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$45 early bird; $60 after Aug 23
Theme: Changing the Narrative Changes Everything
The 6th Annual Reclaiming Hope is a conference for anyone who works or serves with people. Whether you help others by serving in education, social services, as a first responder, in the faith community, or anywhere else, understanding trauma and its effects allows you to bring more hope, healing, and tools to your work and community.
Certificates of Attendance for Professional Development are available.
Join us for a day of inspiring and gifted speakers, community resources, and so much more!
Rick is the Founder and CEO of the Neuro Leadership Academy, a new enterprise committed to using neuroscience to facilitate personal and professional development. Rick holds a master’s degree in education and uses his education to develop innovative content and to deliver engaging presentations. He speaks to thousands of groups from all over the country and is widely recognized for his work with trauma- informed and resilience-based practices.
Mr. Griffin continues to be on the leading edge of training design. As a Master Trainer for Community Resilience Initiative, he has developed several outstanding trauma and resilience focused programs and practices including the Certified Trauma-Informed Specialist (CTIS), a micro-credential for Occupational Therapist and other school-based mental health professionals. He has also authored several engaging eBooks, including his latest eBook, Keeping PACE With the Brain, an insightful eBook that delves into how social domains stimulate brain responses and guide our actions, emotions, and motivations. Amid all this Rick still finds the time for his highest priorities, his faith, his family, and his friends.
This year we are excited to announce that we have an incredible lineup of speakers who will share their insights, expertise, and experiences with you.
Sarah is the Training & Community Outreach Coordinator for the Children’s Advocacy Center of Southern Arizona. With a background as a mental health therapist who specialized in trauma therapy, Sarah brings a unique lens to teaching on mental health and trauma-related topics.
We understand the how trauma and childhood adversity changes the brain, but sometimes we forget – healing changes the brain, too. As many as 70% of trauma survivors may be able to experience post-traumatic growth, a positive change following very negative circumstances. This workshop will explore the phenomenon of post-traumatic growth, and the keys to discovering it.
Suicide rates are on the rise in the U.S. In this practical, strategy-based training, participants will learn how to identify warning signs, the QPR method to preventing suicide, and how to connect individuals at risk with resources.
David Gainey, D.Min., has been married to Hope for 31 years. Together, they’ve raised five adult children. Dr. Gainey planted Oasis at Rita Ranch in 1997 and continues to serve as the lead pastor. He also provides soul care (counseling) and trains soul care providers.
Before we can help others effectively deal with their trauma, we need to understand how our own story affects us. We’ve all experienced some level of trauma, and the more we understand it’s impact, the more effective we’ll be.
Kelley Meshirer, MA, LASAC, CCTP, travels throughout the U.S. educating on subjects like maladaptive coping, stress management, resilience, post-traumatic growth, and how the body operates both a psychologically and a physiological stress response through the polyvagal nervous system.
Additionally, her passion for working with first responders, military, and healthcare professionals brought her to Thrive with Chaos, a private counseling practice where Kelley is an Addiction Therapist and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. Kelley co-founded K2 Critical Solutions providing training, clinical support, and critical incident debriefings.
Kelley has her masters in Addiction Counseling and is working toward her doctorate in community counseling & trauma. She holds several certificates in the wellness arena spanning suicide intervention to critical incident stress management, and resiliency programs for both adults and children.
We are all trying to heal from something: Work, Home, Life stress or trauma. Did you know your stress response is wired into your nervous system, making it nearly impossible to create a state of balance within your world until you know how to take back the stress and create true wellness in your own body and the world around you? Our physiological and psychological selves are intertwined and wreak havoc on each other until we know how to control both into balance. Join Kelley’s workshop called “Wounded not defeated | Bruised not broken | Thriving not surviving: You pick what healing looks like” to learn how to embrace the stressors around us, overcome our hardships and thrive in the process!
Did you know there are more than five senses?! There are actually eight! Understanding them and the power of somatic touch can have multiple beneficial effects on the physical body, which supports the psychological and spiritual mind. You can activate your body’s sensory system through touch, vibration, and other physical sensations to encourage healing. Touch can decrease the stress response and cortisol levels, which fosters the reduction of stress and anxiety. Explore with Kelley the ways to support who you truly are as an individual.
What is the most vital quality to impact healing? It’s to care. How do we care through active listening when it’s more than using our ears!? It’s using our eyes, our body language, and our heart! In a world where we are bombarded with so much noise, so much easily gets lost. We don’t mean to be jerks, it just happens sometimes. We let the most crucial parts of connection slip through our fingers. When we learn to actively listen, the person we are listening to experiences the power of sitting with someone during perhaps their darkest moment, and that is where healing begins- in the silence of listening. Join Kelley and listen in on ways to enrich your relationships – wherever you lead, serve, and live.
