Brain Science and Trauma-Informed Approaches
Workforce Well-Being and Resilience Training
Invest in the health and well-being of your staff by providing Social Current’s workforce resilience training. This two-day, in-person training will help you build a positive workplace culture by ensuring staff have foundational knowledge and skills to manage stress, especially in times of change. Building your staff’s resilience will help to ensure they can stay well at work and contribute to a compassionate, productive, and engaged organization.
Staff learn how to
- Manage Stress and Conflict
- Collaborate and Problem Solve
- Strengthen Expectations and Boundaries
- Create Connection and Belonging
- Practice Self-Compassion
Training highlights
- Can be customized to specific groups of staff
- Designed for all staff (direct service, administrative, managers, and leaders)
- Includes interactive presentations, small-group discussions, activities, and tools
- Grounded in our post-pandemic reality
- Delivered in person to foster connection, interaction, and collaboration
- Rooted in brain science and equity, diversity, and inclusion best practices
About the Training
Curriculum Covers Four Core Concepts
To be well at work, especially in stressful and uncertain environments, it is important to understand basic brain concepts and embrace practices that enhance its functioning. Stress, distress, and trauma can trigger a “fight or flight” response, which makes it difficult to think and problem solve. However, brain science offers tools for managing this response.
The first part of this workshop focuses on the importance of embracing brain science awareness at work. We explore the neurobiology of stress, distress and trauma; the arousal continuum; and daily regulation activities to practice at work.
Learning Objectives
- Brain science concepts and strategies to increase resilience in the workplace
- State dependent functioning and the arousal continuum, and their application to daily work
- Practical tools and strategies for increasing regulation
- Strategies for building a brain friendly culture that enhances our optimal functioning at work
Direct service staff face pressure from many different people and are often afraid of making a mistake that might harm those they serve, negatively impact others’ perception of them, or disappoint their supervisors or colleagues.
Prioritizing psychological safety is essential to reduce this worry and allow staff to speak and act freely. It involves creating an environment where staff feel safe to take risks and speak candidly without the fear of retribution. When we foster psychological safety, It leads to authentic conversations, trust, and innovation.
The second part of this workshop explores how to foster psychological safety in the workplace to support courage and vulnerability. It discusses strategies for leaders to respond to staff challenges by modeling authenticity, accountability, and compassion, all which promote safe risk taking and trust.
Learning Objectives
- Components of psychological safety and the critical need to build it at work
- The impact of courage and vulnerability in the workplace
- Leadership strategies for increasing psychological safety in the workplace
- Strategies for having crucial conversations
You’ve heard the adage, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It’s true. If our organizational culture is unhealthy, we will struggle to get our work done. So, we must intentionally build a positive staff culture that reflects our organization’s stated values and beliefs and aligns with our strategy.
The third part of this workshop explores the ingredients of a positive staff culture and the steps needed to achieve it. Learn strategies for bringing your organizational values into daily interactions, set clear and realistic boundaries and expectations and align culture and strategy to build resilience and success.
Learning Objectives
- Define organizational culture
- How to realize organizational values in daily interactions
- How to promote boundaries and expectations that support the organization’s mission and staff well-being
- Steps for aligning organizational culture and strategy
Now, more than ever, employees are looking for a sense of community at work. Our brains are hardwired for connection, and we crave belonging. When we build healthy connections with people at work, we are more equipped to tolerate differing perspectives, actively listen, demonstrate empathy, and have difficult conversations. In essence, a strong work community can hold an organization together, especially during challenging and uncertain times.
The fourth part of this workshop explores the components of healthy connections in the workplace and strategies for intentionally integrating connection and community across the range of employee experiences.
Learning Objectives
- How connection is critical to feeling calm and regulated
- Strategies for increasing connection in the virtual and hybrid workplace
- Strategies for building community among employees with a range of experiences and preferences for ways to connect
Enhance the Training with Additional Support
To complement and enhance the impact of the two-day training, Social Current offers these additional training and consulting services:
Train the Trainer Instruction
Ensure sustainability of this foundational knowledge by teaching internal trainers—such as managers and supervisors—to deliver future trainings in-house.
Ongoing Workforce Resilience Consultation
Receive additional support customized to meet your organization’s needs. Social Current can provide guidance on strategy implementation, executive coaching, follow-up supports for managers and supervisors, and more.
Recent evaluations show…
What Leaders Are Saying
The Philadelphia Department of Human Services has partnered with Social Current to support its Trauma-Informed Transformation Initiative and deliver this training to all staff and contractors.
On the Impact of the Training:
“People are still talking about the training day to day. They’re building personal strategies, practicing what they learned, showing up for themselves and their colleagues, and even asking for help when they need it.”
“As an executive leader, sitting in on the training and hearing different parts of the agency share their perspectives affirmed that this was something our agency truly needed. Staff came out of the training asking, ‘What can I do next?’ They didn’t want to lose the momentum.”
On Investing in Staff Well-Being:
“We’ve done so much to be trauma-informed in our work with families—but never really with the individual worker. This training gave us tools to support how we show up to work and how we relate to others who may be having difficult days, while still doing the work.”
Robin Chapolini, MSW
Deputy Commissioner
Philadelphia Department
of Human Services
Participant Survey Feedback
“This is one of the best trainings I’ve attended.”
“All the activities the trainers implemented were great.”
“I enjoyed the two-day training and the knowledge the trainers possessed and how they were able to engage the group and keep us all focused and interested.”
What participants found most valuable…
- “Staff were treated with care and compassion.”
- “Learning how the brain functions under different levels of stress.”
- “Practical exercises and tools to apply the information.”
- “Everything! This was a good training.”
- “The level of interaction and participation.”
- “The videos, conversation, exercises and knowledgeable trainers.”
- “The opportunity to share experiences with a supportive group.”
- “Collaborating with everyone and time for self-reflection.”