There are crises all around us. Our children and young adults experience crisis every day, and they want to support each another while walking through these hard things.

• Approximately 1 in 3 teens struggle with a mental health diagnosis, and nearly 1 in 5 report serious thoughts of suicide.
• Most high school students never experienced high school in a pre-pandemic atmosphere.
• The majority of teens endure monthly or quarterly lockdown drills in their schools.
• 1 in 3 teens live in a single parent household,
• 1 in 8 teens struggle with substance abuse.
• Almost half of American teens report struggling with their Christian faith.

With their experiences ranging from divorce to a death in their family to peer pressure or substance abuse, our teens carry a heavy burden. Sometimes that burden is a crisis they experience personally, and other times it’s something a friend is going through.

Our Trauma Care team has been offering trainings to churches, ministry leaders, and volunteer teams to empower people to have healing conversations with those that are hurting. Offering these trainings to college age or youth volunteers, to teens at the EFCA's Challenge Conference, and even to youth groups allows us to see the heart of our “Gen Z” Christian students. We get a glimpse into the care and thoughtfulness within these students for reaching those that are hurting around them. They are engaged. They ask us questions. They want to know how to come alongside their friends.

“In a time when my students and their peers are facing an unprecedented rise in mental health issues, the trauma care training from Crisis Response has been hugely beneficial. Asking good questions, listening well, and looking for opportunities to share gospel hope is a dying art, and needs to be taught and modeled more and more.” – Peter Erickson, Youth Pastor

Our Trauma Care training starts with simple questions. “Has anyone ever had a friend that was going through something hard, and you knew you should say something to them, but you didn’t know what to say? So you didn’t say anything at all?” We’ve all been there. Those conversations are hard. We want to be able to fix things for people, to tell them what to do to fix the hurt or solve the problem. When we remove the pressure of having to fix it and focus instead on asking powerful questions and listening well, we can begin to have healing conversations.

Our team's desire is to equip students to confidently have these healing conversations with their friends. How do they ask powerful questions to help their friends process? What are some ways to be a good listener? How do they care for their own hearts when hearing hard things, and how do they know when they need to seek professional help for their friend? These are all questions that we walk students and youth leaders through during our training. Participants often describe it as “simple, but profound”. These are simple things that can have powerful results when intentionally introduced into our everyday conversations.

Would your church be interested in hosting a Trauma Care Training? We offer them for all ages and would be happy to schedule a training at your church. Contact crisisresponse@efca.org for more information.