Trainings & Professional Development Opportunities 

The Protective Factors training is a foundational course based on the information provided by the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance to increase family strengths, enhance child development and reduce child abuse and neglect. This course is designed to help child welfare systems, early education, prevention organizations and other programs work with parents to build the 5 protective factors that, when present, increase the overall well-being of children and families. Protective factors are attributes that serve as buffers, helping parents find resources, support, or coping strategies that allow them to parent effectively, even under stress.

Learn More About the Protective Factors Bring the Protective Factors to Your Community

Connections Matter is a foundational training and community-based initiative that explores how the connections we make in life profoundly impact the brain’s ability to grow and our own individual abilities to cope and thrive. This training is designed to educate the public on the intersecting topics of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), trauma, brain development and resilience. Utilizing an evidence-informed program — alongside real-world and concrete examples — this training demonstrates how ACEs adversely affect brain development and healthy outcomes, and how caring connections serve as a primary buffer in the negative effects of trauma. Connections Matter ultimately strives to support the foundations for more resilient, compassionate, trauma-informed communities, allowing children and families to thrive. This training is tailorable to different sectors, including business, community and faith-based.

Learn More About the Connections Matter Initiative Bring Connections Matter to Your Community

The foundational Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening & Support Certification course provides participants with knowledge needed to implement the standards into their programs.

The nationally adopted Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening & Support are designed to be used by all stakeholders — public departments, foundations, networks, community-based organizations, and families — as a tool for planning, providing and assessing quality practice. The Standards have created a common language across different kinds of Family Strengthening & Support programs such as Family Resource Centers, home visiting programs, and child development programs.

Learn More About Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening & Support Request a Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening & Support Certification Training

The Community Resilience Model (CRM) training is a foundational course based on the information provided by the Trauma Research Institute to decrease stress reactions. The primary focus of this strengths-based stabilization program is to reset the natural balance of the nervous system. The goal of CRM is to help create trauma-informed and resiliency-focused communities that share a common understanding of the impact of trauma and chronic stress on the nervous system and how resiliency can be restored or increased using this skills-based approach.

This course introduces the 6 wellness skills of CRM designed to help adults and children learn to track their own nervous systems in order to bring the body, mind and spirit back into greater balance, and to encourage people to pass the skills along to family, friends and their wider community.

Learn More About the Community Resilience Model Bring CRM to Your Community

The foundational Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE) training explores the research-backed principle that more positive experiences in childhood lead to better outcomes in adulthood. HOPE focuses on preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by emphasizing Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) as a proactive approach.

You may be familiar with ACEs and their negative impacts on children, families and communities. But what can you do to address these challenges? HOPE offers a solution. In this training, participants will learn to apply the HOPE Framework in program development, community planning and family support initiatives.