Deepening Skills for Trauma-Oriented First Third Ministry Practice

Stay tunes for future dates.
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Facilitators:
Rev. Dr. Julie Clayton
Rev. Michael Collins

COVID-19 is a global traumatic event.  
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This course will help reorient you for the drastically changed context for ministry and deepen your capacity for pastoral caregiving within amidst the trauma of COVID-19. Rev. Dr Julie Clayton and Rev. Michael Collins will equip you to face the disorientation of this time within your own skin as well as to more fully understand the disorientation of trauma and how it may impact those within your pastoral care, your family, and community at large.  

We find ourselves in a time where our ministry practice requires resilience and skills needed to move with the constant changes, limits, losses and restrictions the pandemic has brought to our lives and the world.

Over 4 weeks, your small learning cohort will develop a framework for trauma-oriented pastoral ministry focused on First Third Ministry (children, youth, young adults and their families) from locating yourself in the context, to capacity building in the face of traumatic responses of many kinds, and to be in conversation more broadly about the theological narrative through it all. 

Rev. Dr. Julie Clayton has been an adult educator and mental health practitioner for over 25 years.  Drawing from her academic training and teaching experience, along with her experience in pastoring numerous congregations in The Salvation Army, Julie brings a keen desire to help people realize their best versions of themselves.  She operates a private counselling practice in New Westminster BC (Tipping Point Consulting & Counselling Services), and has been rated the top trauma therapist in the area by Psychology Today.  Julie helps people to address complex mental health problems, which are often the result of unresolved past trauma. She loves this front-line work and teaches mental health first aid on behalf of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. She believes maximum mental health is possible for everyone, but it takes capacity to understand brain and body connections, courage to speak our personal story and conviction to master negative mental health cycles. Julie has three adult children and four grandchildren.  She enjoys swimming, playing piano, reading & researching, serving in the Downtown Eastside and supporting the ministry of a new church plant called Cross Culture Ministries BC in Burnaby, where she serves as a co-pastor in her free time. 

​Rev. Michael Collins  is co-owner of Tipping Point Consulting & Counselling Services (New Westminster, BC) and brings 25 years of experience as a family and behaviour consultant.  Twenty of those years he also spent pastoring in The Salvation Army, where he used his professional training to support families in managing and changing cycles of challenging behaviour. Michael is a certified trauma professional and works daily with children and families who are navigating the effects of complex developmental/ generational trauma.  He is also a Mental Health First Aid Facilitator and is passionate about helping individuals discover how they can have a better quality of mental, physical and emotional health.  He is also a champion for Little Warriors, which is a national charitable organization committed to the awareness, prevention and treatment of childhood sexual abuse.  A graduate of the BC Justice Institute in Childhood Abuse and Sexual Abuse Interventions, he volunteers weekly in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and is known for his compassionate heart toward those who are marginalized because of their socio-economic circumstances.  He is also the lead pastor of the new church plant Cross Culture Ministries BC in Burnaby, BC.  Michael has also travelled extensively throughout the world and is a sought-after motivational speaker.  He is married to Niveria Collins and has four children and two grandchildren. In his spare time, he can be found on a rugby field calling out plays and encouragement to the men of the United Rugby Team.