Conference Services

PRESENTER: Dr. Claire Dente & Michele Belliveau, Ph.D., LSW, Greg Tully, Ph.D.

LOCATION: SECC 208, Social Work/Counseling CEU

Students in helping professions such as social work, teaching and counseling are frequently drawn to these professions based on past experiences of lived challenges (Kremer et al., 2023). Pursuing a professional helping degree can empower students to continue their own healing and reparative processes. Sometimes students desire to 'give back' to others by becoming like the helping professional who assisted them through challenging times; or, perhaps they seek to become the supportive professional they wished they had encountered. Students in social work education increasingly come to the profession with their own experiences of trauma stemming from multiple intersecting identities and systems that include family, neighborhood, community, military, and the broader society. Students reporting four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) were more likely to study social work than students with no ACES (Kremer et al., 2023).

Social work educators have noted the increased need for intentional approaches to working with social work students who arrive in our educational spaces with trauma histories (Cavener & Lonbay, 2024; Tufford & Dylan, 2025). The increasing number of students bearing trauma informs how social work educators engage students around trauma (Goodwin & Tiderington, 2022; Radis et al., 2020; Sanders, 2021). Faculty educators interact with students with awareness of these numbers and of the intersections of teaching about trauma and preparing students with trauma histories to work with future clients who carry their own trauma (Galan-Cisneros et al., 2023; Gilin & Kauffman, 2015). In many cases, social work educators have utilized classic trauma-informed principles including safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment into their own pedagogical approaches (Levenson, 2017), along with additional principles articulated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] that include peer support and cultural, historical and gender issues (SAMHSA, 2024).

A snapshot of students in our own undergraduate social work teaching at our public university includes diverse students across age, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, race and ethnicity, ability, language, religion, geographical diversity, exposure to violence, military experience and other identities. We teach social work across two campuses, a main campus that serves primarily traditional-aged college students in a suburban environment and an urban satellite campus that serves primarily non-traditional-aged college students who are returning to school after many years of practice or from community college to complete their degree. In both cases, students have described and acknowledged the traumas they have experienced. This presents both challenges and opportunities for the social work educator, and particularly those overseeing students in the social work practicum, a less controlled environment than the classroom. Whereas in class students can be forewarned when triggering content is on the horizon, in the practicum it can happen unexpectedly and often, depending on the student's and their client's' experiences. Students need to be prepared in the content of the classroom to respond to their clients through a trauma-informed lens and not just their own.

Effective practitioner-educators can model trauma-informed principles in the classroom as well as what they expect from students in the practicum: flexibility, accountability, empathy, recognition of developmental process, collaborative goal setting, and the belief in change through restorative, motivational and healing processes.

This panel will include three experienced undergraduate social work faculty with longevity in their program who will share ways that they have adapted their teaching styles to be more trauma and healing-informed in response to the traumas they witness their students carry into the classroom. Panelists will describe assignments, classroom exercises, policies, and practices they have employed while also posing questions and revealing dilemmas they have faced in their attempts to both provide support and maintain standards in the classroom and curriculum. Panelists will also describe more restorative efforts at the program and university level to address the needs of students who may be more likely to have experienced trauma in their lifetime.

PRESENTER: Colleen Commisso

LOCATION: SECC 209, Act 48 Session

Student resilience is a critical factor in academic success, emotional well-being, and long-term persistence, particularly for students who have experienced trauma. Research consistently demonstrates that strong, supportive relationships with teachers are among the most powerful protective factors influencing resilience in educational settings. This session explores how intentional student-teacher relationships can be leveraged as a practical, evidence-based strategy to foster resilience across diverse classrooms.

Participants will examine the core elements of relationship-centered teaching and how these relate to building resilience in students who have experienced trauma and the connections this has to students childhood interactions with caregivers. How to build trust, consistency, and authentic reciprocal relationships will be discussed and how these elements buffer stress, increase student engagement, and promote adaptive coping skills. Drawing on current research, real classroom examples, and trauma-informed practices, this session will move beyond theory to provide actionable strategies educators can immediately implement. Attendees will leave with concrete tools to strengthen relationships in ways that support both academic growth and students' capacity to build resilience.

PRESENTER: Katie Fields & Jill M. Davis, Ph.D.

LOCATION: SECC 112, Act 48 Session

While most educators now understand that trauma affects learning, many continue using classroom management systems that inadvertently retraumatize vulnerable children. This interactive workshop moves beyond trauma-informed awareness to healing-centered action, providing concrete strategies for identifying and transforming harmful practices into empowering alternatives.

Participants will engage in collaborative activities to examine common classroom practices through a trauma-responsive lens, discovering how traditional approaches like public behavior charts, assignments that assume privilege, and overstimulating environments can perpetuate shame and disconnection for students who need safety and belonging most. Drawing from the presenters' book From Breakdowns to Breakthroughs: 10 Simple Strategies to Reduce Disruptions and Create Trauma-Responsive Classrooms, this session provides immediately actionable alternatives that prioritize student dignity while maintaining high expectations.

