Workshop Overview

This program is designed to assist participants in understanding how trauma may impact gang-involved populations, as well as how this can impact subsequent service delivery. The workshop may benefit a diverse array of stakeholders including social workers, case managers, mental health professionals (i.e. psychiatrists/psychologists), law enforcement, court support workers, bail supervisors, law enforcement, correctional staff, non-profit executive directors/managers and policy makers.

Learning Objectives

1. Conceptualizing Trauma – An overview of War Trauma, PTSD and the Compulsion to Repeat
2. The Impact of Gang Definitions on Practice – Who are Your Clients: Defining Gangs and their Behaviours
3. Trauma, PTSD and Gangs:
   • Pre-Traumatic Factors – Why Youth Join Gangs: A Trauma-Informed Perspective
   • Peri-Traumatic Factors – Understanding the Urban Warzone: Dissociative Memory & Survival
   • Post-Traumatic Factors – Life after the War: PTSD and the Compulsion to Repeat
4. Being Trauma-Informed with Gang Youth:
   • The Trauma-Informed Approach & Trauma-Informed Services
   • Trauma-Informed Approaches with Gang Involved Youth:
     • Preparing for Trauma-Informed Practice with Gang-Involved Youth
     • Engaging Gang Involved Youth
     • Asking About Trauma
     • Making-the Links with Trauma
     • Skills Building and Empowerment