2026 Online Training Classes

March 10, 2026

One-Day Course; 7 Contact Hours – 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM Pacific

Whenever a major crisis or disaster happens, people tend to want to get involved. They want to respond. Some individuals create online groups and some self-deploy and show up at a disaster site. Volunteers reaching out to organizations during a crisis are often sent away. What most don’t realize is that spontaneous volunteers without specific training and no affiliation can cause more problems than they alleviate in a disaster situation.
What you will learn:

• Gain a broad overview of what the possibilities are for community volunteers and churches to respond to a disaster
• Learn what the established national expectations are for responders and
  organizations who respond to disasters
• Learn about existing training resources for community volunteers and churches responding to disaster

April 28, 2026

One-Day Course; 7 Contact hours – 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM Pacific

Operational Stress First Aid (OSFA) is a unique program to teach psychological
first aid to first responders and others who are susceptible to stress injury. The
program was originally developed by Department t of Defense for the Marines
is used to prevent, identify and treat stress problems caused by operations,
critical events and personal or family crisis situations. The goal of OSFA is to
build resiliency and awareness, and to keep personal fully functional. The
program also includes tools to assist leaders and personnel to take appropriate
actions to restore personnel to full function and readiness when necessary.
The principles of this class are foundational to all psychological first aid and
resources reference legitimate and credible crisis intervention organizations.
What you will learn:

• Four sources of stress injury
• Understand the operational stress continuum illustrated by 4 colors
• Signs and symptoms of stress injury
• Leadership functions during stress
• How to do an after-action review
• Understanding checklist to determine level of stress

May 12, 2026

One-Day Course; 7 Contact Hours – 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM Pacific

Grief is a common and healthy response to the loss of a friend or loved one.
Grief is also a common reaction to losses of many other kinds – jobs, marriages, homes, health, or reputation. Care providers encounter people who have experienced many losses both personally and professionally. Traumatic events complicate the grieving process. This course will present key concepts related to grief and loss, increasing awareness of how trauma impacts grieving and mourning — emotionally, cognitively, socially, spiritually, and relationally. Learn a little about how trauma affects the brain, how the brain goes into over-drive, and what care providers can do to support traumatic grief. This course is designed for anyone who works with people who experience grief and loss following a traumatic event. Learn about instrumental and intuitive grievers and why they struggle to comfort each other.
What you will learn:

• Characteristics of grief, bereavement, and mourning
• Types of grief
• Losses that may cause grief
• Grief theory and what actually happens
• Trauma, traumatic grief, traumatic grief reactions
• How trauma affects the brain
• Patterns of grieving
• Active comforting
• Self-care for those providing comfort

June 15-16, 2026

Two-Day Course; 14 Contact Hours – 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM Pacific

People from almost every walk of life enter into the field of spiritual care during
crises and disasters. Many also serve in institutions and agencies such as
corporations, hospitals, schools, police and fire departments, EMS and a myriad of other contexts. Since there is no universally accepted training program for “chaplains” and other spiritual care providers, many people who enter into chaplaincy never receive the foundational training that helps to equip them for the role of chaplain or spiritual care provider. Being a “nice person” helps. It isn’t enough. Chaplains need to learn about the psychological stress that many people experience and must learn how to mitigate that stress. Helping people cope during the aftermath of bad news, civil unrest, homicides, terrorism, and other emergencies becomes one of the most import tasks for the chaplain. Facilitating adaptive functioning and access to more appropriate care are essential.
What you will learn:

• Uniqueness of chaplain ministry
• Broad overview of disasters, phases of disasters, phases of emergency
  management
• Human needs and human development – why we do what we do
• Distress as the trauma response
• Story listening as an art form
• Suicide response in emergencies
• Comforting grief after losses of many kinds
• Ministering in cultural and religious diversity
• Applying spiritual first aid
• Spiritual care in action
• Crisis care for the caregiver
• Laws, accountability, and boundaries for the chaplain
• National expectations for providing spiritual care in context

July 21, 2026

One-Day Course; 7 Contact hours – 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM Pacific

Healthcare professionals and emergency responders face extraordinary
stressors in the crisis environment daily. Factor in staffing shortages, corporate
financial constraints, long work hours, unrealistic rotations and shifts, dying
clients and patients, and increasingly complicated situations, the constant
technological challenges seem overwhelming at best. Now add in the personal
stressors of family, finances, time away from home, the need for continuing
education, fragile interpersonal relationships, and crisis becomes an ongoing
event with little relief in sight. During this age of uncertainty – especially  during pandemic, all these stressors seem to have been exacerbated and recognizing stress and its manifestations seems irrelevant. Critical incidents, adverse events, medical and operational errors, near misses, disclosure, reporting, and moral injury and second victimization seem to be expected even when unwanted. It’s important to know that these do not exist in isolation – they are on a continuum of crisis. Is there a balm in Gilead for responders – healthcare and emergency personnel? Talking about stress and manifestations of stress will be inadequate for resilience and fitness. Awareness, stabilization, mitigation, and restoration in new ways will be necessary.
What you will learn:

• Unseen dangers for healthcare and emergency responders
• Typical unidentified reactions and problems
• Four causes of stress injury
• Differences in burnout, empathy fatigue, compassion fatigue, second victim syndrome
• How inner conflict, moral conflict, moral injury, Second Victim Syndrome and PTSD are related
• How to live courageously in a post COVID world