Trauma-Informed Librarianship

Three-week Course + Workshop | Live sessions: April 16, 23, 30, 2025 | 11:00 am - 12:45 pm

Learn trauma-informed practices to create psychologically and emotionally safer and more inclusive spaces for patrons, students, and staff.

Recent years have seen trauma affecting people in multiple and complex ways, including how they engage with libraries. As such, trauma-informed librarianship is crucial for librarians in today’s diverse and ever-changing communities. In this three-week online course, you will develop a deep understanding of trauma-informed practices and how to apply them for patrons, staff, students, colleagues and yourself. This course will explore trauma-informed librarianship in both internal and external contexts. You’ll learn how to engage with and support patrons affected by trauma while also taking care of yourself and setting healthy workplace boundaries. You’ll also learn how to contribute to a trauma-informed work culture.

Join us online and gain the knowledge and tools needed to create a library environment that fosters healing, resilience, and empowerment.

Learning Outcomes

After you attend this course, you’ll be able to:

• Understand trauma-informed care in the context of libraries
• Recognize trauma responses in yourself and others
• Incorporate trauma-informed principles into your daily work
• Understand ways to handle burnout
• Create and maintain organizational and personal wellness 

Who should take this course

This course is geared toward public-facing librarians and staff; however, all levels of librarians, including managers and directors, will benefit from learning how to create trauma-informed library cultures. 

Course Features 

This will be a 3-week online course and will include:

• Live sessions: Guest speaker presentations by leaders in their field. (All sessions are recorded for on-demand access for six months after the course ends.)
• Facilitated discussions: Audience participation in Q&A and discussion with guest speakers.
• Asynchronous workshop: Project-based weekly assignments to connect what you’re learning to your professional life. Includes written feedback from an expert in the field who functions as the workshop facilitator, as well as peer conversation via discussion forums. Workshop available for all multi-week courses plus half-day courses where indicated.
• Early access on-demand resources: Access to a series of past live session archives from Library Journal and School Library Journal courses to explore at your own pace.
• Online Classroom: The virtual learning platform that holds all course content and is accessible for six months after the course ends. 

Expected time commitment

If you watch the recordings of all sessions and participate in the asynchronous workshop, you'll spend approximately 2-4 hours per week on this course. You'll earn 15 hours of PD credit and a Library Journal certificate of completion. 

Presenter

Dr. Beth Wahler, PhD, MSW is founder and principal consultant at Beth Wahler Consulting, LLC and associate research faculty and previous director of the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina- Charlotte. 

CALL Training Partner for this Event: Library Journal