Adults & Adolescents

Friday Night - Immersion Group Sessions

These are guided experiential sessions where attendees don't just learn - they feel, express, create, and embody healing in real time. Each session blends trauma-informed practices, nervous system regulation techniques, creative modalities, and community connection, so every person is supported at the level they need.

Adult immersion groups are about releasing, reconnecting, and restoring. They are structured, but deeply human

Structure: Grounding and Safety Building, Guided Experiential Work, Group Connection Practices, and Integration and Closure

Adolescents immersion groups are designed to be creative, interactive, empowering and emotionally safe for young nervous systems.

Structure: Gentle Nervous System Activation, Creative Expression, Skill Building Awareness, Connection and Community, and Safe Shutdown and Closure.

The Language the Body Speaks Following Trauma and Mental Health

Keynote: Abigail Akyeampong- FNP-C

The Regulated Parent with Amy Pagett

With 25 years of teaching experience and as a mother of three teenagers, Amy deeply understands the critical role a regulated adult nervous system plays in healthy interactions with children. The Regulated Adult is designed for parents and educators who want to explore the principles of co-regulation and how these practices can strengthen relationships both at home and in the classroom.

This workshop combines foundational education with practical strategies to support more attuned, connected, and responsive adult–child dynamics through a nervous-system–informed lens. Participants will gain tools to enhance communication, foster emotional safety, and create environments where both adults and children can thrive.

Breathwork with Amy Pagett

This workshop will begin with an informative session on breathwork and somatic embodiment as pathways to cultivating a deeper connection with your internal wisdom. Amy will guide participants through breathwork, meditation, and sound healing practices designed to promote relaxation and support a sense of calm within the body. She will introduce techniques for self-regulation through the breath and offer a restorative sound bath to help shift and harmonize internal energy. Breathwork and sound healing may support stress reduction, ease anxiety, and enhance overall well-being.

Participants are encouraged to bring a yoga mat, pillow, and blanket. If you do not have a yoga mat, a limited number will be available for purchase for $25 (cash only).

Reclaim Your Power: Intuition, Awareness, and Finding Your Sisterhood with Shelly Moorman - LADIES ONLY PLEASE

After trauma, rebuilding trust in your own judgment is key. This essential workshop focuses on empowering women to hone their natural protective instincts. We will dive deep into actionable strategies for heightened situational awareness and the skill of "reading the room." Most importantly, we'll validate and reinforce the power of listening to your gut—that crucial inner voice that often holds the first warning. This is a session about awareness, self-trust, and taking practical tools back into your everyday life. Trust your instincts. Reclaim your safety.

Exit Strategy with Jeremiah Fulmer

This is a tool you will take with you. Exit Strategy teaches parents and teens how to pause conflict before escalation, protect their nervous systems, and return to the conversation with calm clarity, connection, and emotional safety.

*Adults and Teen Children combined session

ADULT SESSIONS

Living Through Leisure with Kristina Martin

This interactive session will focus on the role leisure education plays in healing from trauma. Participants will learn what is and how recreational therapy came in to existence, its role in promoting health and healing and identifying and decreasing barriers to participation.

Therapeutic Music with Dustin & Camille

Music has been methodologically proven as an effective form of recreational therapy for mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual healing. Join Dustin and Camille to learn how music can become a healthy outlet for even the most novice musician.

*If you have a guitar, you are highly encouraged to bring it.

The Court of My Life: Choosing Who Plays Intentional Best Friendship with Joe Reid

Intentional Best Friend Workshop is an engaging, interactive training designed to help participants understand the layers of their relationships and develop healthier, more purposeful friendships. Using the analogy of a professional basketball game, this workshop helps participants visualize how different people in their lives serve different roles and why boundaries matter.

*Adults and Adolescents combined session

Write Your Way Forward: A Journaling Workshop for Emotional Clarity and Resilience with Joe Reid

Write Your Way Forward is an interactive mental health and self-awareness workshop designed for community members, peer supporters, and anyone working to build emotional stamina. Drawing from Joseph Reid’s lived experience with mental illness recovery and his work in peer support, this session uses storytelling, reflection, and guided writing to help participants develop a more grounded, honest relationship with their inner world.

*Adults and Adolescent combined session

Saturday Keynote & Sessions

Drum the Stress Away with Tesha

Release energy, build fitness, and have fun! This cardio drumming workout uses upbeat music and rhythmic movement to create a moderate-intensity, high-energy experience that supports cardiovascular health, coordination, and stress relief for teens and adults.

