Do Trauma-Informed, Culturally-Relevant Work With Confidence
and Care
I lead public health & policy advocacy projects. I train & support teams to work with survivors, youth, and communities in culturally respectful, trauma-informed ways. I’m here to help you make change, & feel prepared and supported.
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Hi, I’m Laura—
I’m a licensed master social worker (LMSW), filmmaker, and writer with a background in trauma-informed curriculum and training, violence prevention, and anti-racism. My work supports public health, community-driven research, and public health projects, as well as policy advocacy and system change.
I help teams do trauma-informed & culturally relevant work through training, education, and technical assistance, drawing on my experience in rural Alaska, community-based research, and a lot of boots-on-the-ground experience and compassion.
Whether you need trauma-informed training to help you engage survivors and youth responsibly, support reviewing surveys or interview methods, or an interdisciplinary professional to lead a customized project, I help your team move forward with clarity and confidence. I work in both English and Spanish and have experience working with trained interpreters for multi-lingual and cross-cultural work in any language.
My work has contributed to national trauma-informed care legislation and has supported research teams, Tribal organizations, state agencies, and medical practices in responding to trauma and complex social issues in real time.
If you’re navigating complex issues and want steady, trauma-informed support, I’d love to talk about how I can help.
Laura Norton-Cruz
LMSW, CLC
Here’s How I Can Support You:
Facing trauma or complex social issues in your work and want to respond with confidence, clarity, and cultural humility?
My services are a great fit if you…
Work with patients in a healthcare setting or with clients/youth, and want to address domestic violence, sexual violence (DV/SV), & reproductive coercion & its impact on their health in a culturally-responsive way
Want to build trauma-informed & culturally-responsive practices into your program, team, or new initiative
Have a curriculum or project you want written or reviewed through a trauma-informed, DV/SV-informed, &/or anti-racist lens
Are ready to get training in trauma-informed care &/or DV/SV that helps you engage people with confidence and cultural humility
Want help elevating community voices through research or film/audiovisual projects
Want help engaging community members in finding their voices & participating in policy advocacy
“Laura has shown herself to be a selfless and relentless advocate for Alaskans who are routinely overlooked.
For the past fifteen years she has fought to topple systemic barriers to health and well-being using a community-based, ground-up approach. She’s a powerful writer, telling stories in her own words and helping journalists understand and report on some of the state’s most pressing issues. Her work spotlights Alaska’s most vulnerable populations, including survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence, teenagers, mothers and infants.”
Kyle Hopkins
Pulitzer Prize-winning Pro Publica and ADN Journalist
Anchorage, Alaska
Does this sound familiar?
Past and present trauma is showing up in your work, and you want guidance on how to respond to survivors, youth, and communities in respectful, trauma-informed ways.
You’re creating a curriculum for adults working with youth, and you want trauma-informed support to ensure it’s culturally thoughtful and emotionally safe.
You want to move policymakers or other decision-makers through data and on-the-ground stories. You want a professional researcher, writer, film producer, and policy advocate to manage the project from start to finish.
Then you’re in the right place.
You can serve your community in a way that’s
trauma-informed, culturally grounded, and
has a long-term impact.
Whatever sector you work in, it is likely that trauma — from childhood, from ongoing domestic and sexual violence, from systemic racism and other forms of oppression — is showing up and affecting the work.
It’s showing up in classrooms, clinics, research interviews, courtrooms, and community meetings.
And teams are being asked to respond with skills they were never trained for.
The only things standing between your team and the level of services you want to provide might be:
Fear of causing harm
Uncertainty about what to say or do
Lack of trauma-informed training and tools
Organizational overwhelm
These are common barriers.
There’s a lot of talk about trauma-informed care, but what’s often missing is the how — how to integrate trauma-informed practices and best practices for addressing domestic violence, sexual violence, and reproductive coercion — in a way that’s culturally grounded, practical for your staff, engaging and memorable, and safe for the people you serve.
That’s where my consulting approach comes in.
Together, we clarify what trauma looks like in your context, build practical skills through trauma-informed and culturally-relevant training, create the tools and processes for systems that reduce harm, and support the wisdom of your community.
If you’re ready to approach this work with clarity, cultural humility, and care—let’s talk.
“Laura’s work as a policy advocate and her documentary film work has a measurable and statewide impact.
Laura made it as efficient as possible to share the stories of families from our region with legislators through written and visual materials she put together. Advocacy can seem so overwhelming, but Laura’s energy creates a positive, confident situation to tell our stories.”
Tracey Schaeffer, Director of Nunakins Childcare and Family Services Coalition & the Northwest Arctic Early Learning and Families Program
Kotzebue, Alaska
Communities have power & solutions. Together, we can elevate their voices to lead change.
I believe in a “Nothing about us without us” approach to program design, curriculum-building, crafting policy and regulation, and more. I can help your agency to lead a relationships-based and community-based approach to change, because I know that the people who experience issues are the people best suited to inform and design change on those issues. This can look like:
Beginning with listening to understand lived experience, context, and community wisdom — before designing anything. This includes listening to you, the agency who brings me in, and listening to whoever the affected people are (staff, clients, patients, community members, youth, survivors, small business owners, etc.). I do this through mixed-methods research, film, storytelling, or other means.
Building skills through training and support that’s practical, culturally grounded, and tailored to your team. This can include formal presentations followed by ongoing coaching, or can look like accompanying people to legislative meetings and helping them prepare to deliver testimony.
Moving toward systems change by translating what we learn into materials, strategies, film PSAs or documentaries, and advocacy campaigns that reduce harm and amplify impact.
I come alongside your team with care and clarity — so you have the training, tools, and trauma-informed, culturally-safe support you need.
If you want an experienced professional to guide your team through this work, I’d love to talk.
Schedule Your Free 30-Minute Consultation
Ready to learn more? Fill out the form with your contact details to schedule your free 30-minute phone consultation.
I’ll reach out to coordinate a time that works for both of us and provide recommendations on how you can reach your goals through training, support, written materials, or more.
Then, I send a formal proposal with scope of work, budget, timeline, and deliverables if applicable. We sign a contract, you put down 50% of the project rate, and the work begins. I invoice you the final 50% after the project is complete.
You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram via the links below.
SERVICES/PORTFOLIO
“Laura is professional, organized, empathetic, and very knowledgeable about these topics.
“I have had the pleasure of both co-presenting with Laura & attending trainings she has facilitated on the topics of childhood trauma, historical trauma, and resilience. I have also seen & think highly of her work on childcare & parental support. I highly recommend her for your consulting needs.”
– L'aakaw Éesh Kyle Wark, Health Researcher
Anchorage, Alaska
I’m a visual artist & thinker, & I believe in showing along with telling. Here (and throughout the website) are some photos and paintings to give you a feel for my work:
