Facilitating with Confidence and Heart
A 5-day experiential workshop for facilitators and group workers
Step into trauma-confident facilitation.
This immersive residential workshop invites facilitators, coaches, educators, and leaders to deepen their presence, expand their capacity to hold space, and transform the way they respond when emotions or trauma arise.
Through an experiential approach, you’ll make sense of and deepen your experience of facilitating groups when collective and individual trauma obstructs the flow or spreads a fog that hinders true engagement.
Every session is participatory, inviting collaborative exploration and reflective dialogue. You’ll further your own resilience and expand your window of welcome for intensity while staying in dignity and holding on to your purpose.
What You’ll Explore
👉Safety & the nervous system: Learn and explore the neuroscience of triggers, regulation, and resonance.
👉Trauma-wise facilitation: Recognize when trauma responses arise and discover first-aid tools to respond with calm, care, and clarity.
👉Attachment & leadership: Explore how early attachment patterns shape group dynamics, and how to lead from secure presence.
👉Resonant language & body awareness: Practice skills that soothe, connect, and bring groups back to balance.
👉Authority, power & presence: Reflect on your own leadership patterns and discover how to lead with confidence while staying openhearted.
👉Authority, power & presence: Together, we’ll explore the patterns that shape how we lead, inviting reflection, dialogue, and mutual discovery.
👉Integration & growth: Create your personal plan for moving from trauma-informed to trauma-confident facilitation.
Who This Is For:
🌿Group facilitators and trainers
🌿Educators and team leaders
🌿Coaches and therapists
🌿Anyone holding responsibility for group wellbeing and learning
If you’ve ever felt unsettled when group dynamics were disrupted, or longed for tools to stay grounded while others are in distress, this experience is for you.
What You’ll Gain
By the end of the 5 days, you will:
✨Feel more confident and steady in moments of challenge
✨Know how to spot and respond to trauma triggers without losing balance
✨Build practices for regulating your own nervous system
✨Experience deep connection, resonance, and mutual support
✨Leave with a personal roadmap for trauma-confident facilitation
To be a trauma-wise facilitator is not about knowing the right things to say and do. It's about your being in the room. While we do speak about how to meet group members when disruption or dullness set in, it's even more important to develop your tolerance for intensity, adversity and hijacks. Thus, this training offers skills to continue your inner work on healing your painful past situations that influence how you show up as a leader in a group. --Pernille Plantener.
Practical Details
📍 Location: Waihōanga Retreat Centre in Otaki
📅 Dates: 11-15.02.2026
🕘 Duration: 5 days
💲 Price: Super Early Bird $1399 (if booked and paid in full by October 31st); Early Bird $1480 (if paid in full by December 24th, 2025); Regular Price $1650.
Full info, schedule, registrations:
https://www.annabanas.co.nz/event-details-registration/facilitating-with-confidence-and-heart
Payment plans available - please get in touch with Anna at:
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You are welcome to book your place by selecting a deposit of $500 - if you do so, full payment must be made one month prior to the training. After that, people on the waitlist will be notified.
What is included in the price:
--Accommodation: 4 nights in shared accommodation at Waihōanga Retreat Centre in Otaki
--Nourishing vegetarian meals to sustain you throughout your learning: we will start with dinner on Wednesday 11th, and end with lunch on Sunday the 15th
--Beautifully crafted materials to take away and return to whenever you need them
--Connecting experiences and space for talking, networking and exchanges with other participants - in the lush setting of the retreat
--Travel costs not included. Please get in touch with us if you'd like help getting to the venue.
Facilitator:
Pernille Plantener is an internationally recognised coach PCC , certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication, and Resonant Healing Practitioner, brings lived experience, neuroscience-informed methods, and gentle presence to trauma-sensitive facilitation. She brings about a felt sense of safety, connection, and transformation, reading the space and walking the talk of what she presents. Pernille has facilitated groups around the globe and brings a culturally sensitive understanding of power dynamics and historic influences to collective trauma.
Organiser & co-facilitator
Anna Banas is an NVC trainer, coach, facilitator and researcher. Anna has over two decades experience facilitating diverse groups, from young European leaders, to ECE teachers. She works with organisations, families and communities, and brings a wealth of experience and insight into facilitating with nervous system and safety in mind, as well as addressing the complexities of power in the room. She is a mother of three children, and currently lives in Wellington, NZ.
Ready to Join?
This workshop is more than training — it’s a journey into presence, resonance, and courageous leadership.
With questions - please get in touch with Anna.
Payment plans available, please get in touch to organise.
Also check out other Workshops in Te Horo, Contests in Te Horo.
