Practicing Liberation:
Facilitator Training
Cultivating Spaces of Grit & Belonging
with Hala Khouri, MA, SEP, E-RYT and guest teachers
Program Overview
Practicing Liberation Training is an experiential facilitator training for people who already hold space in groups, organizations, classrooms, movements, and healing spaces, and who are ready to deepen their capacity to lead and support others when conflict, complex dynamics, and the need for repair and restoration arise.
This is not a beginner course, nor a traditional skills training. It is a rigorous practice space for experienced facilitators, educators, organizers, therapists, nonprofit and organizational leaders, and healing practitioners who are committed to justice and care, and who recognize that good intentions alone are not enough.
In a moment shaped by polarization, burnout, and fragile social dynamics, this training strengthens the capacity of those who hold space so that:
- Conflict does not collapse connection
- Accountability does not become disposability
- Difference does not erode belonging
Practicing Liberation Training is culture-change work that supports leaders in building cultures where people can stay even when things are hard. It is for people who are already doing the work, who understand that liberation is not an identity or belief system but a practice that must be lived, learned, and evolved over time.
This training does not promise perfection. It builds practice.
Hala explains what this Training is about
DATES & FORMAT
April 26 – May 31, 2026
6 virtual sessions – consecutive Sundays starting April 26th, ending on May 31st
All other Sundays: 2 hours, 10 AM – NOON PT
- Live, highly interactive online sessions
- Attendance is strongly encouraged to receive the full benefit
- Sessions will be recorded to be accessed at a later date for anyone who was unable to attend live
OPTIONAL
Small group practice sessions (Additional fee. Limited Enrollment; 10 people maximum per group)
OPTION 1: WEDNESDAYS, 9:30 AM – 10:45 PM PT
OPTION 2: THURSDAYS, 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM PT
WHO THIS TRAINING IS FOR
Practicing Liberation Training is intentionally interdisciplinary and designed for experienced practitioners across sectors, including:
- DEI and restorative justice facilitators
- Therapists and mental health professionals
- Nonprofit, organizational, and corporate leaders
- Organizers and activists
- Secondary and higher education educators
- Yoga, movement, meditation, and healing practitioners
Participants consistently find that cross-sector dialogue is one of the most transformative aspects of the training, expanding perspective, language, and capacity across fields.
HOW THE TRAINING WORKS
Grounded in somatics, embodied facilitation, and liberatory frameworks, Practicing Liberation Training centers the facilitator as a primary instrument of culture.
Participants will explore how:
- Nervous systems shape group dynamics
- Identity and positionality influence leadership style and impact
- Relational patterns affect trust, rupture, and repair
Rather than avoiding conflict or prioritizing surface-level harmony, this training treats conflict as a capacity-building force. It offers tools for cultivating:
- Belonging without sameness
- Accountability without exile
- Trauma-informed leadership without becoming trauma-centered
The emphasis is on practice over theory, grit over bypassing, and real-world application over abstraction.
By the end of the training, participants can expect to leave with:
- Stronger facilitation skills grounded in somatic and trauma-informed practice
- Greater capacity to navigate conflict, disagreement, and rupture
- Practical tools for accountability and repair that move groups forward
- Increased confidence in your leadership voice during charged moments
- A peer community of experienced practitioners committed to practicing liberation together
SESSION BREAKDOWNS
Session 1: Creating the Space: You Are the Instrument
April 26th: (3-hour opening session, 10 AM – 1 PM PT)
Guest Teachers: Tessa Hicks Peterson and Leslie Booker
Skillful facilitation begins with self-awareness. This opening session centers the facilitator not as an expert but as the primary instrument through which culture is shaped.
Participants will:
- Clarify their deeper “why” and purpose for this work
- Explore how identity, history, and positionality shape leadership
- Practice sharing their humanity without centering oneself
- Learn to create strong containers through context-setting and intention
- Establish group agreements that support trust, safety, and resilience
- Engage foundational principles of embodied facilitation
Session 2: Radical Welcome – The Ground of Belonging
May 3: 2-hour session (10 AM – NOON PT)
Guest Teacher: Teo Drake
Belonging does not happen by accident; it is actively cultivated. This session explores how facilitators can create a genuine welcome while engaging power, difference, and bias with clarity and care.