The workshop also introduces a trauma-plus conceptual framework, recognizing that children in foster care experience additional layers of loss and instability beyond their original trauma. These students require even more thoughtful approaches to classroom management, as traditional methods can be particularly counterproductive for children navigating complex grief and attachment disruptions.

Through interactive demonstrations and small-group problem-solving, participants will learn to replace public behavior tracking with private regulation supports, transform potentially exclusionary assignments into inclusive learning opportunities, design calming physical environments that support nervous system regulation, and reframe challenging behaviors as communication requiring healing-centered responses. Real classroom scenarios and evidence-based strategies will guide participants in developing concrete action plans for immediate implementation.

This session addresses the conference themes of shifting from trauma-informed to healing-centered approaches by moving participants beyond understanding trauma's impact to actively creating conditions that foster resilience, empowerment, and collective healing.

PRESENTER: Kim Wolff & Sandra Langner

LOCATION: Ballroom, Wellness Activity

Rest & Receive: A Restorative Yoga and Massage Experience for Educators is a rejuvenating workshop designed to nurture the minds and bodies of those who give so much to their students and communities. This immersive experience invites educators to step away from the demands of daily life and immerse themselves in deep rest, self-care, and supportive community connection.

This experience blends the gentle, healing practices of restorative yoga with the therapeutic benefits of supportive touch. Participants will be guided through restful yoga postures supported by props, allowing their bodies to release tension and their nervous systems to reset. Mindful breathwork and guided meditations will foster inner calm, promoting emotional balance and resilience in the face of ongoing professional challenges.

Whether you are new to yoga or an experienced practitioner, Rest & Receive provides an inclusive and nurturing environment, empowering you to rest deeply, replenish your energy, and reignite your passion for teaching. Participants leave feeling renewed, inspired, and equipped with practical mindfulness habits for long-term well-being.

PRESENTER: Phoenix J. Cooper

LOCATION: SECC 106, No CEU's

Educators and helping professionals increasingly work within trauma-exposed systems, yet burnout is often framed as an individual deficit rather than a predictable outcome of chronic nervous system dysregulation within high-demand environments. While trauma-informed approaches have increased awareness of adversity, many do not adequately support regulation, sustainability, and strength-based engagement for professionals themselves.

This interactive workshop introduces nervous system literacy as a foundation for healing-centered, strength-based practice, reframing burnout as a physiological and relational response shaped by systemic stressors rather than moral or professional failure. Drawing on neurobiological principles and healing-centered frameworks, participants will explore how stress, secondary trauma, and institutional pressures impact regulation, boundaries, decision-making, and relational presence.

Through brief experiential exercises, reflective discussion, and applied examples, attendees will practice accessible nervous system regulation strategies that support emotional and collective well-being, ethical sustainability, and culturally responsive engagement. Participants will be guided to consider how nervous system regulation functions as a foundational condition for safety, empowerment, and future-oriented healing practices across educational, counseling, and community contexts.

PRESENTER: Subarna Basu & Britney Daniel-Harris

LOCATION: SECC 213, Any Session

This interactive workshop examines the critical role of play therapy as a pathway to communication, healing, and self-discovery for young children within trauma-informed education. Grounded in the principles of child-centered play therapy and trauma-responsive pedagogy, this session invites educators, researchers, and social workers to view play as a developmental necessity and therapeutic medium for fostering emotional regulation, resilience, and learning, rather than simply a recreational activity.

Early childhood educators and allied professionals often encounter children whose learning and behavior are shaped by adverse experiences. Traditional classroom management and instructional strategies may fail to address these children's underlying needs. This workshop bridges that gap by introducing play therapy techniques that empower children to express emotions symbolically, process trauma safely, and gain a sense of empowerment. Participants will explore how safety, trustworthiness, empowerment, and collaboration can be woven into daily classroom practices and interactions through play and reflective instructional practices.

Through guided discussions, case examples, and hands-on activities, attendees will gain insight into:

1. Understanding the foundations of play therapy within trauma-informed education.
2. Recognizing play as a language of emotional expression and healing in early childhood.
3. Integrating therapeutic play strategies into classroom practices.
4. Supporting children's social-emotional development and self-regulation through play-based interventions.
5. Collaborating across disciplines, such as education, psychology, and social work, to create holistic systems of learning, care, and development.
6. Incorporating trauma-informed care into classroom structure, curriculum, teaching methods, and teacher-student relationship building.

Participants will leave with practical tools and reflective strategies to create learning environments that promote safety and connection, and an understanding of the impact trauma has on holistic child development. Ultimately, this session recognizes that play is a mirror that reflects the child's inner self and a bridge that connects educators and caregivers to children's untold stories through their non-verbal cues, enabling them to guide each child toward hope and healing.

