Thursday, September 17, 2026 | 1:00pm ET

(Re)Learning to Listen

(Re)Learning to Listen will take us through the basics of Listening with intention. Join us as we explore together the benefits of supporting by listening, what it is and what it isn’t, and the key skills to effectively listening. Likely many of us do a lot of listening in our lives - whether to friends, family, colleagues, or community members. This training is intended to help us come back to basics and refresh our skills so that we can listen more intentionally and more effectively.

Key Learning Points:

  • Defining Listening Partners: What it is, what it isn’t, the values, the benefits, and the ethics

  • The Practical Skills for Effective Listening: Preparation, Self-Awareness, Self-Determination, Empathy, Reflective Listening, Holding Space, Sharing, and more

  • Tools for Effective Listening: The OARS Method, The Four Pillars of Active Listening

Click Here to Register

About Heather Powers

Heather Powers is a Registered Social Worker, Family Therapist, and Organizational Consultant. She has worked in diverse non-profit spaces since 2009 including churches, para-church organizations, grass roots community programs, and large international development organizations. She currently has the pleasure of supporting non-profits in Canada and globally as they navigate growth and transition. 

This interactive training introduces peer supporters in ministry contexts, including clergy and lay leaders, to the practice of spiritually integrated listening. Participants will explore how spirituality may be expressed explicitly or implicitly in a person's story, and how listeners can recognize spiritual cues and gently invite deeper exploration without imposing their own beliefs or theological framework.

The session will focus on curiosity, empathetic presence, strengths-based listening, and the safe and effective use of self.

Participants will consider:

  • how to respond when someone's theology or spiritual perspective differs from their own

  • how to hold space for questions, doubt, grief, anger, and spiritual struggle

  • how prayer can be offered as an invitation rather than an assumption

Through reflection, examples, and small-group practice, participants will develop practical skills for noticing spiritual language, mirroring their peer’s own language for God or the sacred, asking open and curious questions, and discerning when and when not to introduce explicitly spiritual practices such as prayer or Scripture.

The training will also conclude by considering spiritually integrated self-care: what listeners draw upon before an encounter, how they remain grounded during it, and how they release what they have carried afterward.

Key learning points:

  • Notice spirituality in the stories of others.
    Listen for both explicit and implicit spiritual cues, including spiritual resources and strengths, faith expression, identity, and belonging.

  • Listen with curiosity and invite rather than impose.
    Practice open, permission-based questions; mirror a person's own spiritual language; and discern when it may or may not be appropriate to introduce prayer or Scripture.

  • Hold space for spiritual difference and vulnerability.
    Develop greater comfort accompanying people with theological perspectives different from their own, without needing to shift them.

  • Remain grounded as a listener.
    Identifying spiritually grounded practices that support presence before, during, and after a peer encounter.

Click Here to Register

Thursday, October 8, 2026 | 1:00pm ET

Listening for the Sacred: Spiritually Integrated Listening Skills for Peer Support

About Sara Traficante

Sara Traficante recently graduated Knox College with a Master of Psychospiritual Studies degree from Knox College, and Certificate in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy from Toronto School of Theology. During this degree, Sara studied in the classroom, in community counselling, acute medicine, and palliative care settings. She is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and has a private practice centred on trauma-informed spiritually integrated psychotherapy. This fall, Sara will return to Knox College in the Master of Divinity program as a candidate for ministry in the PCC. Before coming to ministry, Sara spent 20+ years in the classical music industry - recording, performing, teaching across Canada as a flutist. Sara lives in Hamilton with her husband, teen daughter, and miniature schnauzer.

Thursday, October 22, 2026 | 1:00pm ET

Cultural Humility

Developing cultural humility isn’t a skill or a tool that you can find online. It’s a practice and a committed journey to know oneself, one’s unique history and to keep sustaining that curiosity and extend it beyond the self. This workshop will uncover and cover a curated pathway of resources that together are more than foundational building blocks to help you craft your journey of cultivating cultural humility.

Key Learning Points:

  • Examine how power dynamics are cultural

  • Explore the cultural iceberg + social location tool

  • Reflect on belonging + unconscious bias + microaggressions

  • Learn about interrupting bias

  • Become a “Fundi” at listening with the 4 levels of listening tool

Click Here to Register

About Priya Andrade

Priya is an instructional designer and learning architect with nearly two decades of experience in intercultural ministry, immigrant education and reconciliation initiatives. She is also a visual and media artist who learns how to live in complexity from sperm whales and other whales who communicate across entire oceans. Professionally, she has had the privilege of working with the tiniest of people who taught her that play and laughter will solve all the world’s problems. More seriously, she has curated stories and Indigenous knowledges into Hearts Exchanged, an online Indigenous-Settler reconciliation curriculum for the Christian Reformed Church. Her research and creativity also shaped Pathway to Actions, an evaluative tool that helps organizations measure and strengthen their commitments to justice and equity.  As the Intercultural Program Coordinator with the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Priya designs e-learning courses to help people find comfort with the discomfort of difference. She comes to it as a Goan immigrant, with family roots in the Indian diaspora of the Middle East and among Ugandan refugees. Priya lives in Halifax, where the whales are not far and the ocean humbles her.

