The Gift of Reconnection: Trauma-Informed Practice training
Thrive LDN has partnered with Nicola Lester Psychological Trauma Consultancy to offer free, pre-recorded trauma-informed practice training to support individuals and organisations.
Thrive LDN has partnered with Nicola Lester Psychological Trauma Consultancy to offer free, pre-recorded trauma-informed practice training to support individuals and organisations.
Wellbeing 
Training resource
Thrive LDN has partnered with Nicola Lester Psychological Trauma Consultancy to offer free, pre-recorded trauma-informed practice training to support individuals and organisations.
Find below open access workshops and further materials to support individuals and organisations to achieve Bronze, Silver and Gold standard.
The training is designed for anyone in a role supporting others, whether formal or informal. However, participating in the training supports an understanding of how trauma influences and shapes the lives of those it touches regardless of previous knowledge or role.
About the trainer
Nicola Lester is a registered mental health nurse by background, specialising in working with psychological trauma and developing trauma informed approaches to practice across a range of contexts, both in the UK and overseas.
Use of the training workshops and further materials
The team at Nicola Lester Trauma Consultancy have worked very hard to develop this training and to make it accessible to all. We are delighted to host it here for free with thanks to funding and support by the Mayor of London. We ask that you respect this by keeping this online training for use by you and your organisation and do not reproduce the materials or re-distribute for profit.
Please do tell as many people as you can about this free training – this will help us to fulfil our vision of a trauma informed everything!
Bitesize option
Become gold level trauma-informed in just eight weeks
To complete all the available training, starting from the introduction below, takes close to 5 hours in total. Building on feedback, we have developed a bitesize approach to help make things more manageable and less overwhelming.
Subscribe to an eight-week programme and you’ll receive the training chapter-by-chapter direct into your inbox. This means you can spend around 20-30 minutes per week engaging with the training.
By week 8 you’ll have fully completed the training programme and will be awarded gold level status ‘Committed to Trauma Informed Practice’.
Introduction
As part of a wider campaign to increase access to training in trauma informed practice, Nicola Lester Psychological Trauma Consultancy has developed the following recorded, open access training workshops to support individuals and organisations.
In a short introductory video, Nicola Lester introduces the training series and the various training levels. We encourage you to watch this introduction before beginning the Bronze Level recorded training workshop.
Bronze Level
The Gift of Reconnection: Becoming Trauma Aware (Bronze level)
This online recorded training workshop is comprised of an introduction to the training series, followed by three chapters each lasting between 25-35 minutes.
Overview of the training
Making a commitment to ‘practice’ trauma informed care first requires an understanding of how trauma influences and shapes the lives of those it touches. We must know how it changes, alters and transforms the way someone thinks and feels; how they engage with and experience the world around them.
Specific chapters include:
- Understanding trauma and loss
- Understanding the complexity of developmental trauma
- Integrating a trauma informed approach to practice
Additional training materials
The Gift of Reconnection Becoming Trauma Aware (Bronze level) Manual [PDF]
A download of the training workshop slides to keep as a manual for the Bronze Level.
Bronze Level: Becoming Trauma Aware – Facilitation guide [PDF]
Whilst the bronze level training video can be accessed individually, some organisations may prefer to participate in a group, either in person or online. This brief guide to facilitators to promote engagement and enhance opportunities for discussion and sharing learning.
Bronze Level: Becoming Trauma Aware – aide-mémoire [PDF]
A download of a memory aid to support the Bronze Level training.
Certificate of completion
Once you have completed The Gift of Reconnection: Becoming Trauma Aware (Bronze level) training, then please fill out this online form.
The form will give you an opportunity to reflect on your learning, and provide information to receive a certificate of completion and certified badge, which can be used to demonstrate your knowledge and trauma informed training status. If you require support in completing this or would like it in another format, then please contact the Thrive LDN team.
Silver Level
The Gift of Reconnection: Developing Trauma Informed Practice (Silver Level)
This online recorded training workshop is comprised of two chapters each lasting between 25-35 minutes.
Please note, this is the second level of the series. Please access the bronze level training before you access the silver level.
Overview of the training
At the silver level, we move beyond developing an awareness of the impact of trauma to thinking about how we ‘practice’ a trauma informed approach. This is broken down into two key areas; therapeutic skills for reconnection and creativity in trauma informed practice.
Whilst trauma informed practice is not about ‘treating’ trauma or providing ‘therapy’, it is about being ‘therapeutic’ and sitting in the darkness beside someone demands an understanding of connection, empathy, compassion, courage and vulnerability and kindness. In this session we establish the skills needed to bear witness to distress and remain present, withhold judgement and hold space and to ‘steward’ stories.
