
Extra session for 2023 - 1-8 November
Do you work with groups?
Do you know how to provide the best care if someone gets “triggered” or “flips out”?
Are you committed to high ethical standards in your work?
While it’s difficult to estimate exact figures, a large majority of the population have experienced a significant trauma of one kind or another in the course of their lives, and often more than one.
As a facilitator or presenter working with groups, you can therefore assume the majority of people in your groups have experienced trauma: so someone being “triggered” in your group is more a matter of WHEN, not IF.
For many people who’ve experienced trauma, group environments can be particularly challenging and make them more at risk of being triggered. And if the nature of your group/topic is at all taboo, sensitive, controversial, conflictual, or intended to take people out of their comfort zone, the risks of participants being triggered is higher again.
As facilitators and presenters, we have a duty of care to the people we work with to create and maintain safe-enough spaces. The best way to do this, is to be trauma-informed, and enact the principles and practices of trauma-informed facilitation in all aspects of your work.
“This workshop is essential for anyone who works in a facilitation, teaching or leadership role.
As a professional working in the not for profit, education and corporate space, this is the first training I found that directly addresses practical methods for creating safe, inclusive learning environments that are also fun and playful.
Liz practices what she preaches and the workshop itself is a living demonstration of how to work with the needs of the individuals in the room while also achieving objectives and engaging her audience. She is laid-back, creative, fun and professional. At all times I felt at ease while also being aware that I was learning from (and with) a highly skilled facilitator who has “done the work” and mastered her craft.
I left with a greater sense of confidence in my ability to hold space for a diverse audience. I understood the necessity of being trauma informed as I work. However, above all I learned that trauma informed facilitation can be fun, funny, weird and joyous – and that made me really happy.
I highly recommend Liz, the TIF workshop and her work in general.”
Stefan Bramble, Facilitator and Trainer, www.thebrazen.co
WHAT’S IN THE TRAINING?
This training will help you develop the skills, knowledge, and frameworks needed to create trauma-informed group spaces, and build your confidence to respond well when people get triggered.
We’ll cover:
- What is trauma?
- What is “triggering”? What causes it? How to notice it?
- How to promote/advertise your group in a trauma-informed way
- How to screen potential participants
- How to structure safety in a group
- Ethical facilitation and professional boundaries of competence
- What to do when someone gets triggered
- Follow-up and aftercare
- Facilitator and presenter self-care, and business protection
- Open floor discussion for the “what if…” and the “what could I have done when…”
“I am committed to ongoingly critiquing the ways trauma is constructed and capitalised upon that recreates inequity, for example, colonialism, racism and neoliberalism. I incorporate this critique in a variety of ways in the training.” – Liz
“The trauma informed facilitation workshop helped me reach a new level of awareness around how to sensitively work with those who may be triggered by course content, in ways that are potentially transformative for all. Having a brave space to explore and speak about trauma, often a taboo subject in our wider society, was a liberating experience – particularly as someone with a lived-experience. Liz’s style is on-point, compassionate, and she turns what is usually a heavy subject into something that connects others through exploration.”
Morgan Lee Cataldo, Community Advocate & Lived-Experience practitioner
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
The workshop is specifically for people who work with groups, in either a paid or volunteer capacity, and are committed to working ethically.
Whether you call yourself a facilitator, trainer, presenter, host, convenor, chairperson, educator, cat-herder, whatever! If you take some kind of leadership or guidance position with groups of people and have some implied duty of care for them, then this workshop is relevant to you.
If you run a business as a facilitator/trainer/presenter, the training may be tax-deductible as professional development.
MAKING IT SAFER
This workshop delivers content and makes space for learning-focused discussion, but it is also designed to model trauma-informed facilitation.
Ahead of course commencement, you’ll receive some Group Care Agreements which we’ll discuss in the beginning of the course (you’re welcome to use/modify these for your own events). A nominated support person will also be part of the group, just in case anyone needs a little extra support during the training.
This workshop will be recorded so you can study the sessions in your own time and catch anything you missed first time around. The recordings will only be available to course attendees and only for two weeks after each session (you will be able to watch but not download the recordings).
“Thank you so much for the workshop! I’ve just typed up my notes and reflecting on the new tools in my belt for working with my clients around sexuality and pleasure.
I really enjoyed your grounded casual approach, and how you modelled the tools and techniques on the group throughout the day – it humanised them and showed their efficacy. Thank you so much for your tools, they have given me more confidence to work in a delicate and important space, and I have already incorporated them in my most recent event.”
Euphemia Russell, Sexuality and Pleasure Educator,
IN-HOUSE OPTION
This training can also be run in your organisation with your team, and customised to suit your facilitation/ engagement context. To enquire about this option, email the trainer, Liz Scarfe, directly: liz@lizscarfe.net
WHO’S ALREADY ATTENDED?
