I partner with people who are committed to empowering young people – and the adults who work with them – with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in the face of the challenges in our schools and communities. Together, we can grow your capacity to inspire change and invest in the youth and adult leaders who will make it happen.
“Briana has the unique ability to do what is hands down the most challenging part of professional development: help adults start to shift their mind-set. Briana is frank without being offensive, honest, transparent, and weaves storytelling with research and experience as she teaches.” - Susannah Woehr, Renton High School Assistant Principal
My Work
My heart and life path have been transformed by the young people I’ve had the honor to learn with, support, and work alongside for the past 16 years. Through programs I’ve designed and facilitated, I’ve supported hundreds of teenagers to develop their leadership, heal their relationships, and break cycles of violence.
In 2014, I expanded my commitment to youth empowerment into more intentional work with the adults in youth-serving institutions. My Trauma Informed Youth Work framework weaves together the principles and practices of youth development, social justice, and trauma healing to forward an innovative understanding of the intersections of interpersonal healing, collective transformation, and systemic change. Since leading the Trauma Informed Youth Work Training Cohort with the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative in 2016, I have shared my framework with over 30 organizations and schools, supporting youth workers, educators, and administrators to build healing relationships at the center of efforts towards educational and social justice.
Youth Project Highlight
About Empowering Youth
Far more than adults need to empower youth, young people need to be supported to get in touch with their own innate power and to connect with other young people with whom they can be powerful together. At it’s best intergenerational collaboration leverages the wisdom of being both young and grown. Young people can bring incredible resiliency and bold impulses towards creating change. Adults can bring a kind of perspective born out of life experience that can guide more strategic action. Healthy intergenerational collaboration requires both youth and adults to unlearn deep training in dynamics of Power Over and to cultivate relationships and systems rooted in Power With.