2023 Events
Please Note:
Only Risking Connection (RC) Basic and Restorative Approach (RA) Basic trainings are open to the public. All other events listed are available only to our Client Agencies. Interested in learning more about our program? Click here for information.
October
RC Recertification
October 4, 2023, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. ET (check local time here)
This is a virtual event.
This training offers an intensive learning and practice experience aimed at helping RC Trainers teach the RC Basic Training with fidelity to the model. The training: provides updated information related to teaching RC; reviews critical components of the RC Basic Training; expands and deepens learning about RC concepts; discusses implementation of trauma-informed care; and helps trainers reflect on and address their vicarious trauma and that of the staff with whom they work. This training is open only to RC Trainers and is required every two years.
Presenter Information
Patricia D. Wilcox, LCSW, Vice President of Strategic Development, Klingberg Family Centers, New Britain, Connecticut specializes in treatment of traumatized children and their families. She created the Restorative Approach™, a trauma- and relationship-based treatment method. She is a Faculty Trainer for Risking Connection® and an Adjunct Faculty at the University of CT School of Social Work and at St. Joseph’s University. She travels nationally to train treaters on trauma-informed care, specializing in improving the daily life of treatment programs. She was the 2011 Connecticut Social Worker of the Year. She is the author of Trauma Informed Care: The Restorative Approach published by Levellers Press, as well as several articles.
RC Basic
October 24-26, 2023, 10:00 – 5:00 ET (check local time here)
This is a virtual event.
The Risking Connection (RC) Basic training is an 18-hour foundational trauma training. It is a centerpiece of the Traumatic Stress Institute’s Whole Systems Change Model to Trauma-Informed Care that organizations and service systems can adopt to implement and sustain trauma-informed care.
Please Note:
Because Risking Connection Training is a centerpiece to TSI’s Whole Systems Change Model to Trauma-Informed Care, upon completion of the training, participants are not permitted to use the Risking Connection training as a stand-alone training program within their organizations or communities of care, unless the organization you are affiliated with has also committed to TSI’s Whole-System Change Process. If you are not affiliated with an organization within our network, your participation is an opportunity to enhance your professional knowledge and provide you with a philosophy and method for working with trauma survivors.
November
RC Webinar - Addressing Historical and Intergenerational Trauma as RC Treaters
November 14, 2023, 3-4:30 ET (check local time here)
This is a virtual event.
Can the traumas experienced by parents, grandparents, and even great grandparents live on in us – particularly if they are unresolved? Yes!
Historical trauma refers to trauma that is experienced by a specific cultural, racial, or ethnic group over a period of multiple generations. It is related to major events that oppressed particular groups of people, including slavery, the Holocaust, forced migration, and the violent colonization of Indigenous Peoples. Intergenerational trauma occurs when the effects of trauma are passed down between generations. The science of epigenetics has contributed greatly to our understanding of the challenges within families and cultures when the effects of oppression and trauma are passed from one generation to the next.
Presenter Information
LaVerne Baker Hotep is a Program Coordinator for the Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers. With over 30 years in social service and a special interest in historical and intergenerational trauma, she has co-lead training for various client serving agencies around the country. With members of Mediators Beyond Borders International, LaVerne has co-facilitated trauma response training in Liberia and South Sudan.
Previously, LaVerne served as a Family Development Specialist and Resource Navigator at the Kingsley Association in Pittsburgh, PA, serving Allegheny County’s East Liberty Family Center where she founded and continues to convene Me2 Sister Circle, an international trauma-informed self-care and enrichment group for women. As former director of community education for the Center for Victims in Pittsburgh, PA, she initiated and convened culturally significant conferences to educate about trauma and its impact in vulnerable communities.
RC Train-the-Trainer
November 7-9, 2023, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. ET (check local time here)
This is a virtual event.
The RC Train-the-Trainer is the avenue by which organizations and systems can implement and sustain trauma-informed care via the RC training program. Organizations that have met the requirements for adopting RC as a training model can train selected staff to be RC Associate Trainers. These trainers train RC within their organization on an ongoing basis. This event is open only to RC Client Agencies. This session available for both those becoming RC Trainers and RC Champions.
December
RC Webinar - Risking Connection Boosters: Keeping RC Thinking Alive and Vibrant
December 5, 2023, 3-4:30 ET (check local time here)
This is a virtual event.
Three years into a global pandemic, many agree on the value of COVID boosters to keep our bodies healthy. So how do we keep our RC organizational culture healthy and vibrant? You guessed it: RC Boosters.
Even though you’ve rolled out RC training to most staff, have you noticed harsh interactions with clients creeping back in? As turnover has increased, have you noticed more serious incidents and restraints? When you ask in a team meeting “How is that behavior adaptive in the moment? How does it help the person?,” do you get only blank stares? If your answers are yes to any of those questions, it’s time to implement RC Boosters.
You might be saying to yourself, “It’s too much work to create yet another new training.” Well, you don’t have to – we got you covered. TSI has a whole series of RC booster trainings on important RC topics complete with training outlines, slides, worksheets, and video clips. The booster trainings start with the RC concept as a jumping off point and then delve deeper into the topic providing staff with a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the material.
Presenter Information
Steve Brown, Psy.D., is the Director of the Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers. A clinical psychologist, he is a primary architect of TSI’s Whole-System Change Model to Trauma-Informed Care (TIC). In 2020, he authored the adaption of Risking Connection® to organizations serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). He is a co-creator, with Dr. Courtney Baker, of the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) Scale, one of the first psychometric measures of TIC.
Steve trains professionals nationally on psychological trauma and trauma-informed care. In addition to being a psychologist, he is a long time sexuality educator/trainer and author of Streetwise to Sex-Wise: Sexuality Education for High Risk Youth, a sexuality education curricula used internationally by agencies and schools serving high-risk youth.
Mary Jo Harwood, LSW, DNCCM is a Lead Program Coordinator for the Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers. A significant part of her 30-plus years as a licensed social worker has been spent supporting the recovery of individuals and communities after traumatic incidents. She has provided trauma-informed leadership to victim service organizations, mental health providers, and served in the capacity of a therapist, EMDR practitioner, crisis responder, and trainer.
Mary Jo is a member of Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI). She has worked in Liberia with ex-combatants and in South Sudan with women peacebuilders, and has also consulted with teams in Northern Nigeria and Kenya to address the intersection of trauma and peacebuilding through the application of conflict- and trauma-sensitive programming. She is currently a Facilitator for the MBBI project: “Trauma-informed peacebuilding for mediators and facilitators in Ukraine.”
RC Events – Quick Reference
Event Archive
Monthly RC Mindfulness
Monthly RC Mindfulness sessions are on the first Wednesday of each month, 12:00-12:30 pm ET. Open to ALL STAFF AT ALL RC Agencies – share with your coworkers!
Check out Stop It Now!
Stop It Now! is a department of Klingberg Family Centers that focuses on preventing the sexual abuse of children by mobilizing adults, families and communities to take actions that protect children before they are harmed.
Find more information about their work and upcoming Circles of Safety trainings below:
