Trauma-Informed and Relational Care for Libraries 2025

This course will provide you knowledge, tools, and practices to relate to trauma with the utmost care from a systemic and individual lens. It goes beyond teaching you to be merely trauma-informed in libraries but aims to support you to become a trauma-informed human being who leads from a place of care. This self-paced course guides you through complex topics like trauma and power dynamics, allowing you to process them at your own pace, reducing the risk of retraumatization.

You have lifetime access to this course which also includes:

1. 5 modules
2. Individual workbook questions
3. Optional group workbook questions
4. Monthly workshops and Q&A calls
5. Somatic video library
6. Slack community space

Delivery:
I offer videos, workbook questions, slides, recommended resources, and bibliographies for all of my content. I ask that participants not share my slides without my consent.

Module 1 – Grounding in Your Values

Learning Outcomes

1. Define values for yourself and discuss values with team members.
2. Compare, contrast, and complement individual and group values with organizational values.
3. Reflect on the importance of values within your role.

IMPACT
This module will clarify what matters to you, gives you more agency and integrity in relationships, and helps you make decisions while also helping you to empathically show up for others by considering their values as well.

Module 2 – Building Relational Skills

Learning Outcomes

1. Discern between relating and transacting.
2. Distinguish between empathy, empathic listening, and congruence.
3. Practice empathy, empathic listening, and congruence with a safe individual.
4. Explain why relational skills can support you in your particular role in the workplace.
5. Connect urgency to white supremacy culture and relational skills.

IMPACT
Since trauma happens in relationship, it is important to develop relational skills to increase your understanding of yourself and others while reducing urgency and making space for safety in relationships.

Module 3 – Trauma, Safety, the Nervous System, and Power

Learning Outcomes

1. Define trauma from an individual, systemic, and workplace perspective.
2. Experience and integrate what safety can feel like.
3. Identify nervous systems states and how these affect you individually in different contexts.
4. Connect nervous system responses to power dynamics.

IMPACT
Being trauma-informed requires an understanding about how trauma shows up individually and systemically. This is a deep foundation that will influence how you perceive people’s behavior (and your own) and examines power dynamics through the lens of behavior, body, and story so trauma-informed care comes more naturally to you.

Module 4 – Trauma-Informed Library Practices

Learning Outcomes

1. Name and describe trauma-informed assumptions and principles.
2. Create a personalized trauma-informed approach based on responsibility.
3. Connect accountability to trauma-informed care.
4. Apply trauma-informed care and nervous system knowledge to applicable library situations.

IMPACT
This module will take you from the macro to the micro. You’ve learned the foundational trauma knowledge, and now you’ll learn specific principles and trauma-informed reframes so you can apply them to specific library scenarios that are relevant to your daily work.

Module 5 – Integration and Moving Forward

Learning Outcomes

1. Document major takeaways and big questions from the course.
2. Create tangible goals to apply trauma-informed care.
3. Decide next steps to apply trauma-informed care.

IMPACT
The goals you create from this module will help you know what YOU want to do next, how you want to do it, and why it is important so you can readily apply this in a way that isn’t overwhelming or focused on doing the “perfect” trauma-informed thing.

2025 WORKSHOPS + Q&A (will be recorded)

July: Making Values-Based Goals
August: Moving from “The Customer is Always Right” to “The Customer is Always a Person (and so are you)”
September: Mapping Your Nervous System
October: Identifying Your Feelings & Needs
November: Moving from Power Over to Power With
December: Creating Personalized Trauma-Informed Scripts

Course URL: https://www.traumainformedlibraries.com/

Learning Objectives

• Apply relational techniques through empathic listening, congruence, and values-based decision-making to foster safer interactions with patrons and colleagues.
• Identify signs of stress or trauma in yourself and others, using awareness and somatic tools to restore a sense of safety.
• Apply trauma-informed principles and frameworks to real-life library scenarios to reduce urgency, prioritize consent, and integrate accountability into daily practices.
• Analyze workplace scenarios through a trauma-informed lens, adjusting behaviors to shift from “power over” to “power with” in leadership and service.

MLA CE Credits: 20