Participants will:
- Explore practices that cultivate belonging without erasing difference
- Examine how exclusion and bias show up in group spaces
- Reflect on personal and collective patterns of inclusion and harm
- Develop strategies for interrupting bias while maintaining a relationship
Session 3: From Trauma-Centered to Trauma-Informed Leadership
May 10: 2-hour session (10 AM – NOON PT)
Teacher: Hala Khouri
Trauma awareness is essential, but when trauma becomes the center of leadership, it can unintentionally undermine capacity and cohesion. This session focuses on trauma-informed, resilience-oriented, and empowering leadership.
Participants will:
- Distinguish between trauma-informed and trauma-centered approaches
- Learn non-pathologizing understandings of trauma
- Explore best practices for resilience-based leadership
- Reflect on their leadership style and identify areas for growth
Session 4: Grit-Building Cultures That Can Withstand Conflict
May 17: 2-hour session (10 AM – NOON PT)
Guest Teacher: Kazu Haga
Conflict is not a failure; it can signal that relationships want to grow. This session focuses on building group cultures that can tolerate tension and difference without collapsing into polarization or avoidance.
Participants will:
- Reframe conflict as a potential catalyst for growth
- Practice facilitation strategies that build trust and capacity
- Learn principles of conflict transformation and generative dialogue
- Practice holding differences without perpetuating harm
Session 5: Accountability, Forgiveness, and Repair
May 24: 2-hour session (10 AM – NOON PT)
Guest Teacher: Jacoby Ballard
Accountability is essential for trust, but without skill, it can quickly become punitive or a tool for disposability. This session explores how to invite responsibility, forgiveness, and repair while staying connected in our shared humanity.
Participants will:
- Explore the difference between calling out and calling in
- Practice inviting accountability without shame or exile
- Learn to shift from fight-or-flight toward connection
- Engage embodied repair conversations
- Reflect on personal thresholds for rupture and discomfort
Session 6: Fumbling Toward Repair-Integration and Renewal
May 31: 2-hour session (10 AM – NOON PT)
Guest Teacher: Dr Sará King
Liberation is not a destination; it is a practice. The final session focuses on integration, experimentation, and on-going commitment to learning and repair.
Participants will:
- Practice meeting mistakes with curiosity rather than collapse
- Integrate key principles of trauma-informed leadership
- Clarify personal and collective commitments moving forward
- Engage embodied learning through Theatre of the Oppressed
Optional Practice & Process Groups
Participants may opt into small practice groups (10 people maximum per group), facilitated by Hala. These are offered on a first-come, first-served basis with waitlists available. Live attendance is strongly encouraged. To protect confidentiality and relational safety, these online sessions may not be fully recorded.
These sessions offer space to:
- Practice facilitation skills in real time
- Engage in role plays and applied learning
- Facilitate and receive peer feedback
- Receive coaching on real challenges in your work
Two groups are available.
OPTIONAL
Small group practice sessions (Additional fee. Limited Enrollment; 10 people maximum per group)
OPTION 1: WEDNESDAYS, 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM PT
OPTION 2: THURSDAYS, 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM PT
GUEST TEACHERS
Tessa Hicks Peterson
Leslie Booker
Kazu Haga
Teo Drake
Jacoby Ballard
Dr Sará King
TUITION OPTIONS
Standard Rate: $1,195
This reflects the true cost of offering this training, including preparation, facilitation, guest teachers, administrative support, and the level of care required to hold this work with depth and integrity.
Supporter (Pay-It-Forward) Rate: $1,595
For participants with greater financial capacity who wish to help make this training accessible to others. Supporter contributions directly help fund Community Rate spots, scholarships, and payment plans, allowing the program to remain both rigorous and accessible.
Community Rate: $795
This rate is reserved for participants who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial constraints. If you can pay the Standard or Supporter rate, choosing either option helps sustain the work and expand access.
WHAT'S INCLUDED WITH REGISTRATION
When you register you will also get:
– One Complimentary Month of Hala’s Radical Wellbeing Membership Program. This can offer on-going support alongside the live training.