PRESENTERS: Katie Clay, Alisa Takala & Dr. Christina Chiarelli-Helminiak

LOCATION: SECC 107

This session explores the concepts of civic engagement, social capital, and human rights through a critical feminist lens within the context of trauma-informed social work practice. The presenters argue that civic engagement serves as an avenue to increase social capital and realize human rights. Employing civic engagement and rights-based methods, social work practitioners can advocate for the development of just and responsive policies that emphasize the system's responsibility to individuals within a community. The centering of these methods becomes particularly important when engaging with communities experiencing systemic marginalization and disenfranchisement. When assuming a critical lens, social work macro practitioners acknowledge the intersection of marginalized identities and systematic factors. The application of a critical lens appropriately diminishes individual blame in traumatic experiences and empowers survivors to civically engage in advocacy, which increases their social capital to prevent future trauma on others, furthering the realization of human rights for all. By employing and contextualizing civic engagement, social capital, and human rights within macro practice, practitioners provide care that focuses on their clients' individual strengths, shifts the focus for improvement onto the systems that harm individuals, and builds trust, respect, and reciprocity. Sustainable change occurs when those experiencing trauma have the tools to shape policies and programs that ultimately affirm their safety, well-being, and rights. Within this session, attendees will have multiple opportunities to engage with the content, their co-attendees, and the facilitators. As a result of their attendance and participation, attendees will develop their ability to analyze the session's core concepts, civic engagement, social capital, and human rights, as separate and complementary entities. Additionally, the attendees will apply their learning to a short case study as well as their own practice settings with the consultation of their co-attendees and their facilitators.

PRESENTER: Amanda Jernigan, LCSW

LOCATION: SECC 107, Counseling/Social Work CEU

Critical incidents are an inevitable part of behavioral health, substance use treatment, healthcare, and first responder work. Events such as client deaths, violence, medical emergencies, or threats to safety place both clients and clinicians at increased risk for psychological distress if not appropriately addressed. Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) debriefing is a structured, peer-supported, and clinically informed approach designed to mitigate the impact of traumatic events, promote recovery, and reduce long-term psychological harm.

This workshop will provide an overview of Critical Incident Stress Management Debriefing, including its purpose, core components, and appropriate use following critical incidents. Participants will explore how unaddressed exposure to trauma contributes to clinician burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma factors that significantly impact workforce retention, quality of care, and organizational health. The cumulative effect of repeated crises without adequate support not only affects staff well-being, but also undermines clinical effectiveness and client outcomes.

The presentation will examine how CISM can be thoughtfully and effectively integrated within agencies, emphasizing alignment with trauma-informed care, existing supervision structures, and organizational policies. Practical strategies for implementation will be discussed, including leadership involvement, peer support integration, and coordination with external resources when appropriate. Attention will also be given to ethical considerations, cultural responsiveness, and creating psychologically safe environments where both clinicians and clients can process critical events.

Participants will learn about the benefits of CISM, including reduced emotional distress, enhanced team cohesion, increased resilience, and improved capacity for recovery following critical incidents. Finally, this workshop will underscore the ethical and professional imperative to care for those who help others. Supporting clinicians and clients after critical events is not optional it is essential to sustaining a healthy workforce, maintaining quality care, and honoring the humanity of those working in high-impact helping professions.

PRESENTER: Andrea Bitner

LOCATION: SECC 112, Act 48 Session

In every classroom, language is more than words it's identity, connection, and healing. Healing Words, Growing Worlds invites educators, leaders, and staff to experience what it feels like to be an English Learner through the eyes of those who live it every day our EL students and one proud EL teacher. This interactive, trauma-informed session empowers participants to confidently reach, teach, communicate, and collaborate with English Learners and their families across PreK-12 settings.

Through engaging, hands-on activities, attendees will step into the shoes of an EL student to gain empathy and insight into their daily experiences. Participants will also explore the vital roles that all school community members teachers, administrators, counselors, support staff, and families play in creating inclusive and healing-centered environments and walk away with immediate implementable resources. Together, we'll discover how collaboration among these stakeholders leads to stronger relationships, greater student success, and a more cohesive school culture.

Each participant will receive a EL Checklist Guide to assess and strengthen their own school's practices for inclusion, communication, and shared responsibility.

PRESENTER: Dr. Gina Piombino, LSW, CSSW

LOCATION: SECC 101A Ballroom 

In this one-hour workshop, participants will learn how to move from a trauma inducing scenario to a place of peace and happiness. Educators, counselors, and social workers who engage in self-awareness work within themselves, in individual sessions, group therapy, or work within a classroom setting will gain insight and tools to experience how to regulate themselves and others when experiencing an anxiety producing situation. This learning would be particularly helpful for people who have flashbacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or are challenged by attention deficit, dysregulation, or obsessions and compulsions. The facilitator has successfully utilized these visualized meditations with clients and students ages 5 to 65. Participants will be offered the opportunity to relax and move through various senses to experience several mindful visualizations to mentally detach from an anxiety producing environment and experience a mental place that produces comfort, familiarity, and happiness.

