A Trauma Informed Care Approach for Churches and Chaplains: Rise Again to Wholeness
Do you feel equipped when tragedy comes to the door of your church community, such as when a family is killed in a crash? When someone dies by suicide? Or when someone receives a terminal diagnosis? What about when there’s a shooting in a local school? In those moments, hurting people often turn to the people they already know and trust and very often, that’s someone in the church. It could even be you.
Sometimes, people with no connection to faith will walk through your doors as a last resort, desperately looking for something that might ease their pain. You need to know how to meet them where they are, without overwhelming them with religious language, scripture, or spiritual guidance they may not understand yet.
Prayer is powerful, but so is knowing what to say and what not to say. This course will equip you and your church community with practical, holistic, biblically grounded, trauma-informed crisis intervention skills so you can show up in life’s worst moments with confidence, compassion, and wisdom.
This training also addresses the personal toll of repeatedly caring for people in crisis, including recognizing your own limits and knowing when and where to refer someone for additional support. This is especially important for pastors and ministry leaders, who already carry the heavy responsibility of caring for the church.
It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when. We cannot prevent every tragedy, but we can prepare the church to know what to do when it happens.
This practical two-day course introduces Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) from a faith perspective, exploring a holistic approach to crisis and trauma that considers the spiritual, mental, physical, behavioral, and emotional needs of those we serve.
Open to everyone, it is especially beneficial for those involved in pastoral leadership and care, chaplaincy, missions, disaster relief, youth ministry, healthcare, behavioral health, therapy/social work, prayer ministry, and community outreach.
Healing from trauma happens through safe, healthy relationships. Trauma can affect how people think, behave, communicate, relate to others, and respond to the world around them. Understanding those responses helps us create confidential environments in which people feel safe, supported, and better able to recover.
But effective trauma-informed care begins with self-awareness. Participants will explore their own responses to stress and distress, develop healthier boundaries and self-care practices, and learn how to build greater resilience. From that foundation, they will learn how to recognize distress in others and provide appropriate, compassionate support without taking responsibility for something beyond their role or level of training.
Through practical activities, discussion, and role play, participants will learn to recognize stress reactions, understand what may be happening beneath the behavior they see, and use trauma-informed conversations to help stabilize and support someone in crisis.
Course Highlights
- Trauma-Informed Care: Understanding the foundations and why they matter.
- Wired for Survival: Understanding how the brain and body respond to threat.
- Recognizing Critical Stress: Identify the signs and symptoms of acute distress.
- Normal Responses to Abnormal Events: Understand common stress reactions following crisis and trauma.
- Self-Awareness and Self-Care: Recognize your own stress responses and develop effective, sustainable habits.
- Self-Discipline and Personal Responsibility: No one will do it for you!
- Healthy Boundaries: Know where your responsibility begins and where it ends.
- Resistance, Resilience and Recovery: Understand what helps people withstand and recover from trauma.
- Supporting Others in Crisis: Provide compassionate, trauma-informed care without causing further harm.
- Trauma-Informed Conversations: Learn what to say and what not to say to help stabilize someone in distress.
- Knowing When to Refer: Recognize when someone needs a higher level of care and how to connect them appropriately.
- Holistic Health: Develop practical habits that support prevention, resilience and recovery.
- Healthy Churches Start at the Top: Lead by example and create a healthier culture of care.
- Crisis Care Teams: Equip your church to provide meaningful trauma-informed outreach within your community.