Get Prepared with Cypress Resilience Project
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Professional Certifications
Mental Health First Aid Certification (8-hour course)
Mental Health First Aid is an evidence-based certification from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. It teaches participants to recognize the early signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges, connect someone to support, and manage a crisis when necessary.
Select from the following MHFA courses:
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Adult MHFA (English and Spanish; for adults supporting adults)
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Youth MHFA (for adults supporting youth ages 12-18
Requirements include 2-hours of self-directed pre-work online plus 5 ½ -hour virtual class with Cypress instructors
Results in a 3-year MHFA certification from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
Click here to learn more about the difference between QPR and MHFA.
QPR Gatekeeper Certification (90-minute course)
QPR is an evidence-based certification from the QPR Institute, focused specifically on suicide crises. It is different from Mental Health First Aid because it does not include discussion of early signs and symptoms or other types of crises like panic attack, trauma, substance use crisis and psychosis. It stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer — the 3 simple steps anyone can learn to prevent suicide. QPR Gatekeepers are trained to recognize a crisis and the warning signs that someone may be contemplating suicide. It focuses on teaching participants how to offer hope, and connect someone who is considering suicide to professional resources.
Requirement is a 90-minute virtual class with a Cypress instructor
Results in a 1-year QPR Gatekeeper certification from the QPR Institute.
Click here to learn more about the difference between QPR and MHFA.
Communication Workshop Topics (90 minutes)
Interpersonal Communication:
How to Build Trust
Effective and responsive communication requires building credibility, being authentic and transparent,and developing trust. This workshop will explore the role of communication in improving the quality of our relationships with others - whether those relationships are professional or personal.
When Things Get Challenging:
How to De-escalate a Stressful Situation
We’ve all been there - The family party that goes awry. Encountering a client, colleague, or neighbor who is really upset . . .
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Do you know what to say and do to de-escalate a stressful situation? This introductory course reviews the brain’s stress response and provides simple skills – backed by neuroscience – that convey safety and calm a situation so we can move forward in a productive way.
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[Note: this training does not provide physical de-escalation strategies]
End of Life Planning:
Starting the Conversation
Most of us avoid the topic of end of life planning until it's too late to be helpful. Maybe we aren't sure where to start or how to open the conversation with those close to us or we think it's not needed when we are healthy.
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In this workshop, we'll discuss why early planning is important, identify where to start, and explore how to begin that conversation with ourselves and those closest to us.
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[Note: This workshop will not provide legal guidance.]
When You've Messed Up:
How to Repair and Reconnect
We all mess up sometimes. Maybe you said something you regret, let someone down, or hurt someone you care about. It happens. But knowing how to take responsibility and try to make things right—that’s where real growth happens.
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This workshop is about how to do that. We’ll talk about what a real apology sounds like (and what it doesn’t), how to take ownership without getting stuck in guilt or defensiveness, and how to start rebuilding trust when it’s been shaken.
Loss & Grief Workshop Topics (90 minutes)
How to Support Someone Navigating a Loss (even when that someone is you)
Have you or someone you know suffered a loss? Grief impacts us all – whether it’s death, changes in our employment, the loss of a relationship, or something else.
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But how do we support ourselves and others who are grieving? And maybe more importantly, how do we avoid being unhelpful? This workshop explores grief and offers some strategies to support people processing complex emotions.
The Importance of Animals: Why They Matter So Much to Our Healing
Why do 7 out of 10 of us take better care of our pets than we do ourselves?
The animals in our lives are a source of comfort, joy, and unconditional love. ​They mean the world to us and we are deeply hurt when they are gone. This workshop explores why that connection can be so strong, why it can be painful when we lose them, and how to support someone going through a pet loss.
Grief and the Holidays:
How to Support Ourselves & Others
The holidays are often seen as a time of happiness and tradition. But what happens when we have experienced a loss and are grieving? Holidays and major life events can feel like the last thing we want to deal with.
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This workshop will address different types of losses someone might grieve, explore what makes the holidays especially difficult during grief and loss, and identify ways we can help ourselves and others to navigate the holidays during times of loss.