Tamara Bolthouse is a Master’s Level Graduate with Advanced Certifications in Grief and Bereavement Counseling. She is also a Human-Services Board-Certified Practitioner. Tamara owns Certified Grief Recovery, LLC, and also acts as the Senior Resource Consultant for the Envoy Admissions Network, a national parent-advocacy group that helps families in crisis find long-term treatment schools for teens, pre-teens, and young adults.
Helps for Grief Recovery – This session is an overview for helping others recover from a loss of any kind. We will discuss loss, including traumatic loss, and examine many different types of grief , including masked grief, grief overload, delayed grief and complicated grief. This is an opportunity to identify toxic responses to grief & loss, and learn more about grief recovery.
An educational experience for adults who work with children. Participants will discuss loss from a child’s perspective, explore common child grief-reactions, and address the misconceptions about aiding a child with grief and loss.
Melanie Sunukjian lives in Tucson, AZ with her husband Luke, and 4 kids (college through middle school). She is a Bible Teacher, Conference Speaker, Writer, Coach, Digital Marketing Mentor and an Advocate with Trades of Hope! As a people person, she thrives on engaging with others, learning new things, traveling anywhere, sharing resources & ideas, soaking in God’s creation and savoring good food with great friends. Melanie is looking forward to gathering with like-hearted people like YOU to bring encouragement, clarity and HOPE.
The populations of people that we work with usually have something within their lives that feels STUCK, even if they are well into the healing process. They either don’t know WHY they feel this way or have no idea HOW to move forward. I will present you with a series of thoughtful, to-the-heart questions from my coaching training & facilitator background and some time & space to walk through them together, so that we can begin the process of guiding those we serve toward clarity, forward movement and HOPE for the future!
In 2024, there are more ethical businesses, products and services than ever, but they are struggling to survive in the Amazon/Walmart/Temu economy! Many of these sustainable brands create much needed jobs for survivors, so not only are they worth our support, but often their cheap, big box counterparts actually perpetuate the problems we are trying to solve. So let’s rewire the way we view these small but important efforts through simple, gradual ways that we can personally and professionally support ethical businesses, get a resource list of a variety of “people over profit” organizations, and rewrite how our involvement with trauma-healing work can be augmented with “business as mission.”
Lisa is a subject matter expert with over 20 years’ experience as a professional speaker, trainer, author and youth care provider. She faced her own crisis of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts due to her childhood trauma of sexual abuse, child sex trafficking and domestic abuse. Drawing from her experience and conquering the shame that kept her isolated, she became an advocate for the oppressed. Her mission has been to abolish child sexual exploitation through extraordinary outreach and straightforward prevention education for youth. The prevention work being done in Arizona has been recognized as a successful model at the national level, prompting two invitations to the White House and a speaking opportunity at the Capitol. Lisa has also been asked to speak into how the government can better support efforts against child sex trafficking as a stakeholder on the President’s Interagency Task Force to combat human trafficking. Lisa believes our children are our most vulnerable and valuable treasure—begging to be cherished and protected. She is convinced that every life matters, and every story deserves the chance for a happy ending. Lisa is a wife, mother of three and grandmother of seven.
Are we truly prepared to safeguard our youth, or are we simply reacting to crises once they’ve already occurred? With a proven track record of speaking to over 75,000 kids and successfully implementing our Power Over Predators program in schools, we invite you to learn from a long-standing and highly effective approach to protecting our children. Prevention is the cornerstone. Throughout the experiential workshop, we’ll address key questions and concerns surrounding the protection of children, offering insights into how to recognize, prevent, and respond to various forms of exploitation. At the heart of our workshop is student data, revealing the profound impact of prevention education in the lives of young individuals. It’s not just about statistics or abstract theories; it’s about listening to the voices of our youth and heeding their call for empowerment and safety. We invite you to be inspired to join the fight against exploitation and become a champion for youth. Together, we can make a difference—one conversation, one child at a time. Let’s give them power over predators.
Brianna discovered Power Over Predators 4 years ago while searching for a solution to a scary situation she experienced with her young teen daughters. She immediately began to implement the POP program at home, then fought relentlessly to get into local schools and churches. Since 2020, she has saved countless lives. The children she presents to express sincere appreciation for her willingness to spend time with them and care about them enough to come alongside them and fight for them. Brianna believes we can significantly slow and reverse the abuse epidemic, the sexualization of our children, the crisis of human and sex trafficking, youth suicide rates and more by starting the conversation at home, then expanding into all schools in every community. She also serves her community as the head-coach for the girls’ middle school basketball championship team. Her favorite titles are wife and mother of 4.