- Membership includes:
- Access to guided somatic practices and over one hundred 75-min yoga classes with Hala
- Short talks by Hala on a range of topics, from stress and trauma to healing and collective care
– Access to all session recordings for 6 months. This allows you to:
- Revisit key concepts and practices
- Integrate the material at your own pace
- Catch up if you miss a live session
Early Registration Gift!
The first 20 people to register will receive a signed hard copy of
Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing and Systems Change.
TUITION & REGISTRATION
We are committed to making this work accessible while also sustaining the depth, care, and labor required to hold this work well.
- Standard Rate: $1,195
This reflects the true cost of offering this training, including preparation, facilitation, guest teachers, administrative support, and the level of care required to hold this work with depth and integrity.
- Supporter (Pay-It-Forward) Rate: $1,595
For participants with greater financial capacity who wish to help make this training accessible to others. Supporter contributions directly help fund Community Rate spots, scholarships, and payment plans, allowing the program to remain both rigorous and accessible.
- Community Rate: $795
This rate is reserved for participants who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial constraints. If you can pay the Standard or Supporter rate, choosing either option helps sustain the work and expand access.
- Optional Practice & Process Group: $600
Accessibility & Payment Options
Payment Plans
We never want finances to be a barrier to joining us. To that end, we are offering payment plans for your tuition. If cost is the only factor preventing your enrollment, please reach out to inquire about current options.
You can email us directly at info@halakhouri.com.
Scholarships
A limited number of scholarships are available for participants who would otherwise be unable to attend. To apply for a scholarship, click here. We review scholarships every 2 weeks.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This training is for facilitators, educators, organizers, therapists, coaches, nonprofit leaders, and team leads who already hold responsibility in groups and want more capacity when things get hard: conflict, polarization, accountability, trauma dynamics, and repair.
This is an advanced, practice-based training. Participants are expected to have prior experience in facilitation or leadership. Although everyone is welcome, you will get the most out of this if you have foundational experience to build on.
This is not a technique-based training. It is a rigorous practice space grounded in somatics, trauma-informed leadership, and liberation-based frameworks. The facilitator is treated as the primary instrument of culture.
- Somatic grounding for facilitators
- Conflict and polarization
- Accountability and repair
- Power, identity, and group dynamics
- Building cultures of grit and belonging
- Staying steady under pressure
- Greater nervous system regulation in charged moments
- Clearer frameworks for conflict and repair
- Increased ability to hold nuance and boundaries
- Tools that translate directly into real-world group settings
- Expanded capacity to lead with both rigor and care
Guest teachers bring expertise across healing justice, meditation, movement, community engagement, and movement organizing. Each session adds a distinct lens while reinforcing the training's core framework. You can view the guest teachers here. Note: Hala is the main facilitator; guest teachers will be on for a portion of each session to add another viewpoint and example of what this work looks like.
Yes. In addition to the Sunday training sessions, participants may enroll in Small Group Practice Sessions for deeper integration and applied work. These groups are limited to 10 people each and cost an additional $600.
Sessions are held live online to allow for engagement and practice.
All sessions are recorded. If you miss a live session, you will have access to the video recording.
This is practice-centered and experiential. Expect reflection, applied tools, structured exercises, and opportunities for engagement. This is not a passive webinar series.
Plan for the live session time plus integration time for reflection and practice. There will also be reading suggestions for some of the sessions. The structure is rigorous yet realistic for working professionals.
Yes. While we cannot process individual cases in depth, the frameworks and tools are designed to apply immediately to real facilitation challenges.
No. While the training integrates trauma-informed frameworks and somatic awareness, it is an educational leadership training, not group therapy.
The training is rooted in liberation-based and social justice frameworks, but the focus is on skill-building and capacity, not ideological debate. The emphasis is on how to hold complexity in real human systems.
No. CE credits are not offered at this time.
Payment plans are available to increase accessibility. Details for pricing and payment plans are provided on the registration page.
- Already facilitate groups
- Feel stretched by the current cultural climate
- Want more capacity in conflict and accountability
- Care about belonging without sacrificing rigor
If you have additional questions, please reach out to us at: info@halakhouri.com