguished Fellow of the Andrus Children’s Center in Yonkers, NY. Dr. Bloom is a graduate of Temple University School of Medicine, and recipient of the 2005 Temple University School of Medicine Alumni Achievement Award.
As a member of the Child Welfare Advisory Board, Dr. Bloom will help guide programs and policies for the city’s children and youth services, while also serving as a vital link between the community and the County Children and Youth Agency for Philadelphia. She will also serve as an advocate for the well-being and protection of Philadelphia’s children and their families by supporting the provision of quality services.
Dr. Bloom developed the Sanctuary Model®, a trauma-informed method for creating an organizational culture within which healing from psychological and social traumatic experience can be addressed. Her first book, Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies, tells the story of the creation of one of the nation’s first inpatient programs for the treatment of adults who were abused as children. She also co-authored Bearing Witness: Violence and Collective Responsibility.
A forthcoming book focuses on the impact of organizational stress on social service and mental health environments and the Sanctuary Model® as an antidote to recurrent stress and systemic dysfunction.
The Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice focuses on trauma as a public health issue and aims to decrease trauma and violence through public health policy, practice, research and training. The programmatic component of the Center is Healing Hurt People, a violence intervention program. In collaboration with Drexel University College of Medicine and Hahnemann University Hospital, Healing Hurt People provides a link to critical follow up and support services for victims treated for violence-related injuries in Hahnemann’s Emergency Department.