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Thriving, Not Just Surviving

Seven weeks of learning how to live in your body again — without reliving anything.

A free, all-inclusive workshop series for current undergraduate and graduate students who are survivors of interpersonal violence — sexual assault, dating or domestic violence, and stalking. Running each academic quarter at UCSB, SDSU and SFSU.

  • Free, including all materials
  • No disclosure required
  • Group confidentiality agreed by everyone
  • Weeknight evenings near campus
Find your campusQuestions first

Why it works this way

Healing trauma takes more than talking about it.

Most support for survivors starts with the same request: tell us what happened. For a lot of people that request is the exact reason they never come back.

So TNJS was built the other way round. The whole series is designed so you can receive trauma-informed care without ever narrating your trauma. What you learn instead is practical: how to notice a trigger coming, what to do with your body when it arrives, how to draw a boundary and hold it, how to get back to sleep.

“What makes Thriving unique is the perspective that healing trauma requires more than therapy alone.”— Kathi Scarminach, TNJS provider & local artist

Inside the series

What you'll actually be doing.

Seven clinicians and community instructors lead the modalities. Trauma-informed student co-facilitators from TTI are in the room every week. You can modify or sit out any activity — that's not an exception we make, it's how it's designed.

  • Boundaries

    Language and practice for saying what you need — with friends, family, partners, roommates, professors.

  • Yoga & embodied movement

    Gentle, all-levels movement led by an instructor who knows how to hold a room of survivors. Modify anything. Sit any of it out.

  • Art as a way through

    Making something with your hands when words aren't available yet. No skill required, and nobody grades it.

  • Sound healing

    A session you can lie down for. Most people say it's the first hour of real quiet they've had in months.

  • Journaling

    Prompts you keep. Nothing you write is read aloud or collected unless you want to share it.

  • Weekly check-ins

    Five minutes at the start of each session. Say a word, say a sentence, or pass. Passing is always an option.

  • Reiki & rest

    Community practitioners offer restorative modalities across the series so you can find what actually works for your body.

Start to finish

Nothing about this should be a surprise.

  1. 1

    You fill out a short form

    School, name, pronouns, email. No questions about what happened to you. It's a rolling deadline, so there's no wrong time to send it.

  2. 2

    Someone from your campus emails you

    A real program manager, not an autoresponder. They tell you the time and location, answer whatever you want to ask, and let you decide.

  3. 3

    Week one, you just arrive

    Everyone agrees to group confidentiality. There's a check-in where you can say a word, a sentence, or pass. Then the first session begins.

  4. 4

    Six more weeknight evenings

    Within walking distance of campus. Different modality each week, same room, same people, same facilitators. Materials are handed to you free.

Your privacy

How we protect the room.

  • Times and locations aren't public

    They're shared directly with registered participants, on purpose. You will not find our meeting spot on a flyer.

  • Everyone signs the same confidentiality agreement

    Participants agree to standards of group confidentiality before the series begins. It applies to every person in the room.

  • You are never asked to disclose

    Not on the interest form, not in check-ins, not in any session. If you choose to share something, that's yours to choose.

  • Reporting is not part of this

    TNJS is a healing program. We are not an investigative or reporting body, and joining doesn't start any process you didn't ask for.

Ready when you are

Choose your campus.

Expressing interest is not signing up. It just opens a conversation with the person who runs the program where you study.