An Emerging Focus:  Trauma Resiliency

Trauma workshops grew up in regions which had experience terrible violence.  AVP facilitators there realized that healing needed to happen not only to individuals but between communities, and they devised a new set of workshops, Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC), to fill this gap. A major need filled by AVP as it has spread worldwide has been to fill the needs of communities recovering from or presently immersed in political violence.  Unique programs have been developed in three major regions to address coping with trauma:

• Central and South America
• Africa
• Asia West Pacific

Their work has made us realize that we need to address trauma here as well.  Prison inmates in particular, who are a major portion of our workshop participants in the US, have often experienced trauma as part of what brought them too prison.  And all too often they continue to experience it inside. And, doing these workshops in communities is just as important as inside prisons.  We all have experienced trauma. This is an emerging and “under-construction” area in the US.  We recognize that Trauma work is sensitive and needs much more ongoing support post-workshop than a traditional experience.  To this end we are:

• Focusing on becoming resilient to trauma, rather than traditional Trauma Recovery (which requires special skills and follow-up).
• Offering Trauma Workshops at the Advanced Level (after introductory workshop(s).
• Requiring formal AVP Facilitator training to offer these workshops.

See our Trauma Workshop Manual (available from our online store): Trauma Healing: Advanced Workshop Manual, by Nadine Hoover, Conscience Studio, 2010