Leading in and working towards social good is challenging, urgent, and often heartbreaking – especially in times of compounding crises. You come to this work because you care. Over time, constant activation of stress and distress can erode wellbeing, noticeably changing the way our bodies and minds are able to attend to work and life matters.

From education to corporations we all want to do it differently – with dignity, sustainability, and humanity. Where is the place to learn about social and emotional learning for an organization? To have open, fruitful conversations about mental health, overwhelm, and workforce exhaustion? To go beyond coping and just getting by for the sake of productivity to actual generativity and thriving?


Holistic Emotional First Aid (HEFA) offers proven, effective practices that help you create a culture of care in your organization by teaching your team practical somatic approaches to transform stress and overwhelm so you can nurture resilience, clarity, and creativity. The benefit of this work is exponential – impacting your team, culture and the communities you serve.

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW

Cultures of Care: Where Individuals & Organizations Thrive

People need more than resources – they also need to know how to be resourced.

WHO WE WORK WITH

Change Makers, First Responders, Community & Wellness Practitioners, Social Entrepreneurs

In short: YOU. Is your team experiencing fatigue, bystander trauma, loss of motivation and purpose, or burnout? Do you wish there was a way to equip your organization with tools to help them stay in the work longer and deeper for the highest benefit of all? What if change could come through tiny steps that are not only doable in the moment, but offer a much needed support for sustainability in the long run? This is what Holistic Emotional First Aid is all about.

Simple, Evidence-based Practices
That Promote The Cycle Of Healing & Repair

Learn to Grow

Research shows that when we understand the impacts of trauma and body-based responses to chronic stress, we are empowered to effectively tend to ourselves while also tending the larger systems. Some of the powerful benefits of these somatic easy-to-use tools include…

Mitigated stress on the cardiovascular system

Reduced depression & anxiety

Improved emotional regulation, attention, focus & sleep patterns

Lowered burnout & emotional burden

More clarity & better decision-making amidst chaos

Greater resilience & capacity to serve

Designed as a two part training, each session is experiential and interactive. Your team will learn, practice, and assess the impacts of our evidence-based tools using in-the-moment regulation to experience here and now relief and foster healthy systems for self care and resilience.

We will build on this foundation to teach you how to create a shared language between staff that enriches communication, deepens collaboration, and provides stronger outcomes for your community.

HOW HEFA WORKS

Essential Skills For Adaptive Learning & Leading

SESSION 1 
Emotional First Aid – Skillful, Emergent Response

  • Learn: Trauma, recovery, zones of resilience & harnessing a full cycle response

  • Focus: Building core strength & supporting the system 

  • Apply & Practice: Nervous system regulation tools, breath practices & energy strategies 

SESSION 2 
Aftercare – Tending Cycles As A Team

  • Review: Completing stress cycles & essential skills for growth 

  • Focus: Adapting tools and practices for access & building cultures of trauma-informed care

  • Apply & Practice: Mindfulness, orienting & somatic tools. EFA at work in the day to day.

Nourish your natural ability to heal, respond, 
regenerate & innovate

MEET YOUR TRAINERS

Social Change & Trauma-Informed Experts

Christi and Shannon lead a team of highly trained, down to earth professionals with expertise in trauma-informed care, clinical psychology, international relations, emergent strategies, soul recovery, grassroots community building, nature based approaches and holistic modalities.

Christi Garner, LMFT has been working on the frontlines with trauma and recovery for over two decades as a therapist, trainer, and trauma-informed yoga teacher. Facilitating resilience training for first responders, military service members, and health care professionals, she brings together neuroscience, trauma-informed leadership, and mindfulness to focus on post-traumatic growth.

Shannon Thompson, Founder & Visionary Director of Shakti Rising, has over 30 years of experience with holistic innovations in addiction, mental health, and trauma-informed recovery. Her education in community building, social work and public health is blended with extensive training in nutrition, yoga, energy medicine, expressive art therapy, and herbalism. She consults worldwide in strategic planning, emergent design, community engagement, and the policy and practices for trauma recovery. 

There is great strength, power, and resilience to be found by working our own emotional landscape and wellness.

PRICING

We have a deep commitment to supporting the resilience, positive growth, and skillful trauma response of providers, practitioners, and educators working to uplift their communities. To ensure access, we provide this training at a discounted rate upon request.

Kind Words

  • Your Emotional First Aid trainings were a transformational gift to our organization. Staff members across all departments and levels expressed more enthusiasm about the content and delivery of these sessions than any other we’ve brought in. We continue to use and teach the essential tools we learned for self-regulation, and to explore how we can build them into our culture and regular practices to enhance team growth and our trauma-informed services.

    – Executive Director, LifeWire

  • As an educator, I invest heavily in the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and wellbeing of my students. What I learned in HEFA had a direct, positive effect on the population of over 250 children with whom I work on a weekly basis. It is rare to find a workshop that offers a combination of practice and theory that not only nourished me as a participant, but also rippled out into my community.

    – International School Educator

  • After completing your Holistic Emotional First Aid Training, our team is now resourced to refer community members in need of support to appropriate care because they know how to attune and attend. These skills have been crucial to laying the foundation to also sustain and care for themselves and others, avoiding burnout and enabling them to continue serving the community.”

    – Behavioral Health Program Officer, Community Foundation

  • The HEFA trainers are clearly seasoned professionals in the field they were presenting. It gave me confidence and clarity of structure to support my staff this summer.

    – Camp Director

  • Loved all of the tools for regulating the nervous system and practicing them together. The breakout groups for increased participation were on point!

    – Ski Patrol Lead

SAY YES TO GROWTH

Bring

to your People

HEFA