A Trauma-Informed Future

What if trauma-informed education isn’t about managing students but transforming the systems they learn in?
In this episode, host of A Trauma-Informed Future podcast, Katie Kurtz sits down with educator, author, and trauma-informed education expert Alex Shevrin Venet to explore what it really means to make education trauma-informed. They unpack why equity and justice must be central, how schools can unintentionally create harm, the limits of “resilience” as a feel-good solution, and why trauma-informed practice requires us to rethink, not simply add onto-existing systems. Alex shares some seriously important takes on PBIS, educator burnout, boundaries, and why sometimes the most trauma-informed choice is to leave.
About Alex:
Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches graduate teacher education at Vermont State University. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school, community college instructor, and after school teacher in the upper elementary grades. Alex works with educators around the country to strengthen their trauma-informed education practices, with a focus on empowering teachers to create systemic change. She is the author of the bestselling book Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, which has been integrated into teacher education programs in several states and has been cited in education research more than 350 times. Her follow-up book, Becoming an Everyday Changemaker: Justice and Healing at School, provides teachers the tools to implement trauma-informed practices starting where they are. 
Connect with Alex:
Website: unconditionallearning.org
Instagram: @unconditionallearning
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In this solo episode of A Trauma-Informed Future, Katie opens by naming what so many of us are carrying right now : the cumulative stress and collective trauma of a world that feels like it's moving too fast, too hard, and with too much at stake. She gets honest about her own nervous system responses over the past 24 hours, and uses those personal moments to ground listeners in real nervous system education. Trauma-informed is not an adjective, it's a verb. Katie walks through five trauma-informed strategies straight from the TRUST™ Model and breaks down why these aren't just soft skills, but literally what our nervous systems need to reconnect to safety during times of collective dysregulation. Short, grounding, and packed with both honesty and practical tools, this one meets you exactly where you are.
Referenced in this episode: Resmaa Menakem

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Birth and death are the two most universal human experiences and somehow, two of the least trauma-informed spaces we've created.
In this episode of A Trauma-Informed Future Podcast, host Katie Kurtz is in conversation with Amy Chavez-Burkett about why that matters and what we can do about it. Amy digs into what it actually looks like to move trauma-informed care from principles into practice in the moments that count: when someone is at their most vulnerable, their most open, and their most in need of feeling safe.
At the center of this conversation is the nervous system. Because safety isn't just a value or a policy, it's a felt experience. And whether someone is bringing life into the world or leaving it, the conditions we create around them shape not just the moment, but what they carry forward from it.

Learn more about Amy:
Amy Rebekah is a visionary leader, facilitator and healer with over 20 years in practice as a licensed massage therapist, craniosacral therapist, doula, childbirth educator and doula trainer, a community herbalist, circle keeper, a story steward and story-teller, a speaker and author, a researcher and trainer of Trauma-Informed and Healing-Centered leadership.

Amy is currently enjoying the experience of weaving her practical lived experiences with the theories and scholarship inside of a doctoral program in leadership and change through Antioch University. This academic journey increased Amy's capacity from supporting individuals and couples going through intense change or healing, to supporting groups and organizations working for change by supporting them in their capacity to practice a more authentic, responsible, embodied, and collaborative leadership culture through engaging a trauma-informed approach.

In 2020 Amy founded ReStoryative Somatics, LLC to share her services and train other professionals in trauma-informed and healing-centered leadership. She is passionate about supporting leaders and those who support others in learning the practice of self-regulation of their nervous systems in service to co-regulation as a leadership practice. She especially enjoys working with organizational systems to implement trauma -informed care as organizational culture change.
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In 2023, Amy and her daughters also joined forces to create a collaborative company called CommuniTEA Love, a company dedicated to facilitating connection within the community through access to delicious herbal tea blends and they are having a wonderful time building this legacy of love together.
Connect with Amy:
Website:  www.lovesomatics.org
Website: Www.communitealove.org
Email: amy@lovesomatics.org
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Trauma survivors don't need one person to be everything; they need a web of support, each thread held by someone who knows their role and plays it well. In this episode of A Trauma-Informed Future podcast, host Katie Kurtz is in conversation with certified coach Jaci Rogash, about what it actually means to be a trauma-informed coach: not a substitute for therapy, not a watered-down version of clinical care, but something distinct and genuinely necessary. This episode explores how coaches, therapists, peer supporters, and community practitioners can each hold their piece of the ecosystem without overextending and why staying within your scope isn't a limitation on your care, but an expression of it. If you've ever wondered where the line is, how to refer without it feeling like abandonment, or how to show up fully for someone who's been through hard things without accidentally doing harm, this conversation is for you.