The session will open with an opportunity to find comfort in sitting comfortably or lying down (if accessible and if this feels safe for the person), listen to music, close their eyes, practice a breathing technique to relax their bodies, and mentally remove themselves from a perceived or real stressful environment. Participants will be invited to move through a series of meditative visualizations using their favorite color, and then a visualization of a lighthouse and person representation, and then finally a favorite setting to provide a de-escalation approach to anxiety and stress. Upon completion of the meditation activities, there will be time for participants to voluntarily describe the visualizations as a means to elicit invited community feedback and support. This closure offers potential for reinforcement and healing as well as understanding that community in the moment occurs when people take a chance to verbalize what occurred in their experiences. This group cohesion creates a firsthand opportunity for insight into how this activity may manifest itself when educators, counselors, and social workers offer this tool to their population of interest. This experiential workshop may be a gateway to mindfulness for personal use as well as a tool for use with clients in professional environments.

PRESENTER: Dr. S. Grace Wine & Katelyn Bleigh

LOCATION: SECC 106, No CEU's

Boots on the Ground: Trauma-Informed Strategies for Moving Students Forward is a research-based, interactive workshop designed to equip educators with practical, immediately applicable strategies to support student regulation, learning, and well-being. Grounded in neuroscience, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and human development, this session helps participants understand not only what trauma is, but how it impacts the brain, nervous system, behavior, and readiness to learn.

Participants will explore the physiological and psychological effects of trauma, including how chronic stress shapes nervous system functioning and influences classroom behavior. Using a nervous system lens, behavior is reframed from compliance-based interpretations to regulation and dysregulation, allowing educators to recognize survival responses and respond with skill, empathy, and intention. Core human needs such as safety, connection, predictability, autonomy, and belonging are examined as foundational to learning rather than secondary considerations.

This session emphasizes implementation over theory alone. Through a guided scenario, participants actively apply trauma-informed concepts to common classroom challenges, strengthening their ability to respond effectively in real time. Research-based practices are further grounded through insights shared from lived experiences of trauma survivors and families, offering educators a deeper understanding of how classroom responses are felt and interpreted by students. These perspectives help educators refine their practice to promote dignity, trust, and felt safety.

Participants will leave with five boots-on-the-ground trauma-informed strategies designed for immediate classroom use. These strategies focus on co-regulation, de-escalation, relationship-centered practices, and instructional accessibility supporting students in moving from survival states toward regulation, engagement, and growth. Emphasis is placed on sustainability, recognizing the realities educators face daily.

The workshop is highly interactive, providing space for reflection, discussion, and collaborative problem-solving. Presenters are available throughout the session to help participants adapt strategies to their individual classrooms, student populations, and school contexts. By the end of this session, educators will feel more confident and equipped to implement trauma-informed strategies that move students forward academically, emotionally, and developmentally while fostering classrooms rooted in safety, compassion, and possibility.

PRESENTER: Gabriel Pulido

LOCATION: 101C Ballroom, Wellness Activity

This interactive workshop invites educators, counselors, and social workers to explore spoken word poetry as a healing-centered and pedagogical tool. Spoken word, rooted in traditions of oral storytelling and cultural resistance, offers a powerful way for individuals to process trauma, express identity, and engage with complex social theory through creative embodiment. Participants will learn how spoken word can transform learning spaces into sites of collective healing, critical reflection, and empowerment. The session will begin with a brief introduction to the theoretical underpinnings of healing-centered engagement (Ginwright, 2018) and culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris & Alim, 2017), situating spoken word as a bridge between emotion, intellect, and community. Dr. Pulido will share examples of how poetry can help learners make sense of critical theories such as critical race theory and feminist thought through lived experience and embodied storytelling. Participants will engage in low-stakes creative writing activities designed to (re)connect them to their own narratives and resilience. Through guided prompts, attendees will craft and share short pieces centered on healing, joy, or self-discovery, fostering an environment of mutual respect and creative risk taking. The workshop will close with a reflection circle where participants connect their creative process to their professional practice, identifying ways to integrate spoken word into educational or counseling settings as a tool for social change and personal restoration. By merging artistry and pedagogy, this session positions spoken word not just as a creative outlet, but as an action oriented practice for cultivating empathy, community, and holistic wellbeing in trauma affected spaces.

PRESENTER: Natalia Alvarez-Figueroa, Michael R. Fiocca

LOCATION: SECC 208, Social Work/Counseling CEU

This presentation is a collaboration stemming from doctoral research around diversity practices within teams in education and helping professions. Presenters will lecture about finding as from existing body of knowledge and modalities focused on learning environments, ethics, critical thinking and reflexive learning. Presenters will discuss and encourage audience to engage in discourse around accountability measures, democratic pedagogy, relational dynamics, and indigenous practices for sustainability. Presenters will provide with different examples for defining cultural humility, decolonizing practices, and self-reflection for continuous growth as educators and healers. This presentation will also explore internal dynamics navigated as aspiring allies in the field, to provide with tangible suggestions for increased engagement. Perspectives around anti-oppression and justice oriented frameworks will also be salient throughout this presentation. Presenters will provide and facilitate active music making relational practices for the audience to engage in and personalize for their own pedagogies.

