This year marks a new era in the history of the Risking Connection (RC) training model. The Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI) completed the most comprehensive revision of the training model since its inception in 2000. The revisions over the course of RC’s 24-year history have aspired to remain faithful to the principles of the original curriculum while reflecting advancements in the always-evolving trauma field, as well as ensuring the training is relevant to a wide variety of sectors serving trauma survivors.

As of 2024, the RC training has been used to train tens of thousands of professionals and para-professionals and has been or is being used as mandatory staff training for well over 100 organizations globally. When reflecting on the impact of RC, those trained often tell us that throughout their careers, the RC principles and framework have served as the touchstone theory and map for how they help the survivors of trauma that they serve.

Despite RC’s success, in 2019 TSI was coming to recognize the insidious, pervasive, and often-ignored impact of racism on all of us in the US, but especially upon many of those served by our human service and educational systems. This, combined with the racial reckoning set off by the murder of George Floyd, made us increasingly uncomfortable with the limited race- and social justice-related content in the 2019/2020 revision of RC. TSI staff felt that we needed to act on our growing awareness that (a) some of the language used in the RC curriculum around race and gender was outdated and (b) racism is inextricably intertwined with trauma and that we needed to prioritize integrating anti-racism principles into the curriculum.

The Long Road to Revision

One of our first actions was the creation of a racially diverse advisory committee made up of RC Trainers and Champions who were familiar with the curriculum and brought lived experience or expertise in social justice issues. They spent six months looking at the 2019/2020 RC curriculum and developed a supplement called “Teaching Risking Connection with an Anti-Racist Lens” which was introduced to the Risking Connection community in 2022. It was our first foray into answering the question, "How can we do a better job of acknowledging the racial trauma experienced by so many, while also empowering our RC Trainers to engage in conversation with training participants around the effects of racism?" 

The intensive “supplement” process identified gaps in the RC curriculum and suggested possible ways to fill those gaps. TSI began field testing and development of related trainings as we continued to consider how anti-racism could be integrated into the whole training. The process also revealed plenty of biases and blind spots. After all, whether we admit it or not, our racialized history plays itself out in our board rooms, classrooms, therapy rooms, calm-down rooms, and yes, training rooms – every space where we try to promote healing and learning.

In 2023, with plenty of learning in hand, we finally embarked on the journey of revising RC more comprehensively. Teaching about the overlap of race and trauma was one of our primary goals. We used the supplement “Teaching RC with an Anti-Racist Lens” as a jumping off point, but we wanted to go deeper and include additional revision goals.

Four project pillars guided the revision. We wanted to new RC training model to be:

• Expansive - a curriculum that evolved beyond our current manual
• Practical - user-friendly for our ever-expanding group of RC Associate Trainers (over 500 as of 2024)
• Cutting Edge - best practices that take our RC community to the next level
• Strategic - intentional choices that best leverage Risking Connection's history and integrate the TSI brand

These four pillars provided the focus necessary to realize the desired outcomes for the revised manual. The 2024 revision reflects input from diverse voices and skill sets within TSI and the RC Faculty Trainer community. Material and practices have been embedded to reflect TSI’s belief that racism is a source of trauma and needs to be addressed in trauma trainings and discussions. Language throughout the text strives for inclusive and non-stigmatizing perspectives. Diverse communities and identities, as well as traditions practiced by various sectors, are more accurately represented in images, case scenarios, terms, and case examples. The formatting of the manual reflects best-practice instructional design.

We would like to thank the following individuals for their generous contributions of skills, resources, and expertise in co-creating the next generation of Risking Connection:

RC Contracted Faculty Members

Alesia Starks, LMFT, Fuller Theological Seminary
Jodie Tingle-Willis, LCSW, Private Practice
André-Chance Goddard, MAT
B. W., MSW, Suicide Prevention
Alisha McLean, Residential Services, Yukon Government

TSI Staff

John Engel, Co-chair and Associate Director
Mary Jo Harwood, LSW, Co-chair and Program Coordinator (now retired)
LaVerne Baker Hotep, Program Coordinator
Chris Greene, Marketing Coordinator
Steve Brown, PsyD, TSI Director
Patricia Wilcox, LCSW, VP of Klingberg 

Past, Present, and Future

We also would like to honor the work that has gone before us. The 2024 revision was built on the strong and enduring foundation of the original Risking Connection authors: Kay Saakvitne, Ph.D., Sara Gamble, Ph.D., Laurie Pearlman, Ph.D., and Beth Tabor Lev, Ph.D., as well as the Sidran Institute. These authors responded to the needs of consumer-survivors and their allies who believed the services they received did not meet their trauma healing needs. They asked two simple questions: What helped? What hurt? The response to these two questions informed the content of the original Risking Connection curriculum, first published in 2000, and continues to evolve in the 2024 revision.

The next step in Risking Connection's evolution is to inspire the nearly 800 RC Associate Trainers and Champions teaching or implementing RC at their agencies to embrace the 2024 RC revision. This is happening through webinars and recertification trainings focused on introducing the changes and helping these ambassadors of RC reflect on both the excitement and anxiety that change can cause.  They are the next generation of Risking Connection! We thank all of the RC community for trusting the model, sharing your lived experiences and vulnerabilities, all while you contribute to transforming the lives of others.