Blue Shield of California Foundation: the trauma-informed care positioning

The Strategy

Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) has made trauma-informed care and ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) prevention their signature focus. If your health equity proposal doesn't address trauma, it's misaligned with BSCF's current strategy, even if the health outcomes are strong. The trauma-informed framing: your problem statement should connect health inequities to trauma — ACEs, community violence, historical trauma, intergenerational poverty. Your intervention should be trauma-informed: not asking 'what's wrong with you?' but 'what happened to you?' This means services are designed for safety, choice, collaboration, and empowerment, not just clinical effectiveness. The ACEs evidence: cite the ACEs research (Felitti & Anda study, California Surgeon General's ACEs Aware initiative). Show that your community has high ACE exposure (you can use the ACEs Aware data tools) and…