Essentials of Trauma-informed Care:
Creating, Destroying, and Restoring Sanctuary

Dr. Darla Spence Coffey, Ph. D., M.S.W.

Darla Spence Coffey is the president and chief executive officer of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). CSWE is a nonprofit national association representing more than 2,500 individual members, as well as nearly 750 graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. Founded in 1952, this partnership of educational and professional institutions, social welfare agencies, and private citizens is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as the sole accrediting agency for social work education in this country. Through its many initiatives, activities, and centers CSWE supports quality social work education to ensure that students are able to meet the current and future challenges of all Americans and provides opportunities for leadership and professional development so that social workers play a central role in achieving the profession’s goals of social and economic justice and influencing social policy.

Prior to her appointment at CSWE, Dr. Coffey was a professor of social work and the associate provost and dean of graduate studies at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. In that capacity Dr. Coffey provided leadership for academic program development at the graduate and undergraduate levels, curriculum and academic policies, assessment of student learning, transfer articulation, accreditation, and faculty development. Preceding this administrative role Dr. Coffey taught for several years in the baccalaureate and graduate social work programs at West Chester University.

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