Trauma Informed Youth Work: From Healing Relationships to Just Communities

This interactive workshop will explore the widespread impacts of trauma in young people’s lives and communities and support youth workers to build skills at the intersections of healing and justice. We will recognize the interconnections of trauma and oppression at individual, collective, systemic, and intergenerational levels and learn to honor the innate intelligence of young people’s survival strategies and resiliency. We will explore tools that undo patterns of judgment, blame, and shame and establish relationships rooted in empathy, mutual dignity, and shared power. Participants will be supported to deepen their self-awareness, increase compassion for themselves and others, and develop their capacity to foster healing relationships at the center of efforts towards social justice.

Key Strategies

1. Empathic & Strengths-Based Relationships: Listen for Needs Beneath Behaviors

• Help young people see the strength and intelligence of their survival strategies (shift from blame and judgment)

2. Equity, Justice, and Collective Action

• Visualize collective experiences and systemic dynamics and shift from individual to collective responses

3. Youth Power

• Increase youth voice and ownership in programming

4. Adult Self-Work: Wellbeing and Accountability

• Increase knowledge of self and trauma/oppression dynamics; Build skills in presence, resilience, and responsiveness; Increase material and emotional supports for adult providers