Managing Stress Workshop Topics (90 minutes)
What Happens in the Brain During
Adversity & Toxic Stress
This introductory workshop will lead participants through a discussion of common adversity and stress terminology, what is happening in the brain when someone experiences stress, and the links between adversity, stress and illness. We'll explore some main themes in the study of stress and trauma, with a focus on healing and resilience.
Sustaining Your Well-being as
Someone Who Cares
This workshop will explore what happens in the brain when people in helping professions experience vicarious or secondary trauma on the job.
These could be folks working in education, health care, government, public safety and in other community serving roles. The workshop will also walk through how to build a plan to sustain wellbeing while being in a helping profession, including supporting recovery in protected spaces.
More Than “Self-Care:” Types of Rest the Brain Needs for Real Healing
This workshop explores different types of rest the body requires to feel well. Explore the repair strategies of the brain to support self-care that works. We discuss brain rest strategies based in neuroscience, emphasizing practices that are accessible and practical to build into our everyday lives.
Moral Distress:
When Our Values Are Wounded
One of the key factors in the development of burn-out is a sense of being overwhelmed. Sometimes that overwhelm comes from things we know could and should be done that lie outside our control. How do we process the pain we feel when institutions let us down?
A first and important step is to identify the issue of moral distress and to learn how to make space for complicated feelings surrounding wounds to our values.
Wellbeing Workshop Topics (90 minutes)
Managing Transitions and Change
Change is a part of life, but it can still be hard—whether it’s something we hoped for or something that caught us off guard. In this workshop, we’ll explore practical, easy-to-use tools for managing the stress that can come with transitions. Together, we’ll look at ways to stay steady, support ourselves through uncertainty, and draw on our own resilience as we move through change.
Healthy Boundaries:
Showing Up for Yourself When it Counts
Many Cypress workshops talk about the need to draw boundaries to protect our wellbeing - whether that's at work, or with family or friends. But that doesn't mean its easy to do, especially if we have lived through some adversity.
This workshop will examine the benefit of drawing boundaries, how to set them in a caring way, and how to process someone's reaction to them.
The Power of Connection:
Healing Doesn’t Happen in a Bubble
Oftentimes we hear in our culture that we need to practice “self-care” but that terminology can be challenging for many of us. Maybe we feel selfish or undeserving. Or maybe we feel we already have so much on our plates, how are we supposed to add that to the list?
At Cypress we talk more about “collective care” and “community care” and that stems directly from the brain’s need for healthy connection.
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This workshop will explore what healthy connection looks like, its role in healing and how we can access it to support our well-being.
Are Screens Really Helping Us De-stress or Making it Worse? Hitting a Dopamine Reset
All of us know that feeling … the end of a long, stressful day and we find ourselves "doom scrolling" on our phones or “binge watching” a streaming series. Many folks experiencing high levels of stress find themselves reaching for self-soothing behaviors.
But what is the impact of those behaviors on our wellbeing across time? This workshop will explore the role dopamine addiction plays in our lives and will offer some ideas about alternatives to manage stress.
Workshops for People Who Care About Youth (90 minutes)
Creating Safe Spaces for Young People:
It’s Not Always About Words
Feeling safe is a necessary condition for healing, especially with youth navigating life’s challenges. This is not a workshop about the words we say; it is about what we can do to create environments that support physical and emotional safety for young people.
Youth-Centered Interpersonal Communication: Building Trust
with Young People
Have you ever felt that you are just not getting through to the young people in your life?
This workshop outlines interpersonal communication strategies that take adolescent development and lived experiences of adversity into consideration; with a goal of building positive relationships with teens and young adults.
NexGen Connection: Keeping It Real in the Age of Social Media & AI
Positive connection with peers and caring adults is one of the most critical factors in youth wellbeing. But today's youth are socializing in a world driven by social media, online interactions, and AI.
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This workshop explores the different ways that adults can forge connections with the young people they care about, leveraging technology while prioritizing meaningful relationships.
De-Escalation Skills:
Helping Young People Find Calm
Now more than ever, youth are on edge, and we may need some strategies to help calm a situation down. This workshop will examine what happens in the brain during high stress moments for a young person, and explore some strategies for positive engagement that take adolescent brain development into consideration.
