Trauma-informed facilitation: foundations
A Facilitation 101 and NeuroTribe UK programme
December 15th & 16th 2026
Trauma is present in every group. It can present as disengagement and withdrawal, conflict, ‘oversharing’, or ‘disruptive’ behaviours. As facilitators, we all navigate it - but most of us were never trained to do so.
This two-day in-person course gives you the knowledge, tools, and practice you need to facilitate in a more trauma-informed way. It combines Facilitation 101's expertise in facilitation design and delivery with NeuroTribe UK's specialist knowledge of trauma, neurodivergence, and psychological safety.
This course is an opportunity to develop a more reflective, grounded facilitation practice - one that takes seriously the impact of trauma on groups and on you as a facilitator.
What you will come away with
A deeper understanding of trauma and how it shows up in groups.
Practical tools for designing and facilitating trauma-aware sessions.
A clearer sense of your own relationship to power, authority, and group process. And a peer learning community to support your practice after the course ends.
Is this course for you?
This course is for facilitators, trainers, and workshop leads who are regularly working with groups. You do not need a background in mental health or therapy, but you do need active facilitation practice to get the most from the programme, and a willingness to engage with the unknown, and feelings of discomfort.
Although you are likely to learn new facilitation tools and techniques, we won’t focus explicitly on this (for this you might want to consider one of the other existing Facilitation 101 programme). Instead we’ll focus on how to apply a trauma informed lens to your existing facilitation practice.
Trauma-informed approaches and anti-oppressive approaches are closely aligned and although we will touch on aspects of anti-oppressive practice in this course, participants who have a basic understanding of anti-racist and anti-oppressive practice will benefit most from this course.
You will be a good fit if you:
Facilitate groups at least monthly in a professional context
Have encountered challenging group dynamics, conflict, or distress in your work
Want to understand how trauma shows up in groups
Want to move beyond techniques and develop a more reflective practice
Want to understand how to embed more trauma informed approaches to the design of your events, workshops and meetings
Are open to exploring your own relationship to power and identity
Have a basic understanding of anti-oppressive practice and cultural competency.
Participants on the previous iterations of this course have come from a range of backgrounds, including:
Trainers
Coaches
Youth workers
Facilitators
Learning and development managers
People working within organisations that focus on lived experience
Arts facilitators and theatre-makers
Course structure
Trauma-informed facilitation: foundations runs as a fully in-person two-day programme.
There is a level 2 course which will run in Early 2027.
The 2026 course will run on December 15th and 16th in person in central London, from 10am - 4.30pm each day.
The two in-person days are the heart of the programme. You will work alongside a small cohort of peers, with expert trainers from Facilitation 101 and NeuroTribe UK.
Learning outcomes
In this section: an overview of the core content areas across both days.
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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
Design sessions that create genuine safety and agency for participants - including how you open, how you set group agreements, and how you structure choice throughout
Apply core accessibility principles to your session design, so more people can participate on their own terms
Identify and avoid common facilitation decisions that inadvertently exclude or activate distress in participants
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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
Explain what trauma is, how it affects the brain and body, and how it can show up in group settings
Describe the difference between trauma-aware and trauma-focused practice — and understand why trauma-aware is the appropriate operating zone for facilitators who are not clinically trained
Use the window of tolerance as a practical tool for reading a group and adjusting your facilitation in real time
Recognise common facilitation mistakes that can activate trauma, and know what to do instead
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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
Articulate your own relationship to power and authority - including how your identity and experience shape the way you show up as a facilitator
Use a structured reflexivity tool to examine your facilitation choices and their impact on group dynamics
Identify dynamics of power and marginalisation in group settings, and begin to develop a practice for responding to them
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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
Recognise shame - in yourself and in a group - and understand how it can derail a session if unaddressed
Apply at least two self-regulation tools when difficult or activating material emerges in a facilitation context
Describe what it means to look after yourself as a trauma-aware facilitator, and identify what sustainable practice looks like for you
Recognise the benefit of regular, structured reflective practice spaces to your trauma-informed practice.
Peer pods and reflective practice
You will be matched with a small peer pod - a group of two or three others from the cohort with similar facilitation contexts. Your pod gives you a space to reflect, share challenges, and support each other's practice between sessions and after the course ends.
You will also have a reflective practice space a month after the course to help you embed the learning from the course and have a space to reflect on how you are applying the tools and principles.
How to apply
We use an application process rather than open registration. This is not a test - it is a way for us to make sure the course is a good fit for where you are in your practice, and to help you find the right starting point if this programme is not it. It’s also for us to ensure that there is enough diversity within the group to provide a high-support and high-challenge experience.
Your application will ask about:
Your facilitation practice - how often, in what contexts, with what kinds of groups of people and on what topics. For example ‘’I work with charities in the UK - specifically who work providing child protection services to children in care homes. I am providing training to their key workers, and sometimes young people themselves are involved.’’
Your experience of social identity and anti-oppressive practice in facilitation settings. For example ‘’many of the young people we work with are socio-economically disadvantaged, and many of our staff are care experienced. We have had some DEI training, but we still see some very complex power dynamics playing out in the sessions we run’’.
What you are hoping to develop through the programme. For example: ‘’I would like to enhance my workshops to be more accessible to staff members who have experienced their own trauma. There have also been some specific incidents of young people appearing very distressed and angry during workshops, and I’d like to know more about how my design and delivery can become more trauma informed.
We will respond to all applications within 5 working days. If this course is not the right fit, we will let you know and suggest alternatives where we can.
Applications for the December cohort are open. Places are limited to 16 participants. If you have questions before applying, email kyra@neurotribe.uk
Pricing and bursaries
We are happy to discuss payment plans and paying in installments. Just let us know if you’d like to discuss this option.
We offer two bursaries per course, and applications greatly outstrip availability. We want these spaces to support people whose work can have the greatest possible impact for the greatest number of people, and for whom the cost might be a barrier. For example, people who might be working in unincorporated community groups, individuals setting up new mission-driven enterprises, community activists, or volunteers for organisations with turnover of less than £250,000.
Standard place - £1,250 plus VAT (large orgs, corporates)
Concession rate - £899 plus VAT for self-funders, freelancers, and those working in small charities (under £500k turnover)
Bursary places - Two bursary places are available, which cover 75% of the costs.
If you are interested in commissioning this training for your team or organisation, please get in touch for a bespoke quote.
About Facilitation 101 and NeuroTribe UK
Facilitation 101 is a UK-based facilitation training and consultancy practice. We work with organisations across the charity, arts, public, and private sectors to develop facilitation skills and design participatory processes that work.
NeuroTribe UK brings specialist expertise in trauma-informed practice facilitation, neurodivergence, anti-oppressive practice, group dynamics, group processes, and psychological safety. Our work is grounded in therapeutic knowledge and lived experience and focuses on making spaces safer for people who are often excluded or harmed by conventional group settings.
Together, we designed this programme because we believe that good facilitation and trauma-informed practice are not separate disciplines — they belong together.
