Trauma, Connection & Courageous Parenting
A workshop for Alberta first-responders, and trauma-exposed professional families
Workshop Overview
When a parent lives with a Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI), the whole family feels it. This evidence-informed workshop offers families a shared language for what they are experiencing, practical strategies that protect children and strengthen attachment, and tools they can use to actively build family resilience.
You do not have to be perfect. You do not have to have all the answers. And you do not have to do this alone.
Wounded Warriors Canada has recently received funding through Alberta’s Supporting Psychological Health in First Responders (SPHIFR) grant to deliver a series of full-day, in-person workshops titled Trauma, Connection & Courageous Parenting across Alberta.
These workshops are designed specifically for first responder families and focus on strengthening emotional health, parenting confidence, and communication strategies within the context of occupational trauma. Drawing from our evidence-informed guidebook and delivered by WWC-trained facilitators Dr. Helena Hawryluk and Ms. Jerris Popik (Warrior Kids Program Directors, Associate Clinicians), the sessions provide practical tools to help families better understand post-traumatic stress injuries (PTSIs), caregiver burnout, emotional regulation, boundary setting, and courageous communication.
Each workshop can serve up to 50 participants and is highly interactive, combining psychoeducation with discussion, reflection, and scenario-based learning. Participants leave with a printed toolkit, a personalized action plan, and new knowledge to support your family to thrive.
Who This Workshop Is For
The workshops welcome Trauma-Exposed Professionals with families:
Parents and partners living with a PTSI — first responders, public safety personnel, healthcare workers, and the people who love them.
What Participants Will Learn
Over the course of the workshop, families will explore:
1.
How trauma affects the whole family
— not just the individual, but bodies, emotions, thoughts, relationships, and daily life
2.
The COURAGE Model
— a practical framework for understanding how a Post-Traumatic Stress Injury shows up across seven dimensions.
3.
How to talk to children about a PTSI
in age-appropriate ways, with sample scripts for kids under 6, ages 7–11, and teens
4.
Five everyday parenting practices
that protect attachment even on the hardest days.
5.
Communication and emotional regulation tools
the whole family can use together.
6.
How to build connection and repair
after the inevitable hard moments.
7.
Where to find ongoing support
— Canadian peer-support, clinical, and family resources.
Why This Workshop Matters
In Canada, roughly 44.5% of public safety personnel screen positive for at least one mental health condition — several times the rate of the general population. Trauma does not stay contained within the individual. It moves through relationships, shaping how families communicate, regulate, grieve, and connect.
This workshop exists because families deserve to understand what is happening within their own homes — and because children are often the last to be included in conversations about healing. With knowledge, support, and connection, families can grow through adversity.
What Participants Take Home
Each participant receives a workbook with practical, printable tools, including:
COURAGE Self-Check
Talking to Kids About PTSIs Worksheet
Emotion Words Page
Family Meeting Guide
Repair Reflection
Family Wellness Checklist
Workshop Dates & Locations
Workshop 1:
August 9th Red Deer iHotel
Workshop 2:
September 27th Edmonton, Edmonton Country Club
Workshop 3:
October 4 Fort Saskatchewan, Dow Center (Free Childcare available)
Timings:
Workshops start at 9am until 2pm (all food and snacks provided)
Registration
Please note, this workshop is an adult only training and does not include children.
For questions about registration or workshop content, please contact:
Helena Hawryluk
helena@woundedwarriors.ca