In-Person Workshops
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How to Talk About Horrible Things
Responding with Effectiveness and Dignity to those who have been Sexually Exploited & Trafficked
Ottawa - April 22, 23, 24, 2026 9:00-3:30 each day
Winnipeg - May 6, 7, 8, 2026 9:00-3:30 each day
“If your training never covered this, you’re not alone—and this series is your missing piece.”
“The best training I’ve ever attended.”
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Participants can register for single days or the entire three-day workshop.
Visit the events page to register.
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About Rebekkah, your workshop facilitator
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Raised by a sex offender and indoctrinated into human trafficking as a child, Rebekkah Williams, RP, combines this honest perspective of her lived experience, with the clinical expertise of 38 years of specializing in sexual trauma as a Registered Psychotherapist allowing for a rare and
humanizing perspective on both recovery and response.
Rebekkah continues her extremely well received National Trauma Trainings - and by popular demand, offers a new third day of essential, engaging and unique training opportunities across Canada.
These workshops can be attended separately or as a three day intensive.
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Day 1 - Empowering Our Response: With Effectiveness and Dignity
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“Respectful, unapologetic, and incredibly informative.”
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Responding with effectiveness and dignity to those who have been sexually exploited, this highly engaging and dynamic training is designed for professionals working in frontline, therapeutic, investigative, clinical, and support roles.
Participants will gain trauma-informed, survivor centred approaches for responding to those who have been sexually exploited or trafficked.
Emphasis will be placed on recognizing complex trauma responses, dismantling bias and misinformation, and building relational safety in interviews, assessments, and interventions. With creativity and humour, Rebekkah offers both personal narrative and clinical expertise to allow participants to find comfort in intervention, supervision or conversation when the nature of trauma challenges us in the expression and communication of things that are often wordless.
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What You Will Learn:
• The psychological and relational impact of sexual exploitation, human trafficking,
• Understanding hypervigilance, dissociation, shame, and trauma-bonding in survivor
behaviour
• Understanding physiological trauma responses
• Challenging bias to create safe spaces for sexually exploited people to express their truth
• The role of dignity, autonomy, and cultural humility in trauma-informed response and the
myths and misunderstandings that can cause re-traumatization
• Strategies for responding and intervening with sensitivity, attunement and respect
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“I immediately started thinking differently about my clients.”
“Riveting from start to finish.”
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Day 2 - Bearing Witness: Vicarious Trauma, Burnout & Wellness for
Professionals Responding to Sexual Exploitation, Trauma and Human
Trafficking
“Honest, brave, and necessary.”
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Professionals who support survivors of sexual exploitation, trauma and human trafficking — face unique emotional and psychological challenges. The intensity of this work can lead to vicarious trauma, burnout, compassion fatigue, and internalized distress, particularly when repeated exposure to stories of abuse intersects with systemic barriers and personal beliefs or experiences.
This creative, highly interactive and respectful training explores how proximity to the trauma of others can intersect with our emotional health, worldview, and relationships—often in ways that are subtle, cumulative, and deeply personal.
This workshop offers a deeply honest and empowering space to explore how we hold the weight of our work, and how we can tend to our own well-being without stepping away from our values or our role.
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What You Will Learn:
• Understand the mechanisms and symptoms of vicarious trauma and how they differ from burnout
• Identify early warning signs of emotional exhaustion and internalization
• Explore the emotional impact of bearing witness to complex trauma, including themes of betrayal, shame, and injustice
• Reconnect to meaning, empathy, and professional purpose in a sustainable way
• Practice trauma-informed self-reflection and boundary setting without guilt
• Build practical and personalized strategies for resilience, regulation, and wellness
• Address the cultural and organizational myths that discourage vulnerability or emotional processing in high-impact professions
“Powerful, practical, and profoundly human.”
“The facilitator held difficult material with skill and integrity.”
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Day 3: How to Talk Without Words: Using Creative Approaches to Address
Trauma
“Come curious. Leave clearer, steadier, and more confident.”
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By high participant demand, this hands-on, highly interactive workshop will provide professionals with copious concrete therapeutic ideas.
Therapeutic activities and ideas, rooted in symbolism and creativity, to address trauma that is often wordless.
Unique and imaginative approaches to creating safety, fostering communication and expression, and supporting survivors of exploitation and trauma in a more accessible and relatable way.
What You Will Learn:
* Participants will leave refreshed with all sorts of unique, engaging and alternative ways to look at addressing and treating complex trauma.
*We will create healing plans to respond to the unique and complex manifestations of trauma, understanding what modalities work and why.
*Participants will benefit from the specificity of exercises to address themes and issues tied to exploitation and abuse.
*We will examine both individual and group treatment plans, and session planning - suitable for application in a wide variety of environments.
*Participants will engage in deeply profound and often joyful exercises using activities that are immediately transferrable to client, self, and workplace.
This workshop is perfect for those who want to increase their repertoire of hands-ontechniques and skills, looking at creating diverse and interesting sessions, and plans for treatment, A refreshing and invigorating approach to this difficult trauma work, generating hope, energy and optimism into the work that we do.
“Finally felt equipped instead of intimidated.”
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