Social worker and therapist Dr. Heather Evans, a global expert on trauma healing and post-traumatic growth, addressed the second plenary session of THI’s 2025 Global Community of Practice gathering. She helped normalize the reality of secondary trauma, and offered simple and powerful practices for caring well for ourselves—that our ministry might continue to bear fruit. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Dr. Johnston Ndunde, Executive Director of SIL Global, opened the second plenary session of THI’s 2025 Global Community of Practice by welcoming us to his native Kenya. His address affirmed and renewed our commitment to the communal nature of trauma healing. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

 In partnership with pastors and youth ministry leaders worldwide, we’ve created a new version of UNSTUCK: a practical, Bible-based curriculum to help teenagers stay rooted in God’s love in the aftermath of community violence.

Over the last 18 months, facilitators from all over the world have been testing our new app-based program, Anchored in Hope, in their churches and communities. Rich feedback from their pilot groups has helped us revise the program to make it even more effective as a tool for healing in community. As we officially launch the new program, THI’s program development manager Brianna Leiendecker explains what facilitators need to know about what’s new.

Communities of practice are the fellowships that sustain trauma healing ministry around the world. Here are some suggestions for leading a COP.

Once we’ve been trained to be facilitators, we’re eager to lead groups of our own—only to find that starting and sustaining a trauma healing ministry can be challenging and lonely. Maghan Perez, THI’s U.S. program manager, explains how communities of practice (official and unofficial, global and local) can help