Planning for Post-Traumatic Growth: Essential Aspects of Grief Support for System-Involved Youth

Shoshana Phoenixx

Training Description

Planning for post-traumatic growth (PTG) with system-involved youth (SIY) requires a trauma-informed approach that recognizes  grief, trauma response, disability, culture, and behavior as part of one complicated human story. Youth do not grow on command, and they do not become stronger because adults need a better ending. Elementary-age youth, adolescents, and transitional-age youth may show growth through questions, anger, silence, creative expression, spiritual searching, changing life goals, or new ways of naming what they need. This training offers a grounded framework for recognizing what may be developing underneath the surface for SIY, without rushing youth toward optimism, minimizing what happened, or mistaking survival skills for failure.

Learning Objectives

• Define post-traumatic growth and identify three ways it may be relevant to SIY experiencing grief, and traumatic changes.

• Distinguish between strength-based support and pressure to “overcome” trauma by identifying three examples of language that supports youth.