TIF has already been delivered to hundreds of facilitators as both public and in-house training. Participants come from a range of facilitation contexts, from solo practitioners running kinky sex workshops or providing high-level facilitation and consultation services, to organisations across a wide range of sectors including…
















THE TRAINER: LIZ SCARFE
I’ve been facilitating and training adults for almost 20 years, primarily in social change, non-violent activism and community safety, and community development spaces.
As a process-oriented psychotherapist in private practice, I specialised in post-traumatic growth (helping people become more than before) for nine years. Moving away from a focus on therapy (still doing some though), I’m now focused on Collaborative Learning for Cultural Repair. I continue to provide education to non-therapists about how to work from a trauma-informed perspective – its a kind of cultural repair too.

As a trainer I have a highly collaborative style – I know I’m not the only one in the room with knowledge and insight about the topic and while I’m there to share specific knowledge and skills, I’m equally interested in connecting with and weaving in what you already know too.
I’m also the Executive Director here at ANZPOP and a faculty member of the Processwork Institute of India.
My qualifications include:
- Current studies – Masters of Culture, Health and Medicine at ANU
- Certified Processworker trained in psychotherapy, facilitation and conflict transformation (member of the International Association of Process Oriented Psychology)
- Psychotherapist accredited with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia
- Advanced Certificate in Group Facilitation from the Groupwork Institute of Australia
- Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment (adult education)
- Diploma of Management
- Bachelor of Science (Hons)
WORKSHOP DETAILS
WHEN
This workshop is six hours, split over two, three-hour sessions. When you register, you are registering for both three-hour sessions.
The workshop will run three times in 2023:
- Wednesday 15th & 22nd February 2023 – 9.30am – 12.30pm Melbourne time: FULLY BOOKED.
- Wednesday 2nd & 9th August 2023 – 9.30am – 12.30pm Melbourne time. FULLY BOOKED.
- Wednesday 1st & 8th November 2023 – 9.30am – 12.30pm Melbourne time.
Arrive from 9.20am for a 9.30am start.
Due to the nature of the workshop, entering the workshop after 9.30am is not permitted, so please arrive 5-10 minutes early to get settled and sort out any tech issues so you are ready to start at 9.30am. The Zoom meeting room will be locked at 9.30am.
We finish at 12.30pm and will break for ten minutes roughly in the middle.
WHERE
Online on Zoom. The link will be emailed to you two days before the workshop starts along with other pre-session information.
Attending the workshop on a computer will be best. If you attend on a mobile device you won’t get the most out of the workshop.
Please ensure you have a private space for the duration of the workshop if possible.
It’s also best if you can have your video on for the workshop if your bandwidth allows for it.
FEES
The workshop fee is:
- $480 full price (organisations, and individuals on incomes over $70K AUD per annum), or
- $260 concession (income under $70k AUD per annum).
For participants joining from regions with significantly different economies, please contact us at admin@anzpop.org for fair trade rate.
CANCELLATIONS
Cancellations with seven or more days’ notice will receive a full refund.
Cancellations with less than seven days’ notice will not be refunded.
You are welcome to sell your registration to someone else. Email us at admin@anzpop.org to let us know if you’re doing this.
WHAT TO BRING
Bring a notepad and pen if you like to take notes. Workshop handouts will be emailed to participants couple of days ahead of the session but they won’t cover everything in the workshop.
Maybe have some easy snacks on hand and something to drink too.
“I’ve been facilitating workshops and classes for a few years now, and have begun to bring more attention to the psycho-emotional changes that my work inevitably leads to, which is also a major part of my clinical work as a practitioner.
What I learned from the Trauma-Informed Facilitation workshop was that there was so much more I could do to help people with trauma not become ‘re-traumatised’. I realised part of my messaging and advertising was probably keeping these people away, when they were set up for them in the first place.
It also helped me understand more about the nature of trauma from a Western Psychotherapeutic perspective, which complemented my existing TCM understanding.
I thought it was run very well, and have used that as the model for how to make my own sessions ‘trauma-friendly’, with a lot more attention and detail paid to ensuring the space I set is as safe as it can be.
I’m hoping to be able to do more training in this field, as it is SO important. And Liz is definitely someone who is capable, knowledgeable, sensitive, and professional in this field.
I think this training is a must for ANYONE who runs workshops, classes, and experiential learning sessions.”
Peter Loupelis
REGISTRATIONS
The August workshop is fully booked and so registrations have closed. We’ve added a November date and registrations are open via the form below. If you have any problems with the registration form, please let us know at admin@anzpop.org and we’ll sort it out.
ANZPOP acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands we live and work on, the Aboriginal Australian, Torres Strait Islander, and Maori peoples. We pay respect to their elders past, present and future. We give thanks for the wisdom of these peoples that has informed the Process Work approach. We honour the courage, resilience and spirit of traditional peoples in the face of the devastating impact colonisation has had and continues to have on their culture, wellbeing, and sovereignty.