Since 2020, Khulisa has been working in partnership with Leaders Unlocked, an organisation who seek to enable young people and underrepresented groups to have a stronger voice on the issues that affect their lives, such as education, policing, health and justice. Last month we piloted a new training opportunity for the young people they work with.
We provided a tailored programme to a group of the young people, all aged over 18.
There were 18 participants, including a small number of staff from Leaders Unlocked and our host, the Youth Endowment Fund. The cohort came from across England and Wales, and many had travelled for 3-4 hours to get to the event.
The aim of this session was to:
- Build understanding of trauma, and how to help young people who have experienced trauma
- Understand triggers and physiological responses to different environments and situations
We delivered a hybrid format of our young people’s delivery and that of our professionals training, drawing from the methodology of the Face It programme whilst also delivering educational work on our trauma training.
We began in the format of our Face It programmes, by creating a check in circle and agreeing a charter for how we wanted to work together. Our delivery team used ice breakers and other games to keep the energy levels up during the 4-5 hour session, as well as creating reflective circles for the group to consider how each game made them feel. This was vital to the aims of the session, helping the young people to reflect on their understanding of their thoughts and feelings.
In the second half of the session we covered topics such as an introduction to trauma, which was adapted to the needs and understanding of the young people in the room.
The young people learnt about:
- Emotional literacy activities
- The challenge/trigger cycle
- The neurosequential model and its practical application in real life scenarios