Trauma-Informed Facilitation
Online, twice in 2026Do 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.
Liz’s TIF program is foundational training in our team and a core part of our research design practice, informing our ethical framework and also serving as an effective risk reduction strategy.
WorkSafe Victoria
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).
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).
"Our team recently completed Liz's Trauma Informed Facilitation Training as we work collectively towards intergenerational equity and prosperity in South Auckland.
Liz's course was a highly practical and applicable in our context in Aotearoa New Zealand. It blended theory and practice expertly and in a highly accessible way. Liz's practice was relational, reassuring and flexible, allowing us to bring in specific examples from our work to discuss in more detail with her.
She was highly responsive to our needs and level of expertise as a group. Her practice demonstrated a strong decolonial analysis which really informed the training and practice guidance. We've found it immensely useful and are keen to partner with Liz for future learning opportunities."
Jessica Trask, The Auckland Co-Design Lab
WHO'S ALREADY ATTENDED?
TIF has already been delivered to hundreds of facilitators at 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 over 25 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 - it's 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 on Faculty here at ANZPOP.
My qualifications include:
- Current studies - Anthropology PhD Candidate
- Masters of Culture, Health and Medicine (medical anthropology)
- 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
DATES AND TIMES
This course will run twice in 2026 - In February and October.
- Tuesdays, 17 & 24 February
9.30am - 12.30pm (Melb time)
- Tuesdays, 20 & 27 October
9.30am - 12.30pm (Melb time)
Due to the nature of the workshop, entering the workshop after the start time 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 on time. The Zoom meeting room will be locked once we start.
We'll 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
CANCELLATIONS
WHAT TO BRING
Bring a notepad and pen if you like to take notes. Workshop handouts will be emailed to participants a 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.
“Thank you so much for the workshop! I’ve just typed up my notes and reflecting on my new tools 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,
Register for Trauma Informed Facilitation
“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
ANZPOP acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands we live and work on, the Aboriginal Australian, and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the Maori First Nations peoples. We pay respect to their elders across time. We give thanks for the Indigenous knowledge that has informed the Process Work approach. We honour the courage, resilience, and spirit of First Nations peoples to counter the ongoing impacts of colonisation on their culture, well-being, and sovereignty.
