STAR

Justice and conflict-informed trauma and resilience training for staying centered, connected, and acting with courage
in challenging times 

Collective trauma is upending
our lives and eroding security.  

For over 20 years, STAR trainings have helped individuals and communities build justice centered mental wellness and radical resilience in the face of collective trauma. 

Collective trauma has upended our lives and eroded certainty.
We face multiple crises — and opportunities.

Fire, floods, and droughts worsened by climate change. War in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, and twenty other conflict spots. Challenges to democracy and the world order we thought was certain. Forced migration. The aftermath of a pandemic. These major events have rapidly changed our world adding to the stress of ongoing structural injustice, historical traumas, and ecological collapse. No wonder we feel off-balance and overwhelmed, sometimes anxious, sometimes paralyzed. No wonder hope feels tenuous.

This time of upending is a marathon, not a sprint. In our STAR conflict and justice-informed trauma and resilience trainings you:

  • Learn  processes and tools to help you, your organization, and your community replace overwhelm and burnout with meaning and purpose 

  • Understand the links between trauma and cycles of violence and how to break free

  • Discover nonviolent ways to work for justice that regenerate relationships with all living beings and the planet

  • Reconnect with heart wisdom from the heart that works with the mind the mind to spark creativity and (surprise!) deep-centered joy 

Strengthen resilience for the long haul.

Address current and historical trauma with justice and conflict transformation processes.

Listen deeply to find your action in a changed world. 

The Little Book of Trauma Healing

By Carolyn Yoder

Fully Revised & Updated Edition / June 2020

How do we address trauma, interrupt cycles of violence, and build resilience in a turbulent world of endless wars, nationalism, othering, climate crisis, racism, pandemics, and terrorism? This fully updated edition offers a practical framework, processes, and useful insights.

The traumas of our world go beyond individual or one-time events. They are collective, ongoing, and the legacy of historical injustices. How do we stay awake rather than numbing or responding violently? How do we cultivate individual and collective courage and resilience?

This Little Book provides a justice-and-conflict-informed community approach to addressing trauma in nonviolent, neurobiologically sound ways that interrupt cycles of violence and meet basic human needs for justice and security. In these pages, you’ll find the core framework and tools of the internationally acclaimed Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program developed at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in response to 9/11. A startlingly helpful approach.

Already have the book? Download the free study guide.

What the Experts are Saying

“This insightful work is transforming the peacebuilding field which is now addressing trauma not only as a consequence of violence but as an important variable at the heart of instability. Yoder emphasizes the trauma-violence connection and presents a trauma-healing model that is the foundation for initiatives around the globe.”

— Belkys López, Peacebuilding Practitioner-Researcher

"Carolyn Yoder’s Little Book is essential reading for everyone working toward racial healing. Foundational to the peacebuilding community of Coming to the Table—which seeks to overcome America’s legacy of slavery—it lights the way for individuals and communities to break free from historic trauma and the cycles of violence it induced."

— Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman DeWolf, Co-authors of Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade

"With Trauma Healing, Carolyn gives us an invaluable tool for understanding the links between trauma, security, and violence. Perhaps more importantly, she offers a practical roadmap for disrupting cycles of violence in our homes, communities, and within our global family. Trauma Healing is a must-read. Don’t be misled, this Little Book is big—it has the power to transform you and the world."

— Daria Nashat, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) Trainer, Brussels, Belgium

"Yoder’s Little Book presents a succinct yet comprehensive framing of a bio-psycho-social understanding of trauma and various approaches to healing. With its increased attention to historical, cultural, and structural causes of trauma, the Revised Little Book of Trauma Healing is an essential introduction to trauma for justice advocates, community organizers, leadership trainers, and anyone concerned with personal and collective manifestations of trauma."

— David Anderson Hooker, PhD, Professor of the Practice of Peacebuilding Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame