Trauma-informed Resistance in an Age of Overwhelm: Clinical Strategies

WITH THE ADVENT OF THE NEW FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION, with its hostilities toward immigrant/refugee, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC communities, massive economic upheavals and uncertainties, a diminishing safety net, and wars and the global rise of political extremism, helping professionals must navigate the damaging impacts on vulnerable clients’ lives and the increase in their own professional and personal stressors. These include worsening mental health conditions, an increase in addictions, as well as family and relationship breakdowns. Paraphrasing the writer Toni Morrison, how can we as helpers become “as fearless as one can, behave as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances”? How can we help clients move toward “survival, blossoming, and endurance” given this climate? There is a need for a coherent trauma-informed framework, team-building, and individual coping skills to fortify professionals’ grit, resistance, and perseverance, as they support communities that are hurting.

Drawing on clinical research as well as wisdom of ancestors from marginalized and indigenous communities, the workshop describes how culturally-sensitive, trauma-informed practices and leadership can be an important factor in buffering against psychological injury and enhancing long-term resilience. In addition to presenting content on trauma-informed, anti-racist, and anti-colonial practices and strategies of resistance, the impacts of trauma and racism on the body, the value of empathy and authenticity in navigating sensitive issues, and leadership strategies to buffer against toxic stressors, the workshop will model trauma-informed facilitation practices that participants can use in their work.

By the end of the workshop, participants will

1. Describe the continuum of toxic stress and the relationship between adversity and trauma;
2. Update their understanding of trauma-informed practice and/or resistance to be effective in the current climate;
3. Review the characteristics of collective trauma as it applies to immigrant/refugee, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC communities;
4. Understand the different pathways of the autonomic nervous system and how they can be marshaled intentionally for emotional self-regulation, collective co-regulation, and resistance; and
5. Draw on the wisdom of ancestors from marginalized and indigenous communities for inspiration.

Six hours of continuing education approved through the National Association of Social Workers.

BIPOC REPARATIONS DISCOUNT: If you identify as a member of BIPOC communities, you are entitled to a 25% discount.

MILITARY DISCOUNT: If you served in the military, either currently or in the past, or you are a military spouse, there is a 25% discount.

GRADUATE STUDENT DISCOUNT: If you are currently in graduate school in a clinical discipline and wish to register, there is a 25% discount.

Contact Wayne Scott for discount codes.

Since 1989 Wayne Scott, MA, LCSW has worked with youth and adults in outpatient, residential, and hospital settings in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Portland, OR and he currently maintains a private consulting and psychotherapy practice in Portland, Oregon. For over twenty years he has provided clinical supervision to social workers, family therapists, counselors, and addiction specialists and during the same time has taught clinical ethics at Portland State University and throughout Oregon. He writes frequently for The Psychotherapy Networker. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Sun, Huffington Post, and Poets and Writers, among others. In addition to an MA in clinical social work from The University of Chicago, he has an MFA (Creative Writing) from The American University in Washington, D.C.

As a clinician, co-facilitator Tori Lopez, LCSW has worked with marginalized and traditionally underserved youth in the public schools, community mental health, and criminal justice systems, with an interest in youth of color and LBGTQA+ individuals. She has also been a crisis responder who worked with individuals who struggle with chronic mental illness. She is a Wraparound Instructor for Portland State University's System of Care Institute.

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