Trauma-Informed Community Yoga, Meditation, & Breathwork
This 50-hour Advanced Module is designed for facilitators who already carry a foundational qualification and want to deepen their capacity to hold people, systems, and stories with care. This training assumes technical competence in your modality but will support you in cultivating relational intelligence, nervous system literacy, cultural humility, and ethical power awareness.
If you have been interested in serving groups through NZ's ACC ISSC system, this will be added towards your specialist qualifications.
We welcome yoga teachers, meditation teachers, breathwork facilitators, somatic practitioners, and movement educators with prior training (eg. 200hr YTT or equivalent).
Tuition: $1,300
September 17 - 20, 2026
8am - 4pm
Attend Livestream or In-person
Limited financial assistance / scholarship is available. If you’re already working with marginalised communities or recognise that someone like you could be more represented within these wellness spaces - please send raquel@wearesomm.co an email sharing more about why a scholarship would be important to you.
Your facilitators will include Raquel Minh (SOMM and Kanuka Yoga owner, ACC Trauma Sensitive Yoga teacher) and guest experts/speakers including:
Claire Robbie: Meditation
Amanda Wright: Breathwork
Charlotte Jellyman: Non-Violent Communication
Rodolfo Villanueva: Yoga in Prisons
plus more!
Our intention is to support facilitators in creating accessible, inclusive, and culturally responsive spaces for group practice, particularly for communities impacted by trauma, neurodivergence, systemic oppression, and cultural marginalisation.
This is not a clinical training. It is a trauma-aware, nervous-system-centred, community-based pathway.
PLEASE NOTE: Facilitators interested in offering trauma-sensitive group work through ACC ISSC in New Zealand will need to show robust training in nervous system education and trauma sensitivity to offer specialist work through ACC ISSC. We recommend completing: 200 hour YTT or SOMM AIM/Meditation TT or 200hr+ Breathwork training.
50 hour Trauma-Informed Community Yoga, Breathwork, and Meditation Core Pillars of the Training
Nervous system education as the foundation of all practice -
Trauma sensitivity rather than trauma “fixing”
Cultural humility and decolonising approaches to wellness
Relational safety over performance or peak experience
Ethical group facilitation within real-world systems
Honouring lineage without appropriation
Curriculum:
1. Foundations of Trauma-Informed Practice
2. Nervous System Education for Yoga, Meditation & Breathwork
3. Neurodiversity & Accessibility in Practice Spaces
4. Yoga, Meditation & Breathwork Lineages
5. Decolonising Wellness for Social Justice
6. Trauma-Informed Group Facilitation Skills
7. Offering Group Work Through ACC ISSC
Methods
Experiential practice and embodiment
Case studies from community and funded settings
Reflective inquiry and facilitated discussion
Nervous system tracking in real time
Small-group facilitation practice
Cultural and ethical reflection exercises
By the end of this 50-hour module, participants will be able to:
Teach their offering through a trauma-aware lens
Design classes that support nervous system awareness
Create accessible environments for neurodiverse and diverse communities
Explore ACC ISSC contexts
Engage with wellness practices in ways that honour lineage and resist extraction
Understand their role within broader systems of care and social justice
This course may be done in-studio (Auckland), online or via the recordings. Please note to be certified, 75% of livestream practice sessions must be attended.
Mornings: Lectures (In-person, Livestream, or Recordings)
Afternoons: Practices (In-person, Livestream, or Recordings)
Required Reading:
Rest is Resistance by Trisha Hersey
Art of Gathering: Why We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies by Renee Linklater
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Connie Burk and Laura van Dernoot Lipsky
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion by Marshall Rosenberg
Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship by Donna Farhi
Your Facilitators
Co-owner and director of SOMM. She leads SOMM’s Trauma-Informed and Plant Medicine programmes, as well as general operations.
She is a trauma-informed somatic facilitator, yoga teacher, and educator. Her approach is informed by indigenenous practices, trauma-sensitive yoga, meditation, somatic facilitation, and years of community-based teaching and leadership. She is committed to decolonising wellbeing practices by resisting extraction, honouring cultural humility, and staying accountable to the limits of her role.
Education: 200hr Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training (Raw Wellbeing, 2019), 300hr Trauma-Informed Integrative Somatic Facilitator Training (SomaPsych, 2023), 85hr Trauma-Informed Plant Medicine Facilitator Training (Atira Tan, 2024), Psychedelic Integration Training & Consultation Group (Integration Circle, 2025), 60hr Trauma-Informed and Community Yoga Yoga Teacher Training (Rise, 2021), 20hr TCTSY Yoga Teacher Training (TCTSY, 2021), Bachelors Degree in Psychology (GWU, 2009), Red Cross First Aid Certified (2024)
Rodolfo Villaneuva
Rodolfo Villanueva is a yoga and meditation teacher based in Aotearoa. He teaches in a calm, practical, and down-to-earth way, with a strong focus on safety, choice, and respect.
Rodolfo volunteers with Yoga Education in Prisons Trust, where he teaches men in high- and maximum-security prisons.
Alongside his prison teaching, Rodolfo has worked in community, therapeutic, legal, and crisis-support settings. He is currently a supervisor at New Zealand’s largest children’s charity, where he supports a national helpline team of counsellors. He has also led trauma-informed care teams in residential settings for children with significant trauma backgrounds, and has worked with Lifeline and Youthline as a phone counsellor, mentor, facilitator, and trainer.
Rodolfo holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Psychology from the University of Auckland, completed with First Class Honours. He has studied te reo Māori through Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and is currently completing a graduate-entry Bachelor of Laws through the University of London. In 2022, he was selected as an alternate for the Fulbright Scholarship in the Science and Innovation Graduate category, with a proposed course of study at Stanford University focused on developmental outcomes of minority youth with adverse childhood experiences.
His work is shaped by experience in psychology, law, crisis support, child and youth services, and prison yoga. Across all these areas, Rodolfo is interested in how people can be supported with care, respect, and dignity, especially in places where choice and safety may be limited.
There is a 40% discount for SOMM Members applied at checkout.
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