CTRI Certificate Programs: Your Path to Professional Growth

Giwiidabindimin
Responding to Trauma and Grief

Giwiidabindimin (Ojibwe for “we sit together”) captures the essence of togetherness and the experience of participating in this program. When we sit together, we can acknowledge grief and trauma, share our perspectives, and learn from each other in a reciprocal way.

Join us for an enriching five-day program that weaves together Indigenous and Western knowledge to provide a two-eyed seeing understanding of trauma and grief. Two co-facilitators will share their wisdom and expertise to provide a relational approach to providing meaningful support. The co-facilitators will create a collaborative and reciprocal learning environment that allows space for everyone to be learners and teachers. You will have the opportunity to self-reflect on your personal journey while considering effective approaches to supporting individuals, families, and communities affected by trauma and grief.

Key Elements

• Developed using Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall’s concept of two-eyed seeing, which combines Western clinical and Indigenous cultural approaches to address trauma and grief.
• Co-facilitated by one Indigenous trainer and one non-Indigenous trainer.
• A relational, reciprocal approach to sharing and understanding the impacts of trauma and grief.

Giwiidosendamin
Responding to Addictions and Suicide

Rooted in the Ojibwe concept of giwiidosendamin (“we walk together”), this five-day program emphasizes collective health, shared support, and reciprocal learning. By integrating Indigenous and Western perspectives, you will gain the skills and knowledge to support individuals, families, and communities through addictions, suicide, and related mental health concerns, using a two-eyed seeing approach.

Your co-facilitators will guide you through the impacts of addictions and suicide, the connection between trauma and addictions, and the role of cultural perspectives in decolonization efforts. This is a unique opportunity to learn practical harm reduction and recovery capital approaches to addictions support, as well as life-affirming strategies for suicide prevention. You will enhance your ability to provide meaningful and respectful support within Indigenous spaces.

By the end of the program, you will have a comprehensive understanding of addictions and suicide, and be able to implement key prevention, assessment, intervention, and postvention resources. You will also learn how to apply culturally respectful practices, support decolonization efforts, and utilize harm reduction strategies. This enriching program not only enhances professional skills but also encourages personal growth and self-reflection, empowering you to make a positive impact in your community.

Key Elements

• Developed using Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall’s concept of two-eyed seeing, which combines Western clinical and Indigenous cultural approaches to address trauma and grief.
• Co-facilitated by one Indigenous trainer and one non-Indigenous trainer.
• A relational, reciprocal approach to sharing and understanding the impacts of addictions, suicide, and related mental health concerns.

Mental Health Counselling Skills

This program gives participants an opportunity to develop a set of competencies to effectively support individuals struggling with their mental health.

Counsellors working with anxiety, depression, and addictions may find themselves at a loss as to where to begin, since these difficulties are often interrelated. Along with these difficulties, there can also be challenges and barriers in facilitating change. This program offers an understanding of these mental health issues, the change process, and strategies for overcoming roadblocks in therapy. Participants will learn skills for brief focused counselling, harm reduction, and motivational interviewing, all of which are effective tools for working with complex mental health concerns.

Core/mandatory workshops:

Brief Focused Counselling Skills – Strategies From Leading Frameworks
Anxiety – Practical Intervention Strategies
Depression – Practical Intervention Strategies
Addictions and Mental Health – Strategies for Complex Issues
Harm Reduction – A Framework for Change, Choice, and Control
Motivational Interviewing – Strategies for Supporting Change

Elective workshops:

Elective workshops make up the additional hours of training you need to reach 60 hours. These can be chosen from any of CTRI’s in-person, live virtual, or on-demand workshops.

Suggested elective workshops to complete this certificate are:

Mental Health Awareness and Support
Mindfulness Counselling Strategies
Trauma – Counselling Strategies for Healing and Resilience
Trauma-Informed Care
Suicide Intervention Skills.
You can find all our available workshop topics here

Responding to Children and Youth Issues

This program gives participants an opportunity to develop a set of competencies to effectively support children and youth who are struggling with a variety of relational and mental health issues.

For counsellors working with children and youth, the challenge is to engage and work with them at their level while also attending to their important relationships and external influences. Children and youth are often unable to talk about their concerns, so creativity is needed to help them express emotions and work through problems. This program explores the ways in which mental health concerns are expressed in children and youth, including issues related to attachment, addictions, and anxiety. Participants will learn skills for fostering attachment, promoting self-regulation and healthy coping, and developing resilience.

