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I have a mission that I believe we all share – to ensure that all people who have experiences of violence and trauma have the chance to survive and opportunities to flourish in their communities. Those of us who serve in public mental health programs are their traveling companions, helping them along their journey to fully realized lives. One of our most important jobs is to understand, redefine and reinforce the values of hope, humanity, and dignity as expressed by the people we serve. I am proud of the groundbreaking work done by the SAMHSA-funded Women, Co-Occurring Disorders, and Violence Study in developing and testing models for helping women and their children to recover from the devastating impacts of interpersonal violence. This study demonstrated that integrated mental health and substance abuse counseling services focusing on the centrality of trauma were effective in helping women to recover. The study was also unique in involving women with the lived experience of trauma in all aspects of design, implementation and research. Much of the richness and the depth of the learnings that came out of this five-year study resulted directly from the leadership of these women. This monograph, written largely in the words of ten women who participated in the study, is a moving testimony to the internal process of recovery from trauma and to the importance of trauma