Magdalena House Earns Trauma-Informed Care Certification: Highlighting a Culture of Healing and Understanding
Magdalena House Earns Trauma-Informed Care Certification:
Highlighting a Culture of Healing and Understanding
On October 14, 2025, Magdalena House was officially recognized as a Level 1 Trauma-Informed Certified Organization by the Ecumenical Center, the certifying entity for the South Texas Trauma-Informed Care Consortium. This certification marks a significant milestone in the organization’s ongoing mission to create a community of safety, compassion, and empowerment for residents: an effort deeply rooted in the foundation of Magdalena House since its inception.
This journey began in June 2023, when the Magdalena House Board of Directors unanimously supported the plan to align Magdalena House with trauma-informed care (TIC) principles. Over the course of two years, a dedicated team of staff members, spearheaded by Director of Resident Care, Cori Kurth, worked to assess, strengthen, and embed TIC standards throughout the organization. As a result, the team developed a Trauma-Informed Care Policy, now serving as the guiding framework for Magdalena House’s decision-making and daily practices.
"We are committed to creating physically and emotionally safe spaces and relationships, building strong and healthy relationships through trustworthiness, honesty and transparency," said Kurth. "With TIC at the helm, we are empowering those we serve and each other through collaboration and choice.”
What Is Trauma-Informed Care?
Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) is a framework that recognizes the pervasive impact of trauma and seeks to create environments that foster healing and recovery, rather than inadvertently causing further harm. It shifts the focus from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” This approach promotes empowerment, trust, and collaboration while honoring the resilience of every individual.
At Magdalena House, Trauma-Informed Care is guided by five core principles:
1. Physical and Interpersonal Safety: Ensuring people feel safe and secure both physically and emotionally
2. Transparency and Trustworthiness: Maximizing trust, ensuring clear expectations and consistency
3. Respect, Empowerment, and Choice: Recognizing individuals’ strength and giving individuals choice and control
4. Collaboration: Working alongside others, sharing power, working with, not doing for
5. Skill Building and Emotional Intelligence: Prioritizing learning and emotional intelligence of staff, clients, and other stakeholders
Being Trauma-Informed: Organizational Efforts at Magdalena House
Every staff member at Magdalena House has received trauma-informed care training, ensuring that the organization’s philosophy is reflected in both policy and practice. The team works to maintain a safe, supportive environment by setting clear and consistent boundaries outlined in the Resident Handbook, safeguarding facilities and grounds, and monitoring all visitors closely. This structure balances safety with compassion, fulfilling both the need for security and the importance of dignity and choice.
Residents play an active role in shaping their experience at Magdalena House. Their feedback helps guide program development, while goal-setting opportunities empower them to take ownership of their healing journeys.
These efforts not only reflect improved outcomes for resident families but also improved employee satisfaction and productivity.
A Community Moving Forward
With this recognition, Magdalena House joins a distinguished community of organizations committed to building environments rooted in safety, care, and inclusivity for all residents, staff, volunteers, and partners alike. “This new certification paves the way for the future at Magdalena House and in the San Antonio community,” Executive Director Becca McNitzky remarked. “Trauma-Informed Care is the standard now, ensuring that survivors are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. It makes our community more responsive and compassionate as a whole.”
As Magdalena House continues to evolve and grow, this certification will remain a guidepost for all future decisions and organizational practices.
"Becoming trauma-informed is key to making a positive impact on the lives of everyone in the organization, including our board, staff, volunteers and the people we serve," said Kurth, "By understanding and utilizing trauma informed practices, we can reduce the risk of retraumatizing our families or re-creating abusive and controlling relationship dynamics that led them to us in the first place."
