Beyond Trauma-Informed Practice
Because knowing about trauma isn’t the same as knowing how to work through it.
This program takes organisations beyond awareness- into the capabilities and relational intelligence needed to create genuine psychological safety, stronger client engagement, and more sustainable teams
Knowing facts and statistics about trauma is not the same as knowing how to work through it.
Why trauma-informed practice is a crucial service delivery lens:
When the survival brain is activated, sometimes even by benign stimuli, all the resources of the brain and body are focused on getting through the next ten seconds! Insight, empathy, and motivation for change all go offline.
That’s why trauma-informed practice isn’t just good ethics, it’s smart service design.
When staff understand how to recognise and regulate survival responses, in themselves and in others, they can de-escalate conflict faster, repair ruptures, and help clients stay engaged even during distress.
Clients who feel psychologically safe are more likely to attend appointments, engage with services consistently, participate in planning, and follow through.
Over time, this leads to measurable improvements in client retention, outcomes, and satisfaction and fewer critical incidents or complaints.
For staff, this approach reduces burnout, absenteeism, and turnover, because they no longer internalise client distress or become emotionally overwhelmed by dysregulated interactions.
For leaders, it means fewer incident reports, fewer WorkCover claims, and a psychologically safer culture overall.
That’s why trauma-informed practice is not just an ethical responsibility, it’s an organisational performance strategy.
How
Our
Approach is Different
Most trauma-informed care training stops at information sharing. It offers definitions, statistics, and theory — but little guidance on what to do in the moment.
Our approach goes beyond theory. Each program is practical, evidence-based, and tailored to your service. Led by a facilitator with experience as both a clinician and a mental health service manager, the training bridges research with real-world application.
Before delivery, we consult directly with leadership to understand your team’s challenges and service delivery context. Our tiered model ensures every participant — from front-of-house staff to senior leadership — receives the right depth of training, not a one-size-fits-all module.
Beyond trauma-informed, this training cultivates relational intelligence, the ability to attune, regulate, rebuild trust after rupture, and work effectively with clients who may appear ambivalent or “manipulative.”
Teams emerge more grounded, cohesive, and confident in managing complexity with compassion.
Basic Level
Overview:
This foundational workshop introduces participants to the core principles of trauma-informed practice and how trauma affects perception, behaviour, and relationships. It helps staff move beyond “what’s wrong with them?” to “what happened to them?”—and, crucially, “what do they need to feel safe?”
Learning objectives:
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Understand the impact of trauma on behaviour, emotion, and engagement.
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Learn how to recognise and respond to trauma reactions in everyday interactions.
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Develop practical strategies to create psychological safety and trust in brief encounters.
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Apply a trauma-informed lens to communication, environment, and service delivery.
Who it’s for:
Front-of-house staff, intake officers, support workers, administrative staff, and anyone with direct client or community contact who may not have prior training in trauma-informed care.
Intermediate Level
Overview:
This level focuses on the neurobiology of trauma and the body’s role in safety and connection. Participants learn how to identify signs of nervous system dysregulation and use trauma-informed techniques to de-escalate, rebuild trust, and work effectively with complex clients.
Learning objectives:
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Explore the impact of trauma on the body and nervous system, and how it shapes responses.
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Learn to track signs of dysregulation in self and others to prevent escalation.
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Develop strategies to respond compassionately to clients who "test boundaries" or appear “manipulative.”
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Practice trauma-informed communication and repair techniques for moments of rupture.
Who it’s for:
Practitioners, clinicians, case managers, and staff with basic trauma-informed knowledge who want to deepen their understanding and skillset.
For Clinicians
Overview:
This advanced training moves beyond talk therapy into somatic and relational frameworks for trauma recovery. Participants will learn somatic interventions, grounding techniques, and non-verbal methods that foster regulation and integration in therapy.
Learning objectives:
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Understand the role of the body and nervous system in trauma processing.
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Learn evidence-based non-talk therapy modalities to support safety and regulation in sessions.
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Integrate somatic psychology principles into clinical work.
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Strengthen their capacity to co-regulate, pace, and titrate when working with trauma.
Who it’s for:
Therapists, counsellors, psychologists, and mental health clinicians seeking evidence-based approaches for working safely with trauma.
Trauma-Informed Leadership
Overview:
This master-level training supports leaders to embed trauma-informed principles across their organisation—fostering psychological safety for staff, clients, and themselves. It integrates the latest insights from organisational psychology and nervous system science to help leaders reduce vicarious trauma and model relational intelligence.
Learning objectives:
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Apply trauma-informed principles to leadership, supervision, and team culture.
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Learn to navigate difficult conversations through a trauma-informed lens.
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Recognise and mitigate vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue in teams.
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Create structures that support safety, reflection, and accountability across the organisation.
Who it’s for:
Managers, team leaders, and senior staff responsible for supporting others and cultivating safe, sustainable workplaces.
Format
All programs are face-to-face by design to allow for experiential learning, reflection, and integration.
In cases where staff are regionally based or unable to attend in person, sessions can be delivered live online.
Each workshop is interactive and capped at 20 participants to ensure depth of engagement and individual attention.
Sessions typically run for 2–3 hours.
Programs are often implemented over the course of a year, tailored to the size, structure, and needs of your organisation—ensuring meaningful, sustained cultural change rather than a one-off intervention.
Please note, this training is delivered as part of an organisational package and is not available as standalone sessions.
About the Facilitator
Anisa Varasteh
Anisa Varasteh is an organisational consultant, psychotherapist, and Director of Relate Training Institute.
She is also an accredited clinical sexologist, global speaker and author, known for her expertise in power, trust and human connection.
Across both domains of her work, Anisa studies the same fundamental question:
What happens between people in high-pressure situations, when power, emotion, and vulnerability are present?
Her unique background allows her to bring a radical new perspective to leadership and performance, equipping leaders to recognise how nervous systems, authority, and unspoken dynamics shape behaviour in powerful, often hidden ways.
Anisa’s perspective is informed by decades spent at the leading edge of human connection — observing how people negotiate boundaries, power dynamics, and repair when the stakes are high. This enables her to illuminate the dynamics behind burnout, conflict, stalled change, and fractures in trust with unusual precision.
Through this cross-disciplinary lens, leaders learn:
how regulation creates safety,
how presence communicates authority,
and why rupture — handled well — becomes the foundation of trust.
Anisa has delivered training and consultancy across Australia and overseas to government departments, legal institutions, universities, and clinical teams.
What distinguishes her work is not only what she teaches, but how she holds the room.
She is known for creating conditions where people can remain steady in the face of difference, speak with clarity, tolerate complexity, and move toward accountability without collapse or aggression.