PRESENTER: Rochelle Peterson-Ansari & Chuanika Sanders-Thomas

LOCATION: SECC 209, Act 48 Session

The education workforce in 2025 faces unprecedented complexity, with leaders and novice teachers navigating increasingly demanding responsibilities, evolving generational expectations, and heightened exposure to trauma both their own and that of their students. Traditional development models such as supervision and mentoring no longer fully meet the needs of educators who are carrying significant emotional labor or working in trauma-impacted environments. To retain high-quality staff and support their sustainable growth, school systems must embrace human-centered, innovative strategies that deepen self-awareness, strengthen relational capacity, and build resilience.

This interactive session introduces transformational leadership coaching, an evidence-based professional development tool that remains underutilized in schools. Unlike instructional coaching, which focuses on pedagogical skills, transformational coaching centers the whole educator their beliefs, identity, internal narratives, and ways of being that influence their practice. This approach is especially powerful for teachers and leaders who have experienced trauma or work closely with trauma-impacted students. It provides a structured, reflective process that supports emotional regulation, builds confidence, and helps educators reconnect to purpose in sustainable, healthy ways.

Participants will examine current workforce trends shaping the profession, including burnout patterns, generational shifts, and systemic inequities that influence staff engagement and retention. The session will also explore which outdated managerial practices must be unlearned to truly meet the demands of today's educators.

Through an engaging mix of discussion, activities, and a live coaching demonstration where the coach works through a real challenge offered by the audience participants will experience how transformational coaching fosters self-efficacy, effective relationship building, and problem-solving. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of why coaching is a critical tool for improving the performance, well-being, and long-term retention of both novice teachers and emerging school leaders.

Ultimately, this workshop equips school leaders with a new lens and actionable strategies to cultivate healthy, inclusive, and resilient school communities through the power of transformational coaching.

PRESENTER: Carol Metzker & Kathleen Metzker

LOCATION: Ballroom, Wellness Activity

This session will include a mindfulness body scan infused with the practice of compassion and loving kindness to calm the mind, open the heart, and encourage deep rest. This will seamlessly transition into an immersive, lyrical sound bath (sound therapy session) with singing bowls and other musical instruments, designed to promote wellness and relaxation.

Participants can expect expert guidance in a safe and nourishing environment, and an experience dedicated to soothing the mind, heart, and body. Participants are invited to bring yoga mat/blanket for the sound session.

All are welcome, and no experience is needed. Accommodation can be made for unique physical needs. Individuals with epilepsy, metal brain implants or dissociative conditions cautioned against meditation should check with their professional healthcare provider before participating with singing bowls.

PRESENTER: Haydn Briggs & Gabby Morgan

LOCATION: SECC 208, Social Work/Counseling CEU

In any kind of group work, how we begin deeply shapes what type of work is possible. Too often, group spaces are dominated by check-ins, agendas, and prompts that prioritize efficiency over effectiveness. What's frequently missing is intentional work with the group as a whole, rather than a collection of individuals sitting in a room. This workshop introduces applied sociometry, a century-old framework developed by psychiatrist and group therapy pioneer J.L. Moreno to measure and engage the underlying dynamics of human groups. Sociometry is the study of who we are in relation to one another: how groups form, how belonging emerges, and how isolation takes hold. It offers practical, embodied tools to assess and build connection, allowing group members to locate themselves, make choices, and be seen. While often overlooked in educational and institutional practice, sociometry provides a foundation without which group work tends to fall short or fall flat. Without it, even well-intentioned groups become disconnected serial conversations. With it, a group becomes something more: a living system that can cohere, regulate, and heal. Participants will experience and learn to facilitate several sociometric structures, such as spectrograms, locograms, and sociograms, that support psychological safety, group cohesion, and collective awareness. These tools are immediately adaptable to classrooms, counseling settings, team meetings, and peer support groups. This session is designed for educators, clinicians, facilitators, and organizational leaders who want to move beyond "talking in a room" toward cultivating spaces that feel connected, alive, and capable of transformative work.

PRESENTER: Jessica Jenkins

LOCATION: SECC 106, No CEU's

Imagine a school where every student walks in feeling seen, heard, and capable of thriving, not just surviving. Too often, students, particularly those from historically marginalized communities, encounter classrooms where behavior is misunderstood, discipline feels punitive, and their voices are overlooked. Trauma-informed practices provide essential insight into student needs, but their impact is maximized when paired with culturally responsive social-emotional learning (SEL) that actively restores, strengthens, and empowers.

In this session, participants will explore healing-centered SEL strategies that transform classrooms, counseling practices, and school-wide systems. Drawing on real-world examples and data-informed initiatives, attendees will examine how traditional punitive approaches can unintentionally reinforce inequities and weaken relationships, and how intentional SEL practices can foster belonging, resilience, and agency.

