We Al-li community and workplace workshops are an Indigenous therapeutic response to individual, family and community pain that many people carry as part of their life experience. For Aboriginal peoples this pain is more specifically defined as the traumatic impacts of the multiple intergenerational experiences of colonisation resulting in ill-health, individual, family and community dysfunction (dys – Latin from the Greek dus meaning painful or difficult functioning). We Al-li specifically meets this need through tailored workshops that are trauma informed in their design and trauma specific in their delivery. Educational units have been developed from university pre and post graduate courses. They benefit from an evolving theoretical database of research and practical application that spans over a decade. This has allowed We Al-li to stay current both academically and in practice.

In this program issues of trauma and trauma transference across generations are presented within a culturally safe environment in which workshop participants are introduced to a range of Indigenous and non-Indigenous therapeutic approaches to both explore, confront and respond to traumatic transgenerational experiences and behaviours which are age, gender, race and class oppressive. This training explores the history of mental illness versus newly emerging knowledge about the impacts of trauma on human groups.