Care and Comfort: Recognizing and Healing Secondary Traumatic Stress

Educators and frontline school staff regularly hold space for students and families experiencing stress, adversity, and trauma. The compassion, empathy, and dedication required to do this work well can also leave staff vulnerable to Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and, at times, direct exposure to hard things. This full-day, in-person training invites participants into a supportive learning environment designed for reflection, connection, and skill-building.Through quiet individual reflection, small group dialogue, case vignettes, experiential activities, and large group learning, participants will explore what STS is(and is not), how it can show up in ourselves and our work, and how professional roles and personal identities shape our experience of stress and care. The training creates a restful container where staff can slow down and reconnect with their professional purpose while checking in on their own well being and each other. Come spend time in a low-demand environment that emphasizes care and comfort.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the signs, symptoms, and risk factors associated with Secondary Traumatic Stress and cumulative stress exposure among educators and school staff.
• Identify how personal identities, lived experiences, systemic oppression influence how individuals experience and respond to Secondary TraumaticStress in school environments.
• Apply practical strategies to reduce the impact of Secondary Traumatic Stress and support personal and professional sustainability in trauma-exposed work.
• Identify ways to support colleagues, teams, and supervisees in safely acknowledging and sharing the emotional experience of working with trauma-impacted students and families.

About the Trainer:

Katrina Cisneros (she/her) is a bilingual LicenseIndependent Clinical Social Worker that has expertise working with chronically stressed individuals, families and communities in a variety of complex settings. She is a full time faculty member at the Graduate School of Social Work, University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. She provides staff support to a number of schools and community-based organizations in the Twin Cities and provides both processing and care and comfort opportunities for direct line staff on a regular basis. She enjoys teaching training and consulting in the areas of trauma informed approaches both in direct clinical practice and in organizations and systems. Providing clinical supervision to clinical trainees is one of her favorite roles and her community engaged passion always centers around changing conditions and systems with an emphasis on transformative justice. She also supports regular on the ground work in Tijuana, Mexico providing care to frontline medical staff and to the most vulnerable asylum seekers who are unjustly and dangerously awaiting entry at the border.