Through reflective exercises, interactive discussion, and hands-on strategy-building, participants will explore how SEL can guide restorative conversations, reduce behavioral referrals, and build emotionally safe, inclusive environments, all while supporting educator well-being and sustainable school change. Emphasis will be placed on strategies that promote student voice, equity, and belonging, while ensuring practices are practical and sustainable for educators.

This session is designed for educators, counselors, social workers, and administrators who are ready to move beyond managing behavior toward cultivating thriving school communities. Participants will leave with concrete, actionable strategies to integrate healing-centered SEL across classrooms and school-wide systems, empowering students to grow academically, socially, and emotionally. By centering connection, care, and restoration, this session provides a roadmap for creating schools that are not just trauma-aware but are places where students and staff flourish together.

PRESENTER: Layna Smith, Gabriella Dacosta, Tylania Moore, Dominique Anderson, Jayelah Hayes, DaBriana Johnson, Jessica Simmons, John Ebo, & Evander Barkley

LOCATION: SECC 107, Counseling/Social Work CEU

Trauma-informed care has become a cornerstone in schools, social service agencies, and community programs, helping professionals recognize and respond to harm. However, these approaches often emphasize deficits what's wrong rather than possibilities, leaving individuals defined by their trauma. This session introduces healing-centered engagement, a transformative framework that shifts the focus from harm reduction to thriving by centering resilience, cultural identity, and collective well-being.

Healing-centered engagement moves beyond the question, "What happened to you?" toward "What is right with you, and how can we help you experience joy, agency, and belonging?" Drawing on Dr. Shawn Ginwright's work and restorative practices research, we will explore five guiding principles: (1) its explicitly political stance, addressing systemic oppression and working toward liberation; (2) cultural grounding that honors identity and lived experience; (3) viewing healing as restoring identity rather than reducing symptoms; (4) asset-driven strategies that build on strengths; and (5) supporting providers' own healing to prevent burnout and foster authentic care.

Through real-world examples from schools and social service settings, participants will engage in reflective exercises, case discussions, and collaborative dialogue to envision healing-centered practices in their own contexts. We will also examine the concept of the "wounded healer", emphasizing the need for collective healing spaces for professionals.

Attendees will leave with actionable strategies for integrating healing-centered language, rituals, and policies into their work. Instead of simply reducing harm, this approach promotes transformation, empowerment, and liberation-centered care helping communities build capacity for joy, justice, and resilience. By reframing care from deficit-based to strengths-driven, we create conditions where individuals and communities can thrive.

PRESENTER: Pamela Gockley

LOCATION: SECC 213, Any Session

The Camel Project presents Learn. Heal. Lead: Healing in Action, an interactive and action-oriented workshop designed to transform trauma awareness into practical strategies that build resilience, creativity, and connection in learning environments. Rooted in healing-centered engagement and trauma-informed education, this session provides educators, youth professionals, and leaders with tools to shift culture from a reactive to a preventive approach creating spaces where both students and staff feel safe, valued, and empowered to thrive.

Drawing from The Camel Project's boots-on-the-ground work in schools and communities, participants will explore how project-based learning, social-emotional awareness, and positive role modeling foster healing and long-term growth. The workshop emphasizes understanding the emotional language of trauma and how modeled behaviors influence classroom dynamics, peer relationships, and overall school climate.

Through hands-on activities and collaborative reflection, attendees will learn to design meaningful, real-world projects that connect learning with purpose, strengthen confidence, and build leadership skills. The session highlights strategies that promote belonging, curiosity, and creativity key components for preventing bullying, reducing isolation, and developing emotionally mature, self-aware learners.

Participants will leave with a clear understanding of how to integrate The Camel Project's framework into their daily practice, including actionable steps to:

• Apply trauma-informed, healing-centered methods within project-based learning.
• Encourage resilience and self-regulation through creativity and collaboration.
• Build emotionally safe environments that support both academic and personal growth.
• Learn. Heal. Lead: Healing in Action invites educators to move beyond awareness into implementation creating a future-focused culture of confidence, connection, and compassion in every classroom and workplace.

PRESENTER: Suzanne O'Connor

LOCATION: SECC 112, Act 48 Session

This workshop provides participants with an innovative, strength-based approach to significantly improve self-regulation through a fundamental understanding of the nine sensory systems, including a focus on the four "hidden" sensory systems. While self-regulation is certainly vital for student success and adult well-being, what often appears to be a behavior problem in a child is, at its core, an unmet sensory need.

This session explores a crucial advancement in understanding the causes of the increasing behavioral challenges and dysregulation seen across various groups of children and youth. It introduces a framework that, despite the complexity of the neurobiological foundations, is designed to be immediately accessible and practically applicable to improve clinical and educational practice. Participants will gain essential knowledge of this approach's principles, which help clarify difficult behavior by revealing the exact connection between brain structure, function, and observable actions. This model offers updated guidance for professionals.

