Training Description:

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This 2-day experiential and interactive training (delivered in two 5-hour sessions) offers a comprehensive understanding of how young people experience the stress and stigma of a parent's substance use—and how we, as supporters, can move from risk mitigation toward relational resilience, collective healing, and hope.

 

Grounded in the trauma-informed care and expanded through the lenses of social justice, systemic barriers, and family context, this training challenges participants to move beyond individual deficit models to strength based approaches that centre youth voices in our approaches to youth wellbeing and hold community accountable to youth well-being. Drawing on resilience theory, participants will learn how protective factors, such as connection, meaning-making, and access to culturally relevant supports, can buffer adversity. Through a critical lens, we explore barriers to and approaches that center youth identity, agency, and community connection as integral to well-being.

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Participants will examine how stress, stigma, and systemic injustice show up in the lives of youth through a relational and developmental lens. The training also covers relevant child protection legislation and builds capacity for trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, and non-violent communication practices that prioritize dignity and care.

 

By the end of this training, participants will:

 

• Contextualize adversity by situating ACEs within the broader realities of systemic oppression, stigma, and family dynamics, moving beyond individual-focused models.

• Apply trauma-informed, healing-centered and resilience practices that amplify youth strengths, promote agency, and create conditions for connection, safety, and identity affirmation.

• Develop practical tools to motivate the inner advocate in participants who can recognize and interrupt cycles of trauma in research, policy, and practice, fostering more equitable, responsive, and hopeful environments for young people.