Core/mandatory workshops:

Mental Health Concerns in Children and Youth
Attachment – Strategies for Fostering Connections
De-escalating Children and Youth in Crisis – Skills for Emotional Regulation
Addictions and Youth – Substances, Technology, Porn
Anxiety in Children and Youth – Practical Intervention Strategies
Resilience in Children – Creative Strategies for Helping

Elective workshops:

Elective workshops make up the additional hours of training you need to reach 60 hours. These can be chosen from any of CTRI’s in-person, live virtual, or on-demand workshops.

Suggested elective workshops to complete this certificate are:

Play Therapy
Gender and Sexual Diversity in Youth
Self-Injury Behaviour in Youth
Trauma-Informed Care.
You can find all our available workshop topics here

Therapeutic Modalities

This five-day certificate program provides an integrative approach to a variety of counselling modalities, so you can make significant impacts on the people you support.

As a counsellor or helper, it’s no question that you care about people – but your role in your client’s lives is often marked by time constraints and limited resources. That is why it’s crucial to focus on developing meaningful goals and achieving practical changes in a way that benefits you and those you support.

You’ll learn the tenets of solution-focused therapy (SFT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and narrative therapy, along with practical ways to apply them in your practice.

We’ve chosen these frameworks because they provide a strong foundation for supporting diverse populations and age groups. But one important thread that will maximize your helping potential is the art of balancing curiosity and discernment, so you can ask more effective and transformative questions. Together, these counselling techniques offer a comprehensive, practical toolkit that you can use to encourage meaningful, lasting change in your clients.

Topics Included:

• What Gets in the Way of Asking Good Questions?
• Recognizing Power, Privilege, and Vulnerability in Your Questions
• Problematic Questions
• Guiding Ideology of SFT, CBT, and DBT Frameworks
• Strengths and Cautions of SFT, CBT, and DBT
• Practical Counselling Strategies
• Building a Strong Therapeutic Relationship
• Exploring the Client’s Story
• Skills for Restructuring Cognitive Distortions
• Strategies and Tools for Thinking and Behaving Differently

Trauma Counselling and Support

This program gives participants an opportunity to develop a set of competencies to effectively support people who have experienced trauma.

The road to trauma recovery is complex and challenging, strewn with potential obstacles that counsellors may find overwhelming. Evidence-based counselling approaches are needed to navigate this road and guide a person safely along it. This program provides a variety of strategies for trauma counselling. Participants will learn skills for establishing safety and self-regulation, dealing with flashbacks and other post-traumatic symptoms, healing through body-oriented strategies, and promoting resilience.

Core/mandatory workshops:

Vicarious Trauma – Strategies for Resilience
*Trauma – Counselling Strategies for Healing and Resilience
Body-Oriented Trauma Counselling Strategies
Critical Incident Group Debriefing
Trauma-Informed Care – Building a Culture of Strength
*The Trauma workshop should be taken before Body-Oriented Trauma Counselling Strategies

Elective workshops:

Elective workshops make up the additional hours of training you need to reach 60 hours. These can be chosen from any of CTRI’s in-person, live virtual, or on-demand workshops.

Suggested elective workshops to complete this certificate are:

Crisis Response Planning
Suicide Intervention Skills
Walking with Grief
You can find all our available workshop topics here.

*There are additional workshops that meet the requirements of the Certificate in Trauma Counselling and Support. Please speak to us about customizing the program to fit your needs.

Trauma Healing

This five-day training explores trauma’s emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual impacts. Beginning with how trauma affects the brain and nervous system, you’ll explore a framework for managing and resolving trauma, along with valuable strategies for trauma counselling.

You will learn to establish safety, manage flashbacks, heal through holistic body-oriented strategies, and promote resilience and post-traumatic growth. The last day of the program will be an integrative experience where you will examine your own experiences of vicarious trauma, so you can develop a personalized coping plan. The last day will also have opportunities to apply what you’ve learned to a variety of complex case studies.

Topics Included

• Understanding Trauma
• Trauma Treatment
• Body-Oriented Approaches
• Helper’s Role
• Stabilization and Integration
• Vicarious Trauma and Resilience