The core of the workshop will go beyond the traditional five senses to examine the regulatory power of the four hidden senses: Proprioception, Vestibular, Interoception, and Neuroception. Understanding these often-overlooked systems is crucial for accurate assessment, response, and intervention planning. The session will highlight the importance of recognizing a disorganized sensory system as a key obstacle to regulation and will introduce the potential of neuroplasticity to transform systems. Evidence-based practices show that professionals have a meaningful and direct opportunity to facilitate the ""rewiring"" of a child's nervous system through practical, relational, and sensory-informed strategies.

Additionally, the session underscores that the ethical use of these basic intervention tools depends on a foundational understanding of the neurosequential model. Through the practical and highly visual ""Sensory Cups"" demonstration, attendees will learn to accurately identify patterns of sensory seeking and sensory avoiding behaviors in themselves and in children. The framework promotes culturally responsive care by recognizing that sensory expression and tolerance are deeply influenced by culture. The session includes a sensory profile self-assessment, helping participants understand and address their own sensory needs, with support and resources to incorporate sensory hacks and activities into their personal self-care routines. Small group time will also be available for processing and reflection on the assessment. This foundational knowledge enhances the ability to promote collective healing, emotional regulation, and executive functioning in both adults and children providing essential, practical knowledge for any professional dedicated to ethical and effective intervention.

PRESENTER: Bryanna Costello

LOCATION: Ballroom, Wellness Activity

Through our hour-long break out session, any agents of change - educators, social workers, administrators, etc - will spend time exploring connection to the mind and body by participating in mindful movement. The session will be gentle, inclusive, and appropriate for all experience levels. No prior yoga experience is required, and all movements will include options and modifications. Techniques and practices of yoga are commonly used strategies to help individuals tend to their well-being. Having ways to self-regulate our emotions through difficult experiences increases opportunities for stronger sense of self and restorative problem-solving, and promotes a greater understanding of a collective well-being in shared spaces. This session will provide adults with a space to tend to themselves while providing opportunities to experience takeaways that can help transform classroom environments. Through the beginning of our sequence, we will prepare our minds with an opening of grounding, warm up our physical body with detailed instruction on focused stretching and learn to practice Sun Salutations. During the peak effort of our sequence, educators will engage in standing poses aimed to open energy pathways through the body. Our sequence winds down with poses aimed to neutralize energy shifts, creating a stronger sense of balance. Breathing techniques, community building and ways to narrate activities in student friendly ways will be weaved into each section. This session is grounded in a healing-centered, trauma-informed framework that emphasizes choice, autonomy, and respect for individual experiences. Language and instruction will be invitational, culturally responsive, and focused on restoration rather than achievement. Participants can expect to leave the session feeling more grounded, relaxed, and emotionally supported. They will gain practical tools for managing stress, cultivating mindfulness, and supporting their well-being in both personal and professional contexts. This healing-centered yoga session provides educators and helping professionals with an opportunity to pause, restore, and reconnect. By prioritizing rest, mindfulness, and emotional resilience, the workshop supports sustainable well-being and empowers participants to continue caring for themselves as they care for others.

PRESENTER: Liz Dlugolecki

LOCATION: SECC 209, Act 48 Session

This interactive workshop explores how self-awareness, mindfulness, and social connection serve as foundations for emotional healing and collective well-being. Participants will engage in reflective and movement-based activities designed to deepen understanding of personal emotions, strengthen relationship skills, and enhance empathy in both educational and community settings. Through guided exercises, small-group dialogue, and collaborative learning, attendees will experience practical strategies for fostering safety, belonging, and emotional regulation key principles of healing-centered engagement. This session offers actionable tools that educators, counselors, and leaders can implement immediately to create environments that nurture emotional resilience, compassion, and authentic connection.

PRESENTER: Gabriel Pulido, Alonya Chest, Alizee LaDiamond, Nestali Troche, Morris Bettah, & Majestee LaVixen

LOCATION: SECC 106, No CEU's

Through a lively panel, led by the organizing presenter; five full-time drag artists share their journeys of mentorship, artistry, and navigating college campuses. Rooted in storytelling, they highlight the power of drag as both performance and pedagogy, while reflecting on the challenges and possibilities of higher education spaces. This session also underscores the importance of community-involved scholarship in capturing authentic narratives, demonstrating how drag artists' lived experiences shape more accurate, inclusive understandings of art, identity, and belonging.

PRESENTER: Laine Whitaker & Jordan A. Katz

LOCATION: SECC 112, Act 48 Session

Schools thrive when adults are emotionally attuned to themselves and to the students they serve. Yet educators are increasingly stretched thin, managing the effects of stress, trauma, and dysregulation while trying to sustain their own well-being. This session introduces AttunED, a practical, neuroscience-informed framework designed to help educators strengthen relationships, regulation, and resilience through four key practices: Curiosity, Care, Connection, and Collaboration.

Grounded in trauma-attuned and healing-centered principles, AttunED shifts the focus from fixing behavior to understanding the needs that drive it. Participants will learn how curiosity creates psychological safety, how adult regulation shapes classroom climate, and how micro-practices such as Transition Resets and Community Circles promote co-regulation and belonging. The session highlights the science of stress and attachment while providing tools for building a culture of empathy, reflection, and shared accountability.