Waltzing Through Trauma with Gabby Hull

Through guided waltz movements, attendees will experience how dance can regulate the nervous system, restore rhythm and connection, and reduce common trauma symptoms by fostering a sense of safety, embodiment, and joy.

No dance experience or partner is required. Just an open mind and willingness to move toward healing.

Self-Leadership Without Self-Erasure with Dr. Judith Belton

Restoring Internal Authority Through Therapeutic Art

This two-hour experiential workshop supports adults who carry responsibility and are beginning to feel the internal cost of doing so. Through therapeutic art, participants explore how self-leadership can quietly turn into self-override—and how to restore internal authority without guilt, collapse, or over-responsibility.

Rather than focusing on productivity, coping, or performance, this workshop centers on clarity, internal boundaries, and sustainable self-leadership. Participants are guided through structured visual processes that help them recognize where they may be erasing their own needs, signals, or values in order to function—and how to reconnect with a more grounded, internally led way of showing up. This is not an art class or a therapy session. The emphasis is on visual expression as a tool for insight, integration, and self-leadership. No artistic skill is required.

In Their Own Light: Uplifting Siblings of People with Disabilities with Paula Wiese

Discover the unique experiences of siblings of individuals with disabilities in this insightful, interactive session. Learn about the challenges and trauma these “well" siblings may face, how these experiences manifest, and practical ways to offer support.

Join open discussions to share perspectives and reflect on personal reactions and feelings.

Mental Reset: Boxing for the Mind with Aaron and Veronica McLaurine

This isn’t about fighting others—it’s about reclaiming control. Boxing-based movement helps release stored stress, sharpen focus, and reset the nervous system. Leave feeling grounded, strong, and mentally clear.

*Adults and Adolescents combined session (will be split into adult and youth)

Anxiety Isn’t Overthinking — It’s Overprotecting with Gina Fox

Anxiety isn’t a flaw or a failure — it’s the nervous system working overtime to keep you safe.

In this powerful, trauma-informed session, participants will learn what anxiety really is, why it shows up in the body, and why “just calming down” doesn’t work. Through clear, accessible education, we’ll explore how stress and trauma shape the nervous system — and how anxiety becomes a protective response rather than a personal weakness.

Participants will then experience NeuroSomatic Art, a guided, non-clinical, body-based creative process designed to help regulate the nervous system, quiet racing thoughts, and restore a sense of safety. No art experience is needed — just curiosity and openness.

This session offers teens and adults a compassionate, practical way to work with anxiety instead of fighting it — and to leave with a tool they can use anytime anxiety feels overwhelming.

ADOLESCENT SESSIONS

Your Vibe Check: Trust Your Gut & Own Your Safety - Girls (Up to 15 years old) with Shelly Moorman

Learn how to trust your super-power—your gut feeling! This fun, interactive session teaches young girls to be more aware of their surroundings, or "keep their head on a swivel," in a way that feels safe and easy. We’ll cover simple, practical tools for reading a room and knowing when something feels off. You already have the power to stay safe—we'll just show you how to use it! Walk away with confidence and everyday safety wisdom.

Exit Strategy with Jeremiah Fulmer

This is a tool you will take with you. Exit Strategy teaches parents and teens how to pause conflict before escalation, protect their nervous systems, and return to the conversation with calm clarity, connection, and emotional safety.

*Adults and Teen Children combined session

Anxiety Alchemization with Jeremiah Fulmer

This is the intentional process of transforming anxious energy into clarity, creativity, and empowered action. By decoding the messages within anxiety we reclaim our agency, can restore our sense of safety and convert emotional turbulence into growth.

Therapeutic Music with Dustin & Camille

Music has been methodologically proven as an effective form of recreational therapy for mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual healing. Join Dustin and Camille to learn how music can become a healthy outlet for even the most novice musician.

*Attendees are highly encouraged to bring their own guitar, if possible.

Write Your Way Forward: A Journaling Workshop for Emotional Clarity and Resilience with Joe Reid

Write Your Way Forward is an interactive mental health and self-awareness workshop designed for community members, peer supporters, and anyone working to build emotional stamina. Drawing from Joseph Reid’s lived experience with mental illness recovery and his work in peer support, this session uses storytelling, reflection, and guided writing to help participants develop a more grounded, honest relationship with their inner world.