Learn more about Jaci:
Jaci Rogash is a Certified Trauma Transformation Coach, Energy Coach, Breathwork Facilitator and speaker. Jaci works with women who have experienced trauma, have worked through that and created a life that is good but not great. These women are sick of feeling stuck and want to step into their fullest potential and bring their visions to life. 
Jaci grew up in country Victoria and is no stranger to trauma, experiencing a number of significant incidents before the age of 24. Jaci embarked on her own deep healing journey after years of suppressing her experiences, which allowed her to break free of her trauma and discover her true calling as a coach.
Jaci supports women to move through their self-doubt, self-sabotage, fears and unsupportive subconscious patterns that show up because of their trauma, so they can find fulfillment, joy and the abundance life has to offer. 
Connect with Jaci:
Visionaries:https://www.jacirogash.com/visionaries
Website: https://www.jacirogash.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaci.rogash/
Email: jaci@jacirogash.com
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What does business actually look like when it's built for your brain? In this episode of A Trauma-Informed Future, host Katie Kurtz sits down with neurodivergent business coach Pippa Parfait (she/they) of Disobedient Business Co. for an honest, validating conversation about why so many neurodivergent entrepreneurs feel like they're failing — when really, the systems were never designed for them in the first place. This is for anyone who has or is currently masking, conforming, and trying to squeeze their neurodivergent brain into a business model built on neurotypical norms. This episode offers a glimpse at what a brain-friendly business actually looks like in practice: flexible systems that work with your nervous system, not against it and a radically simple approach to starting a business that ditches the obsessive niche-drilling in favor of just getting out there and connecting with humans. This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at conventional business advice and thought I know this should be working, so why does it feel so wrong? because the answer might not be you. It might just be the blueprint.

Learn more about Pippa:
Pippa Parfait (she/they) is a coach and mentor for ADHD and Autistic business owners, and co-founder of The Disobedient Business® Co. Having spent years in corporate and public sector leadership before retraining as a coach in 2016, Pippa brought her systems expertise and strategic thinking with her — and quickly realised that almost all of her clients were neurodivergent founders who needed a completely different approach to business. Her own late AuDHD diagnosis made everything click into place: what had always been labelled disobedience was just her brain working in a system not designed for it.
Through the Disobedient Business® Mastermind and brain-friendly digital tools, Pippa helps established ADHD and Autistic business owners build strategy, structure and self-trust so they can create a business they can actually live inside. Always armed with an inventive swear word, an 80s/90s reference and three drinks on the go. Fair warning: if she says "lovingly", a truthbomb is incoming.
About The Disobedient Business® Co
The Disobedient Business® Co. exists to make business actually possible for ADHD and Autistic founders — in a way that works with their brain, not against it.
Founded in 2016 by mother-and-spawn duo Pippa (she/they) and Lucy Parfait (they/them), DBCo. was built on a pretty simple (and apparently radical) premise: that the reason so many neurodivergent business owners are struggling isn't a personal failing. It's that they've been handed a neurotypical blueprint and told to get on with it.
Through their high-touch Disobedient Business® Mastermind and brain-friendly digital tools, Pippa and Lucy help established ADHD and Autistic business owners build the strategy, structure, and self-trust to create a business they can actually live inside. Momentum without burnout. Priorities that stick. Plans that don't gather dust.
Strategic, unmasked, wildly effective, and disobedient on purpose. Based in the Southwest of the U.K.

Connect with Pippa:
Website: https://disobedientbusiness.com/
https://pippaparfait.com/
https://disobedientbusiness.school/ 
IG: @disobedientbusinessco (IG and Threads)
Say ‘hello’ on Instagram or LinkedIn
Catch up on podcast episodes
FREE Guide: Talking Through Turbulent Times
Book a 90 minute Strategy Session with Katie 
Get certified + create a sustainable practice with TRUST™ Works 
Interested in a keynote or consulting? Connect with Katie!