This training is presented by The Professional Youth Worker. It's our mission to help you and your team build your skills and boost your passion for serving young people. Join us!
An Inside-Out Approach to Navigating Youth Trauma

- On-Demand Webinar
- Recorded on Thursday, March 26, 2020
- 1.5 hour training
- FREE for YIPA members
- $30 for non-YIPA members
- 100% approval rating
- Not a member? Annual membership is $124 for individuals or $300 for organizations. Join now or learn more.
Learners' Own Words
"I think anyone working with youth should watch this training."
"Wendy's style of speaking reiterated the message and importance of being present, genuine, and self-aware that is so important in working with youth with trauma."
"This was a quality training. I feel like I learned a lot both about how to take care of myself when I'm interacting with youth as well as helping the youth themselves."
Your Training Description
Too many young people have experienced some sort of trauma early in life. The impacts can be far-reaching and long-lasting. Much has been learned about the challenges they face and many strategies have been tested to help them build resiliency. But how do we prepare youth workers for understanding youth trauma and managing their own trauma when working with young people affected by ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)?
As a youth worker, you know that people who have experienced trauma have had their voice and choice taken from them. Your ability to truly see youth for all they are, including all of the beautiful ways they are different from you, and honor that difference, supports their healing. This is the inside-out approach to navigating youth trauma. You start looking in the mirror before you look out the window. Many trauma trainings miss how to weave cultural proficiency and self-care together. Allowing yourself to become curious about your own culture, how it impacts your core beliefs and values, drives your assumptions, judgements, and behaviors, helps you be more present.
Gain strategies to support young people who are learning how to trust and find safety in everyday life, when safety risks are very much realities. Improve your ability to communicate safety by maintaining your own regulation. Recognize how self-care strategies are vital to being more present to youth that have experienced trauma. This training will give you tools, deepen your understanding, and build your capacity to support young people who are experiencing and trying to navigate a profoundly intense world.
Your Learning Objectives
- Learn to support healing in young people by understanding how trauma impacts the body and the brain
- Explore effective strategies for attending to hyperarousal and intense emotions
- Learn how to be present and conscious of your thinking so you can attend to young people more effectively
- Understand the importance of self-care when working with young people to optimize your ability to be flexible and adaptable
Your Trainer

Wendy Lorenz-Walraven is a clinical social worker and the Director of Equity and Diversity for Minnesota Transitions Charter School. She currently trains educators in Trauma Informed Practice, Restorative Practice and Culturally Proficient School Systems. Whether providing in-home therapy for children and families or supporting students and staff, creating a safe space and genuine connection for healing from traumatic experiences follows a similar process. While her approach is rooted in social work and her profound dedication for attending to social justice, the key concepts she shares in this training can be utilized by any person, in any context. Her hope is to provide some tools, deepen understanding and build capacity for supporting young people who are experiencing and trying to navigate a profoundly intense world.
Your Competency Focus Area

Each of YIPA’s trainings are designed around a broad framework of eight youth work competencies. The competency focus of this training is: BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION.
Adopt a mindset and perspective to understand the connection between emotions and behaviors, effectively model managing your own emotions as you teach youth to manage theirs, and diffuse dysregulated behavior and help youth re-regulate.
Your Training Details
- On-Demand Webinar
- Recorded on Thursday, March 26, 2020
- 1.5 hour training
- FREE for YIPA members
- $30 for non-YIPA members
- 100% approval rating
- Not a member? Annual membership is $124 for individuals or $300 for organizations. Join now or learn more.
This training will count as 1.5 CE hours for most boards. Please contact your board directly with questions on submitting. You are encouraged to print or save this training information as a PDF for your records.