Specific chapters include:
- From disconnection to reconnection-therapeutic skills for practice
- Creative trauma informed practice
Additional training materials
▪ The Gift of Reconnection Developing Trauma Informed Practice (Silver Level) Manual [PDF]
A download of the training workshop slides to keep as a manual for the Silver Level.
▪ Silver Level: Developing Trauma Informed Practice – Facilitation guide [PDF]
Whilst the training video can be accessed individually, some organisations may prefer to participate in a group, either in person or online. This brief guide to facilitators to promote engagement and enhance opportunities for discussion and sharing learning.
▪ Silver Level: Developing Trauma Informed Practice – aide-mémoire [PDF]
A download of a memory aid to support the Silver Level training.
▪ Making a friendship bracelet
Certificate of completion
Once you have completed The Gift of Reconnection: Developing Trauma Informed Practice (Silver Level) training, then please fill out this online form.
The form will give you an opportunity to reflect on your learning, and provide information to receive a certificate of completion and certified badge, which can be used to demonstrate your knowledge and trauma informed training status. If you require support in completing this or would like it in another format, then please contact the Thrive LDN team.
Gold Level
The Gift of Reconnection: Committed to Trauma Informed Practice (Gold Level)
This online recorded training workshop is comprised of three chapters each lasting between 30-45 minutes.
Please note, this is the third level of the series. Please access the bronze and silver level trainings before you access the gold level.
Overview of the training
At the gold level, the focus shifts from individual practice to think about organisational practice. When we consider ‘trauma’, both in terms of its cause and effect, discussions of power should never be far behind. This level also examines the challenge of working within ‘traumatised organisations’ and the barriers that these can create to making a commitment to trauma informed practice.
Understanding how organisations can also become disconnected, disempowered and isolated is essential, not least because of the profound implications that this has on staff and beneficiaries and their experiences. Most importantly, the topic of self-care and vicarious trauma is also explored as we acknowledge that a commitment to trauma informed practice can only emerge when we make the same commitment to take care of ourselves.
The final chapter focuses on making ‘SENSE’ of trauma informed practice, offering a structure for trauma informed care by weaving together knowledge and practice to create this commitment.
Specific chapters include:
- Understanding organisations, trauma, power and betrayal
- Our hearts: The impact of working with trauma
- Making SENSE of trauma informed practice
Additional training materials
▪The Gift of Reconnection Committed to Trauma Informed Practice (Gold Level) manual [PDF]
A download of the training workshop slides to keep as a manual for the Gold Level.
▪Gold Level Committed to Trauma Informed Practice – Facilitation guide [PDF]
Whilst the training video can be accessed individually, some organisations may prefer to participate in a group, either in person or online. This brief guide to facilitators to promote engagement and enhance opportunities for discussion and sharing learning.
▪ Gold Level: Committed to Trauma Informed Practice – aide-mémoire [PDF]
A download of a memory aid to support the Gold Level training.
▪Gold Level Committed to Trauma Informed Practice – reflective practice guide [Word]
A reflective practice guide for participants to use when accessing the Gold Level training.
Certificate of completion
Once you have completed The Gift of Reconnection: Committed to Trauma Informed Practice (Gold Level) training, then please fill out this online form.
The form will give you an opportunity to reflect on your learning, and provide information to receive a certificate of completion and certified badge, which can be used to demonstrate your knowledge and trauma informed training status. If you require support in completing this or would like it in another format, then please contact the Thrive LDN team.
For education practitioners
Trauma-informed practice for those working with children and young people
We are also delighted to share resources specifically for support practitioners working with children and young people, designed to complement the Gift of Reconnection Training series.
These supplementary tools will help foster a learning environment where every pupil feels seen, heard, and supported – a place where the impact of trauma is recognised and met with compassion.
Explore more on the Thrive LDN website
Through Together
The Gift of Reconnection training series has been funded by the Mayor of London.
The training was funded to support Londoners recover from the mental health impacts of the pandemic and cost-of-living pressures. This comes as thousands of Londoners pledge to become champions for positive wellbeing where they are empowered to act to improve their own and their communities’ wellbeing.
The series forms part of Thrive LDN’s Through Together campaign.
The campaign, launched in November 2022, provides a range of tools and resources to protect and enhance people’s mental wellbeing, so that they can adapt and thrive after their lives have been disrupted by current shocks.
#ThroughTogether stories also showcase how Londoners are making a difference to those in their local community and beyond by supporting each other through the emotional pressures and challenges they may be feeling right now.
