This presentation draws from qualitative research to explore the following question:How could trauma-informed practices serve as a bridge to support music facilitators and educators in better enabling inclusive music making for their participants/students?Community music, with its non-formal, empathic, collaborative, negotiated, and non- hierarchical processes, is demonstrated to be a space in which participants can form positive connections, their voices can be heard, and their stories validated. These are vital needs for survivors of traumatic experience and community musicians all must ask the question of how to adapt practice to be responsive to both contextual location, and individual and group needs. Trauma can create a barrier to inclusion and participation, and a facilitator’s role is to find appropriate musical, relational, and pedagogical strategies that best support building connections of safety and trust with participants through engaging in trauma-informed practices.This presentation shines a spotlight on several illustrative case studies, exploring discrete practice contexts and focusing on the perspective of the music facilitator. A spectrum of practice is examined, from highly seasoned and experienced facilitators working with context-specific trauma-informed approaches, through to those with no formalised training. Each locus of music-making activity engages participants who have experienced trauma, with some of the contexts more explicitly focused towards supporting trauma survivors than others. Facilitator values, attributes, strategies, training, and positionality are all highlighted.Within the field of community music, where there is currently a significant growth in the number of trauma-informed trainings being delivered, but limited publications that can be drawn on to support conceptual understanding, are we in danger of confounding or even idealising the notion of trauma-informed practice? How do we develop a shared language and communal understanding if we do not understand what trauma-informed practice is in the context of community music making?The intention for this presentation is to provide the opportunity for increased critical engagement in, and constructive dialogue around trauma-informed practice for community musicians. I envisage that the findings from the illustrative case studies will provide a useful starting point for those organisations and individuals who want to sharpen their practice and deepen their knowledge and skill with reflexivity and authenticity. Understanding and embracing the responsibility we have to the individuals and communities with which we live, work, and research, will enable us to design, develop, and deliver music making with strategies that better bridge the gap towards inclusion and participation.