Through brief interactive reflection and guided discussion, participants will explore strategies to prevent burnout, respond to challenging behaviors with compassion, and nurture emotionally safe spaces where both staff and students can thrive. Attendees will leave with actionable techniques that can be implemented immediately, using simple, relationship-based practices that restore calm, strengthen trust, and make school a place where healing and learning happen together.

This session offers a balance of insight and practicality for educators, counselors, and administrators seeking to deepen trauma-attuned practice and embed social-emotional safety into everyday routines.

PRESENTER: Lou Edwards Matthews

LOCATION: SECC 107, Counseling/Social Work CEU

Mathematics is a deeply human practice through which people make meaning, care for one another, imagine futures, and build what does not yet exist. When mathematics is understood in this way, it becomes a powerful site for healing, not as an add-on or response, but as something intentionally designed through human experience.

In this session, Dr. Lou Matthews introduces the Hope Wheel as a healing-centered design framework for mathematics teaching and learning. The Hope Wheel provides educators with shared language and structure for shaping mathematical intention, guiding instructional implementation, and orienting learning toward meaningful impact. Organized around six human commitments love, creation, restoration, investment, inspiration, and collective agency the framework positions hope not as an outcome, but as a navigational force that informs how mathematics is designed, experienced, and lived.

The session begins with a generative design question: What becomes possible when mathematics itself is designed through hope? Participants engage in a practice laboratory where mathematics is explored as something humans actively live with, shape, and use to engage the world. Through guided reflection and classroom-based examples, educators examine how immersive, human-centered mathematical experiences can be designed to affirm dignity, cultivate belonging, and support collective well-being from the outset.

Rather than separating healing from instruction, this approach positions healing as something enacted through how mathematics is framed, designed, and practiced. The session emphasizes deep practice: immersion into human experience, intentional design, amplification of student voice and agency, and movement toward meaningful action. Participants leave with a practical, design-oriented pathway for using mathematics to nurture hope, connection, and shared purpose.

PRESENTER: Tia Sanders

LOCATION: SECC 208, Social Work/Counseling CEU

The prevalence of trauma amongst staff and students is pervasive. As many staff and students have experienced trauma it is imperative to promote trauma awareness, sensitivity and responsiveness to achieve positive outcomes. However, the shift to move beyond trauma informed practices to healing centered principles is essential to creating schools where students and staff can not only perform but thrive. This workshop will discuss types and prevalence of trauma. It will explore the impact of trauma on the neurobiology, well-being and academic performance of students. As the relationship between students and staff correlates with student performance and outcomes it is important to ensure that all school staff are supported as well. The workshop will discuss how student trauma impacts school staff by distinguishing between burnout, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. Ways to support staff well-being to reduce and prevent these outcomes will be presented.

Emerging research on the impact of positive childhood experiences in reducing the effects of trauma and promoting positive outcomes will be presented. The workshop will discuss how schools play a critical role in creating positive childhood experience for students. Therefore, schools are imperative to preventing and mitigating the effects of trauma in the lives of students. Utilizing healing centered approaches to support students and staff will promote long term healthy outcomes. An introduction to applying healing centered principles in a school setting and connecting to the community collaboratively will be discussed. Through discussion, scenario review and reflections the audience will receive practical strategies on how to address trauma and support both staff and students to promote healing for all.

PRESENTER:  Dr. Gina Piombino

LOCATION:

In this one-hour workshop, participants will learn how to move from a trauma inducing scenario to a place of peace and happiness. Educators, counselors, and social workers who engage in self-awareness work within themselves, in individual sessions, group therapy, or work within a classroom setting will gain insight and tools to experience how to regulate themselves and others when experiencing an anxiety producing situation. This learning would be particularly helpful for people who have flashbacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or are challenged by attention deficit, dysregulation, or obsessions and compulsions. The facilitator has successfully utilized these visualized meditations with clients and students ages 5 to 65. Participants will be offered the opportunity to relax and move through various senses to experience several mindful visualizations to mentally detach from an anxiety producing environment and experience a mental place that produces comfort, familiarity, and happiness. The session will open with an opportunity to find comfort in sitting comfortably or lying down (if accessible and if this feels safe for the person), listen to music, close their eyes, practice a breathing technique to relax their bodies, and mentally remove themselves from a perceived or real stressful environment. Participants will be invited to move through a series of meditative visualizations using their favorite color, and then a visualization of a lighthouse and person representation, and then finally a favorite setting to provide a de-escalation approach to anxiety and stress. Upon completion of the meditation activities, there will be time for participants to voluntarily describe the visualizations as a means to elicit invited community feedback and support. This closure offers potential for reinforcement and healing as well as understanding that community in the moment occurs when people take a chance to verbalize what occurred in their experiences. This group cohesion creates a firsthand opportunity for insight into how this activity may manifest itself when educators, counselors, and social workers offer this tool to their population of interest. This experiential workshop may be a gateway to mindfulness for personal use as well as a tool for use with clients in professional environments.