Building Hope and Resilience: Overcoming Trauma Training

Building Hope and Resilience while Overcoming Trauma training is a youth leader training sponsored by DC DVULI Alumni and God’s Assembly of Believers Church!

Join us for an inspiring event where we will explore ways to help our youth heal and grow from past traumas. This in-person gathering will take place at River of Life Church, 4207 Norcross St, Temple Hills, MD 20748 from 10am-1pm.

The training will include a continental breakfast and lunch. This session is for youth pastors, ministers, Senior Pastors, Educators, School Administrators, Nonprofit leaders, and anyone who works with urban youth in the DC Metro and surrounding areas.

Our special Guest Facilitator is Amy Williams from Chicago, Illinois.

A 30-year youth ministry veteran, AMY L. WILLIAMS follows her passion to minister to teens involved in gangs, youth on probation/parole and those lost in the criminal justice system – at the core of which life-on-life mentoring is her key strategy. As a certified Gang Intervention Specialist, her journey of youth ministry continued as she heard God’s call to move into a Latino gang neighborhood in Chicago’s Humboldt Park community to be a “Hope Dealer to the dope dealer," doing street outreach and walking life with young people on her block.

Amy is currently the Project Coordinator for the Illinois Youth Center (IYC) for New Life Centers Chicagoland. Her role coordinates and brings restorative justice programming and peace circles into the St Charles, Warrenville and Chicago juvenile prisons. She also organized and lead the first North Park Seminary Juvenile Justice Cohort for leaders working with youth in the criminal justice system.

Her areas of expertise and passion include:

• Youth and Young Adults
• Gang Intervention and Strategies
• Juvenile Justice
• Mass Incarceration
• School to Prison Pipeline
• Community Development
• Mentoring (youth and youth workers)
• Youth Culture

She formerly serves/ed as a(n):

• Advisory Board Member for the National Institute for Juvenile Justice Ministries (IJJM)
• Restorative Justice Committee for Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ)
• E.C.H.O Project (Elevating Church Outreach) Advisory Team
• Steering committee member for the CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) Mass Incarceration Task Force
• Advisory Board Member for the North Park UniversityCenter for Youth Ministries Studies (CYMS)

Amy has been blessed to speak and train for many organizations including (not limited to):

• DeVos Urban Leadership alumni and trainer (currently)
• Urban Youth Workers Institute trainer (formerly)
• Youth Specialties National Team Trainer (formerly)
• National CCDA Trainer (formerly)

She released her 1st book in June 2024 with InterVarsity Press, WORTH SEEING: Viewing Others Through God's Eyes.

Amy mentors other leaders across the country sharing her passion to reach as many youth with the message of HOPE.