Thursday, November 12, 2026 | 1:00pm ET

Group Facilitation

Inspired by and drawing on the seminal work of adrienne marie brown, this workshop will empower and equip you to be a strong leader with a whole bunch of people you don’t know and steer them confidently through a complicated - complex topic.

Key Learning Points:

  • Learn about emergent strategy and core principles relevant to group facilitation

  • Learn ways to establish the covenant of trust

  • Learn about the ‘hold change’ practice

  • Learn about group personas and how to attend to conflict

Click Here to Register

About Priya Andrade

Priya is an instructional designer and learning architect with nearly two decades of experience in intercultural ministry, immigrant education and reconciliation initiatives. She is also a visual and media artist who learns how to live in complexity from sperm whales and other whales who communicate across entire oceans. Professionally, she has had the privilege of working with the tiniest of people who taught her that play and laughter will solve all the world’s problems. More seriously, she has curated stories and Indigenous knowledges into Hearts Exchanged, an online Indigenous-Settler reconciliation curriculum for the Christian Reformed Church. Her research and creativity also shaped Pathway to Actions, an evaluative tool that helps organizations measure and strengthen their commitments to justice and equity.  As the Intercultural Program Coordinator with the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Priya designs e-learning courses to help people find comfort with the discomfort of difference. She comes to it as a Goan immigrant, with family roots in the Indian diaspora of the Middle East and among Ugandan refugees. Priya lives in Halifax, where the whales are not far and the ocean humbles her.

 In our roles as helpers, we often see others’ suffering up close. Because we care so much, these experiences can take a toll on our wellbeing, and on how much we’re able to show up for others when they need us. So how do we stay present, compassionate, and useful to our communities in the long term? 

In this workshop, participants will learn: 

  • How to identify some of the ‘occupational hazards’ of being a helper, and how they impact us (e.g. Compassion Fatigue/ Empathic Strain, Vicarious Trauma, Moral Distress) 

  • Strategies for mitigating the impact of 

  • Why self-care isn’t selfish, and is an essential part of helping others 

  • How a community-minded approach can help us stay well 

Click Here to Register

Thursday, November 26, 2026 | 1:00pm ET

The Balancing Act: Offering Empathetic Support Without Losing Ourselves

About Sarah Stewart

Sarah Stewart is a Guelph-based Registered Social Worker and adult educator. She specializes in delivering trauma-informed workshops on topics such as Secondary Traumatic Stress and Moral Distress for helping professionals and is a certified trainer of Mental Health First Aid and Transforming Compassion Fatigue

Sarah is passionate about promoting a social justice-based approach to wellness and sustainability for helping professionals, de-stigmatizing mental health conversations, and improving mental health-related accessibility. She is the owner and lead trainer of Open Minds Mental Health Training and Consulting and facilitates for organizations and events across North America. She currently serves as the Content Specialist for St. John Ambulance Canada’s Emotional First Aid for Peers and Frontline Workers project. 

Thursday, December 17, 2026 | 1:00pm ET

Boundaries for Peer Supporters and Ministry Leaders

Peer support listeners have the opportunity to make a meaningful difference through listening, caring, and offering support to others. To do this well, they also need healthy boundaries that protect both themselves and those they support. This engaging, interactive 90-minute workshop explores how to care deeply without carrying another person's burdens. Through real-life scenarios, discussion, and practical skill-building, participants will learn how to set compassionate boundaries, communicate them with confidence, and support others in a way that is both effective and sustainable. Participants will leave with practical tools they can use immediately to strengthen their peer support relationships while preventing burnout, compassion fatigue, and role confusion.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Define healthy boundaries within a peer support relationship.

  • Recognize common boundary challenges.

  • Differentiate empathy from responsibility.

  • Practice respectful boundary-setting conversations.

  • Apply practical strategies for maintaining emotional wellbeing while supporting others.

Click Here to Register

About Marg Van Herk-Paradis

Marg is President and a Senior Consultant at Credence, specializing in supporting organizations with addressing conflict, transforming organizational cultures, and clarifying organizational missions and visions. Marg has worked across North America, facilitating, coaching, and mediating for groups and individuals. Marg works with businesses, universities, schoolboards, government funded agencies, social service organizations, notfor-profits, and faith-based organizations. Marg brings over 25 years of experience in not-for-profit organizations, including 17 years in leadership positions. Marg has a BA in Applied Social Science from Concordia University in Montreal and a Master of Theological Studies from Conrad Grebel University College, affiliated with the University of Waterloo. Marg is a Qualified Mediator with the ADR Institute of Canada and a member of the ADR Institute of Ontario. Marg is a certified Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) trainer and a regular instructor in Conrad Grebel's Certificate program.

Previous Webinars

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