*Adults and Adolescent combined session

The Court of My Life: Choosing Who Plays Intentional Best Friendship with Joe Reid

Intentional Best Friend Workshop is an engaging, interactive training designed to help participants understand the layers of their relationships and develop healthier, more purposeful friendships. Using the analogy of a professional basketball game, this workshop helps participants visualize how different people in their lives serve different roles and why boundaries matter.

*Adults and Adolescents combined session

Drum the Stress Away with Tesha

Release energy, build fitness, and have fun! This cardio drumming workout uses upbeat music and rhythmic movement to create a moderate-intensity, high-energy experience that supports cardiovascular health, coordination, and stress relief for teens and adults.

Being You Without Disappearing: Self-Leadership Through Therapeutic Art with Dr Judith Belton (2 hour session)

This two-hour therapeutic art workshop helps teens explore self-leadership in a way that feels relatable, respectful, and empowering. Instead of focusing on behavior, discipline, or emotional control, the workshop invites teens to look at how they make choices, respond to pressure, and stay connected to themselves without disappearing to fit in or cope.

Through guided drawing and visual expression, teens explore moments when they shrink, go quiet, or disconnect from their own signals—and how to strengthen a sense of internal leadership that supports confidence, boundaries, and authenticity.

The workshop is developmentally appropriate, non-clinical, and designed to feel emotionally safe. Sharing is always optional, and no art skills are needed.

In Their Own Light: Uplifting Siblings of People with Disabilities with Paula Wiese

Participate in a dynamic workshop designed for teens! Through games, role play, and open conversation, explore your experiences with people who have disabilities and learn how to support their siblings. Build empathy, understanding, and discover strategies to make a positive impact.

Mental Reset: Boxing for the Mind with Aaron and Veronica McLaurine

This isn’t about fighting others—it’s about reclaiming control. Boxing-based movement helps release stored stress, sharpen focus, and reset the nervous system. Leave feeling grounded, strong, and mentally clear.

*Adults and Adolescents combined session (will be split into adult and youth)

Living Through Leisure with Kristina Martin

This interactive session will focus on the role leisure education plays in healing from trauma. Participants will learn what is and how recreational therapy came in to existence, its role in promoting health and healing and identifying and decreasing barriers to participation.

Anxiety Isn’t Overthinking — It’s Overprotecting with Gina Fox

Anxiety isn’t a flaw or a failure — it’s the nervous system working overtime to keep you safe.

In this powerful, trauma-informed session, participants will learn what anxiety really is, why it shows up in the body, and why “just calming down” doesn’t work. Through clear, accessible education, we’ll explore how stress and trauma shape the nervous system — and how anxiety becomes a protective response rather than a personal weakness.

Participants will then experience NeuroSomatic Art, a guided, non-clinical, body-based creative process designed to help regulate the nervous system, quiet racing thoughts, and restore a sense of safety. No art experience is needed — just curiosity and openness.

This session offers teens and adults a compassionate, practical way to work with anxiety instead of fighting it — and to leave with a tool they can use anytime anxiety feels overwhelming.

Our Caterer & Menu

*this is included with your ticket purchase.

FAQs

What should I bring?

Wear comfortable clothing, a journal for notes, water bottle, and an open heart ready for transformation. *Please make sure you look over each session and see if materials are needed to attend.

How Do I Pick Sessions I Want To Attend?

Before you checkout, you will see a list of sessions for each time frame. We ask that you write your choices down in the comments section BEFORE you check out. Otherwise, you will receive a google form to fill out after we receive your ticket order.

Are Payment Plans Available?

Yes, we are able to do payment plans. There is a fee. We will take your total and divide it up into equal payments. ALL payments must be paid in full two weeks before the summit. NO exceptions. Please see payment plan information within the ticket sale. Email us at riseupfromtrauma@gmail.com to start a payment plan.

Adolescents

Adolescents 12-17 will be permitted WITHOUT an adult. We will have volunteers as Team Leaders. Paperwork MUST be filled out ONE WEEK prior to the conference starting. This will emailed to the parent.

What Is "We Understand You" Summit?

The We Understand You Summit is a trauma-informed gathering focused on awareness, education, and connection for trauma survivors of trauma or mental health. Through speakers, experiential sessions, and community support, the summit creates space for understanding, healing, and hope.

It’s a starting point, a place of shared humanity and learning.

Who Is the Summit For?

The summit is open to anyone 12 years and older seeking greater understanding of trauma, mental health, and the nervous system in a supportive, non-judgmental environment. Participants are encouraged to engage at a pace that feels safe for them.

Separate sessions are designed for adults and adolescents to ensure age-appropriate, supportive experiences.