Trauma-Informed Care: Integrating Evidence-Based Culture and Creativity - 12/13/2026

Course Overview
Course participants will gain a deeper clinical lens on trauma. Participants will move beyond textbook definitions and learn how historical, racial, and intergenerational trauma are expressed through story, silence, resistance, and identity, as well as, how to recognize these patterns in clinical work. Practical tools for healing-centered practice translate literary insight into real-world strategies that can be applied in counseling, coaching, teaching, or leadership roles. This course supports cultural competence that goes beyond surface-level awareness by developing a richer, more nuanced understanding of African American lived experience grounded in voice, narrative, and truth. Participants will engage in guided reflections that challenge assumptions, deepen empathy, and strengthen their ability to hold space for others. The course also introduces a framework for narrative healing, exploring how storytelling, clients’ stories and practitioners’ own stories, can become a powerful vehicle for recovery, meaning-making, and transformation.

Most trauma trainings focus on symptoms. This course focuses on soul, story, and survival. Where others teach what trauma does, this course teaches how people live through it—and rise. Drawing from Toni Morrison’s exploration of memory and haunting, James Baldwin’s unflinching truth-telling, Maya Angelou’s resilience, Nikki Giovanni’s radical love, Lucille Clifton’s poetry, and bell hooks’ commitment to healing as a communal act, learners will gain insights that no clinical manual alone can provide.

Who This Course Is for Counselors, therapists, and social workers; educators and community leaders; faith-based leaders and mentors; and anyone committed to healing, justice, and human growth.

Learning Outcomes
Upon the completion of this course, the learner should be able to:

• Explain the clinical rationale for integrating creativity and culturally relevant expressive modalities—including African American literature, poetry, music, and storytelling—into trauma-informed clinical practice, while distinguishing these approaches from traditional evidence-based interventions.
• Identify and evaluate at least three culturally responsive creative interventions that promote emotional regulation, resilience, meaning-making, and post-traumatic growth among individuals and families impacted by trauma.
• Demonstrate the ability to incorporate selected works of African American literature, poetry, music, or other creative expressions into trauma-informed assessment, treatment planning, and therapeutic interventions in a manner that is culturally humble, ethically sound, and client-centered.
• Develop an individualized implementation plan for integrating creativity and culturally responsive therapeutic practices into their own clinical settings while addressing ethical considerations, cultural responsiveness, and evidence-informed decision-making.

About the Author/Presenter
Dr. Oliver J. Johnson holds a PhD in Social Work from the Whitney M. Young School of Social Work at Clark Atlanta University and has lectured widely in a variety of forums on issues pivotal to the promotion of health and wellness among African American families.

Audience/Accreditations and Approvals
TRC Healthcare/ NetCE
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by TRC Healthcare/ NetCE. TRC Healthcare/NetCE is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

This course is designed for the following healthcare professions (select your profession for details):
Social Work, Psychology, Counselor

If you require special accommodations, please contact Colibri Healthcare Support by clicking here: Contact Us