Supporting a Young Person Through Loss
There are so many different life events that may cause a young person to grieve. The death of someone of course, but also the end of a friendship, the loss their sense of childhood, and changes at home. Often, we want to support a young person but we may not always know how to be helpful – or more importantly, how to avoid being unhelpful. This workshop will explore grief and think through some strategies to support youth processing complex emotions.
Helping Youth Handle Tough Moments: Coping Strategies That Work
This is a difficult time to be a young person. Adults need to know how to support the development of positive coping strategies for youth that really work.
This workshop will explore those strategies and how they can be embedded at home, in the programs you run, or in an educational environment.
The "Second" ACEs: Why Community Health Matters for Young People
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) are a topic of conversation in most of our systems of care including education, healthcare and public health. But the original ACEs scale is focused on family and household, not community health.
This workshop explores how youth are adversely impacted by issues in their communities and what caring adults can do to support those with "Second ACEs" that impact their wellbeing.
The Dopamine Effect: Helping Youth Stay Grounded in a Fast-Paced World
All of us know that feeling … the end of a long, stressful day and we find ourselves "doom scrolling" on our phones or “binge watching” a streaming series. Young people are doing it too. Youth experiencing high levels of stress find themselves reaching for self-soothing behaviors.
But what is the impact of those behaviors on young people's brains over time? This workshop will explore the role dopamine addiction plays in our lives and will offer some ideas about how to navigate this with the young people you care about.
Professional Development for Leaders (90 minutes)
Best Practices in the Field:
The SAMHSA Principles
This workshop leads participants through the history of the term "trauma informed" and walks through the desired transition to "trauma responsive" work in our organizations. The time will include an exploration of SAMHSA's trauma informed guidelines and conversation about how those can serve as a touchstone in our work in community.
Interpersonal Communication:
Building Trust & Transparency
During this time, our teams are experiencing high levels of toxic stress that may be impacting their interpersonal communication, work performance and wellbeing.
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This workshop specifically works with managers and supervisors on how to engage with teams in a supportive way while integrating policies and practices that create a trauma responsive workspace.
Creating Safe Space:
Why Safety is so Important for Our Teams
We often hear the term “safe space” and can wonder how we can support its creation. Interpersonal communication is important now more than ever as our colleagues may come to us with lived experience of trauma, grief or mental health challenges. In this workshop we will explore the role of building safety for our teams as a trauma responsive practice, and think through how leaders can make communication choices that foster connection.
Leadership in Times of Change
Change is a part of the work we do, but it can still be hard—whether it’s something we hoped for or something that caught us off guard. In this workshop, we’ll explore practical, easy-to-use tools for managing teams navigating the stress that can come with transitions. Together, we’ll look at ways that leaders can stay steady, support themselves and their teams through uncertainty, and maintain staff well-being.
Working Through It:
Turning Conflict Into Connection
Conflict is a natural part of any workplace — but how we navigate it as supervisors/managers can make all the difference. This workshop explores the ways that stress contributes to conflict on teams, and discusses practical tools for managing tension and transforming conflict into opportunities for understanding and growth.
Making Things Right:
Facilitating Repair and Reconnection
Even in the most connected teams, misunderstandings and conflicts happen. What matters most is how we come back together. This workshop explores the process of repair — how to acknowledge harm, rebuild trust, and restore relationships after tension or conflict. Supervisors and managers will discuss strategies for facilitating repair with empathy, accountability, and care, helping to create stronger, more connected teams.
Understanding Burnout:
How Toxic Stress Impacts Your Brain & Body
Burnout is on everyone’s mind – and no matter the industry or profession, toxic stress is impacting our wellbeing. We know this is a big and complex conversation. But what if there were some small, simple steps we could take to make a difference?
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This workshop focuses on identifying signs and symptoms, thinking through the difference between stress and stressors, and developing practical actions to prevent burnout.
Moral Distress:
What to do when Our Values Are Wounded
One of the key factors in the development of burn-out is a sense of being overwhelmed. Sometimes that overwhelm comes from things we know could and should be done that lie outside our control. How do we process the pain we feel when institutions let us down?
A first and important step is to identify the issue of moral distress and to learn how to make space for complicated feelings surrounding wounds to our values.