Are we truly prepared to safeguard our youth, or are we simply reacting to crises once they’ve already occurred? With a proven track record of speaking to over 75,000 kids and successfully implementing our Power Over Predators program in schools, we invite you to learn from a long-standing and highly effective approach to protecting our children. Prevention is the cornerstone. Throughout the experiential workshop, we’ll address key questions and concerns surrounding the protection of children, offering insights into how to recognize, prevent, and respond to various forms of exploitation. At the heart of our workshop is student data, revealing the profound impact of prevention education in the lives of young individuals. It’s not just about statistics or abstract theories; it’s about listening to the voices of our youth and heeding their call for empowerment and safety. We invite you to be inspired to join the fight against exploitation and become a champion for youth. Together, we can make a difference—one conversation, one child at a time. Let’s give them power over predators.
Dale has been involved with coed groups, as a participant and leader for twenty years. Dale has been leading coed groups in Michigan with Open Hearts Ministry for 15 years. He has done training at the Allender Center in Seattle. He is part of a local (Tucson) ministry that offers group opportunities for story work and care.
Using my own family of origin story of heartache as well as body outlines to show where trauma has been felt in my body. I will demonstrate the need of Returning to one’s story, to Reconnect to the trauma event in that story, and Repair in community through anger, grief, grace, and mercy. I will talk about the power of choice in how we help others care for their heart and body.
Micah is the Superintendent of Benson Unified School District and is starting his 22nd year in education. Prior to his time in Benson, he was a middle school teacher and administrator in the Vail School District. He is the father of 3 children and loves to cook, read, hike, and play golf.
Micah has a typical story of raising a family and the success and failures along the way. His fall from grace was sudden and at the time devastating. The journey back has been long and difficult. His story is full of nuggets of universal experience with many highs and lows, and will include tips for self-care and why embracing our own story matters.
Maddy Little is a Licensed Professional Counselor who is passionate about fostering a safe, non-judgmental space for teens and young adults to process their thoughts, feelings, and experiences to increase acceptance of their authentic selves. She specializes in working with trauma, anxiety, mood disorders, neurodiversity, suicidal ideations/self-injury, identity development, and interpersonal relationships. Maddy received her master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Walden University and her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Colorado Christian University. She is clinically trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), , Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and SMART Recovery. Outside of work, Maddy loves spending quality time with her husband and 5-year-old son, getting creative with art and baking, and leaning into personal development.
This workshop is geared towards those who work with youth or have kids and teens of their own. We will define the five indicators of co-regulation, explore the significance of co-regulation, and discuss strategies for enhancing co-regulation with youth. Attendees will better understand how their presence and interactions with youth impact youths’ developing minds.
We all have core beliefs that influence how we feel about ourselves and interact with the world around us. When our core beliefs are negative or self-defeating, we experience distressing emotions and, often, we engage in maladaptive behaviors. In this workshop, attendees will learn more about how these beliefs impact our feelings and behaviors, as well as strategies to enhance self-awareness and make desirable changes.
Katie is a survivor of domestic violence and a certified AZ ACE’s Consortium Trainer of Trainers and AZ Trauma Institute Trauma Support Specialist. She speaks publicaly about boundaries, red flags, and healthy elements. Katie is the co-founders/co-director of Intended Hope – www.intendedhope.com.
How do we handle the trauma thrown at us? Can we “bounce back”? Is that even real? This workshop will cover ideas and tools to help us process and move forward from our trauma and toxic stress. We will cover materials from John Eldredge’s books, Resilient and Get Your Life Back and The Body Keeps the Score by, Bessel van der Kolk, MD
Does connection matter? Do relationships matter? Is loneliness real? There IS hope in connection and relationships. Our bodies actually DESIRE connection. In this session, we will cover material from Together, from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD.
Rev. Jimmy Stout is a second-generation minister who has served in Law Enforcement and the U.S. Military for 35 years. He is a combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War where he served with the 445th Military Police Company of the U.S. Army. He has been involved in the Chaplaincy Ministry since 1999. He has responded to numerous incidents of national scope beginning with the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1995. During his service he has responded to 3 hurricanes, 3 mass shootings incidents to include the Safeway Shooting in Tucson, Arizona in January 2011, and three acts of terrorism. He and his son Nicholas are the current reigning World Champions in the Team Self-Defense Division with the United States Martial Arts Team.
Based on Paulinian Theology; threat to challenge embraces sports psychology and combat survival mentalities while applying the teachings of Paul the Apostle from his letters to the Corinthians and the Philippians. This course will help the participates to develop a winning mindset as they overcome adversity.
Do Thyself No Harm is a class that is based on the story of the Apostle Paul’s interactions with the jailer of Phillipi found in the 16th chapter of Acts. It integrates the Suicide Intervention Models from the National Police Suicide Foundation and the other organizations and places them in a format aligning with the teachings of Paul.
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