Trauma-Informed Resources · TI-07

Personal Boundaries and Options

Explore preferences around physical space, emotions, time, and digital contact, including exceptions and safer alternatives.

Clinician-created · specialist review required

Client group: Teens and adults with trauma-informed support15-25 minutesGuided worksheetAdult professional use

For clinician-facilitated use

This is a professional resource, not a child-facing online service. A licensed clinician or other qualified adult must determine suitability, explain and adapt the activity, and supervise its use. Do not direct a child to access this webpage independently or enter client information.

Download for facilitated useView collection

The full-resolution WebP includes print-safe margins and should be downloaded by an adult professional. Read the guidance below before using the page.

How to use it

Choose one boundary area that feels safe enough to consider.
Mark preferences along a continuum; ‘it depends,’ ‘not sure,’ and private answers are valid.
If you want, add exceptions, communication options, and safety alternatives.
Stop or seek support if the activity raises concern about retaliation or safety.

Reflection prompts

What context changes this preference?
What is a safer alternative if direct communication is not workable?

Facilitator guidance

Explore preferences without requiring disclosure or direct assertion. Consider culture, disability, dependence, surveillance, retaliation risk, and abuse context; validate delayed, indirect, digital, third-party, or exit-based strategies.

Adaptations & accessibility

Use visual scales, removable markers, or private digital completion.
Discuss fictional examples or one boundary domain only.
Offer AAC-supported choices and a no-response option.

Professional-use review

Enhanced licensed trauma-specialist and safeguarding review required before use, especially for abuse, coercive control, surveillance, developmental vulnerability, or cultural differences.

This clinician-created resource is published for professional evaluation. Before client use, the treating clinician or other qualified adult must determine whether it is appropriate and complete every specialist, accessibility, safeguarding, and local-policy review named above. Publication does not represent individualized clinical approval.