For more information about any of our programs, contact brookfield.institute@gmail.com or call 508-637-1215.
All events are at the Brookfield Institute, unless otherwise noted.
Covenantal Dialogue: Leading Your Congregation to Transformation and Healing
Monday, July 19th through Thursday, July 22nd
For pastors and lay leaders from the creators of the “Walking in the Way of Peace” program, the workshop includes:
• Exploring dynamics of congregational conflict, conflict styles, and the skills for listening and
dialogue;
• Creating behavioral covenants and an environment for constructive conflict;
• Using approaches for encouraging dialogue and discernment, such as the “Circle” Process,
and a four-step process for creative problem-solving;
• Working together on real situations in our own congregations;
• Looking at healing for traumatized churches, dealing with antagonists;
• Incorporating prayer, spiritual reflection and healing rituals.
“Great balance between flexibility and content, head and heart!”
Healing from Trauma:
Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience I (STAR I)
Friday, November 5th- Monday, November 8th. Time: Friday, Saturday and Monday, 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Sunday, 3:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
Leominster Veteran's Center 100 West Street Leominster, MA. 01453
To register: Call 508-637-1215 or email brookfield.institute@gmail.com
Send your check to the Brookfield Institute PO Box 388 Brookfield, MA 01506
Do you work with people who have been traumatized? Are you a member of the clergy, social worker, nurse or in veteran support? Do you want to…
- Understand what happens when individuals are traumatized;
- Learn about the unique dynamics of traumatized communities;
- Discover the path to healing for both individuals and communities; and
- Receive some specific tools for healing, resiliency and renewal?
In this STAR 1 training, theory is combined with experiential learning through engaging, transforming exercises. Trainings deal with the trauma of both natural and human-caused catastrophes. STAR training is conducted in partnership with Eastern Mennonite University.
Location: 
Leominster Veteran's Center 100 West Street Leominster, MA. 01453
Cost:
$400 per person and includes the following: 4 days of interactive workshop training; STAR manual and handouts; morning refreshments and lunch everyday. Overnight accommodations are available at the Brookfield Inn or at local hotels at an additional cost.
Who should attend:
Over 3000 participants have come from the U.S. and many international settings. Attendees include:
Clergy, civil and religious leaders after 9/11;
Youth workers in the devastated Gulf Region post-Katrina; Disaster and relief workers world-wide;
Leaders in post-war settings;
Persons supporting returning military veterans; as well as
Psychotherapists, social workers, nurses, mediators, teachers, lawyers, retirees, and students.
By the end of the training, you will be able to:
- Define types of trauma and recognize the impact on body, mind and spirit
- Understand the cycles of victimhood and violence for individuals, communities and societies and the relationship to unhealed trauma
- Apply the STAR model, The Trauma Healing Journey: Breaking the Cycles of Victimhood and Violence to individual and group situations
- Use new skills to address trauma and build resilience
- Recognize compassion fatigue/satisfaction levels in caregivers
- Identify justice needs of survivors and offenders and practical restorative, creative and transformative responses to these needs
- Relate trauma work to the field of peace-building
This workshop is intensive and interactive. Participants are required to stay for the entire four days. Seminar registration is limited to 20 participants to enhance the interactive nature of the learning experience.
All participants are expected to be open to exploring issues within a multi-cultural, multi-faith group.
Roots Amid the Rubble: A pilgrimage to Chile
When we encounter calamities in our lives and it seems like everything has fallen down around us, what are the roots of blessings and faith that give us the strength to re-build?
We will be visiting towns and villages devastated by the earthquake in February 2010, hearing the stories of faith and hope that sustain our Chilean friends as they re-build their lives, their homes and their communities. We will be able to see the “blessings cabins” built through donations from churches all over the United States and Chile. We will conclude our journey to Chile with a retreat at the wonderfully restorative Centro Shalom, a Peace and Environmental education camp in the Andes mountains.
COST: $1,100, plus airfare (usually around $1,000-$1,200)
TO REGISTER: email brookfield.institute@gmail.com or call 508-637-1215 or print out registration and mail to Brookfield Institute Box 388 Brookfield, MA 01506 Click here to print pdf
SCHEDULE
Friday, March 4, 2011 Depart from USA
Saturday, March 5 Arrive in Santiago, visit museums and stay in the Hotel
Sunday, March 6 Travel to Rancagua - stay with a Chilean family in Rancagua,
attending worship in the evening
Monday, March 7 Visit Villa Prat and arrive in Talca
Tuesday, March 8 Day trip to San Javier and Constitución (With Pastor Veloso and
Wednesday, March 9 Day trips to San Gerardo and Molina and (with Pastor Rodrigo
Muñoz and Pastor Eduardo Poblete)
Thursday night, March 10 A Walking Tour of Talca
Friday, March 11 Travel to the Shalom Center
Saturday, March 12, Retreat at the Shalom Center with the people from Rancagua
Sunday, March 13, Retreat Sunday night travel to Rancagua
Monday, March 14 Shopping
Monday evening, March 14- Flight to the US.
ACCOMODATIONS: All rooms are shared. Hotel Montecarlo is a comfortable hotel with private bath, hot water and showers are available. In Talca, we will stay at the Gathering Point, the home of the staff. There are rooms with bunk beds, double beds and single beds. The bathroom, with hot showers, is shared. At the Shalom Center, we’ll be enjoying a camp setting, staying in the Welcome House. Rooms are furnished with bunk beds. A bath house is a short distance from the house, with some limited use of a shared bathroom inside the house. Occasional warm water is available in the bath house. When we are guests in homes in Rancagua, accommodations will depend on the host family. Often, the family offers the best room in the house for the guests.
Silent Aftermath
Young tree growing crooked within the only
available patch of light brightening the
walled hole of a patio.
Poverty’s condominium,
long row of dark doorways,
mirror images endlessly
copied from the one out to the street.
And on the morning after
the earth broke you free
your leaves quaked in the breeze.
Rubble rising high round your roots,
you survived when the patio
was cracked open letting
hope out,
trembling free
in the silent
aftermath.
Elena Huegel
March 22, 2010
