Growing Forward Together Launches New “Survivor Moms’ Companion ® Study Guide” Trauma Education Course for Perinatal Professionals
ANN ARBOR [30] January 2026 – Growing Forward Together (GFT), a Michigan based nonprofit, is expanding its advanced trauma informed care (TIC) educational offerings with the release of its new course “Survivor Moms’ Companion® Study Guide”.
Research shows that a significant number of pregnant and new moms are struggling with the effects of trauma including PTSD. Pregnancy and early parenting can be especially stressful and triggering for patients with a history of trauma and PTSD. Unaddressed trauma is associated with poor pregnancy and parenting outcomes. One way perinatal caregivers can improve these outcomes is by learning and providing universal trauma informed care (TIC). Advanced trauma education is critical to building TIC skills across perinatal professionals including nurses, midwives, social workers, doulas, community health workers, as well as doctors.
GFT’s new online self-study course “Survivor Moms’ Companion® Study Guide” helps to build those TIC skills. It uses Growing Forward Together’s Survivor Moms’ Companion® (SMC) program materials as a basis for teaching learners to recognize signs of PTSD in patients and how to help support those patients throughout their pregnancy, birth, and early parenting. The new course launched in January is the second in GFT’s new professional development course lineup with more courses to follow. The first course, launched in the fall of 2025, is “Trauma Informed Care and Pain Management in Labor and Delivery”.
Trauma informed care (TIC) is important because one in five people experience childhood abuse or neglect, 8% of women have PTSD in pregnancy, and of the 10% of women experiencing depression in pregnancy 85% of those also have a history of trauma. PTSD during pregnancy is associated with a number of poor birth outcomes including, but not limited to, traumatic or retraumatizing births, preterm birth, and impaired or delayed bonding. Perinatal healthcare professionals who are trained to provide TIC can help significantly improve these outcomes for pregnant women, new parents, and their babies.
The new course, developed by midwives Julia Seng and Mickey Sperlich, coaches learners on how to recognize signs of trauma and PTSD triggers and how to provide care that is most effective and least retraumatizing for those patients, thereby meeting their needs best. The course is online, self-paced, and nurses and social workers earn 5 continuing education (CE) contact hours upon successful course completion. The course cost is $40 or $8 per CE. The course is also the prerequisite for GFT’s Survivor Moms’ Companion ® Tutor Training trauma education course. SMC Tutor Training is a multi webinar course that trains healthcare professionals to become SMC tutors. Certified SMC tutors deliver the targeted and manualized SMC program to pregnant people and new parents to help them identify the impacts of trauma and teach them trauma and PTSD trigger coping tools. The “Survivor Moms’ Companion” program itself is available for use with perinatal or early parenting clients. Organizations interested in exploring further can contact info@growingforwardtogether.org for access to the online site for “SMC Explorers”.
About Growing Forward Together
Growing Forward Together’s mission is to provide advanced trauma education for expectant and new parents and their healthcare providers. GFT’s professional development courses, including this SMC Study Guide course, are designed to empower healthcare professionals to provide universal trauma informed care to patients going through pregnancy and early parenting. GFT also provides trauma-specific education for pregnant people and new parents via their “Survivor Moms’ Companion ®” program.
For more information about GFT including their Professional Development and Survivor Moms’ Companion Programs please visit www.growingforwardtogether.org, or email info@growingforwardtogether.org.
Please direct all media inquiries to: Brigit Macomber MSW, Professional Development Program Director at Growing Forward Together, brigit@growingforwardtogether.org or 734-474-4065