With SAF – You’re not just a survivor — you’re a leader for change.
Every survivor of violence deserves to be heard — truly heard. Yet too often, especially for Global Majority women, experiences are dismissed, misunderstood, or lost inside systems that promise protection but deliver harm.
The Survivors Action Forum exists to change that.
Here, your voice is more than a story. It is evidence, leadership, and power. SAF invites you to share your lived experiences, ideas, and insights — not to be tokenised, but to influence real reform across policing, health, education, and social care.
Your contribution directly shapes survivor-led resources, training, policy guidance, and systemic change across the UK.
To build a survivor-led movement where lived experience drives real change.
Where:
Survivors are not statistics.
They are the architects of safer, more respectful systems.
Real experiences, real answers. Share your ideas and solutions to help create resources designed by survivors, for survivors. Your insights will inform practical tools, guides, and awareness campaigns to support others navigating trauma and broken systems.
Your voice matters. By highlighting where systems failed, and where they worked – you’ll help us challenge harmful practices and promote respectful, trauma-informed approaches across policing, health, education, and social care.
Your contributions feed directly into our BeyondTrauma Advisory Network, where professionals learn from survivor voices. Together, we’re building meaningful, survivor-led reforms that improve services and policies nationwide.
A confidential, self-paced way to share your experience.
Through our secure form, you can:
You can:
You are always in control. Your wellbeing leads the pace.
Your voice does not disappear.
Every contribution:
Your experience becomes part of a collective movement for change.
Your experiences are not stories for reports — they are evidence for change. Every contribution helps build a future where services work for, not against, survivors.
A private, survivor-only space filled with support, connection, and resources designed just for you.
The Survivors Support Forum is a confidential online community created exclusively for survivors who want a safe space to connect, share, and heal at their own pace.
This supportive environment offers:
A private, verified survivor-only community
Gentle, trauma-informed moderation
A calm and respectful space where you never have to explain your experience
Optional sharing — you control your pace and comfort
Each forum category contains helpful, trauma-informed resources created specifically for survivors, including:
grounding and regulation tools
downloadable support worksheets
emotional wellbeing resources
safety planning guides
culturally-sensitive materials
reflective prompts
after-care and self-soothing practices
survivor-created insights and shared wisdom
These resources are designed to help you feel supported not just during moments of difficulty, but throughout your healing journey.
Inside the forum, survivors can:
connect with people who “get it”
share your experiences without pressure
receive supportive responses from others on similar paths
take part in community discussions at your own pace
access grounding tools when you feel overwhelmed
feel safe, valued, and not alone
Joining the Survivors Support Forum is optional, and separate from the Survivor Action Form.
You are always in control of your level of participation.
View our Forum Here
www.beyondtraumaacademy.com/community/saf
Bex came to the Survivors Action Forum with her experiences of navigating systems that left her feeling unheard, dismissed, and unsupported.
Through SAF, she shared:
Her voice did not sit in a report.
It became part of real, tangible change.
From Bex’s contribution, we developed multiple survivor-informed resources for professionals, which now sit within our BeyondTrauma Advisory Network (BTAN) professional resource hub.
These resources are used to:
But the impact wasn’t only systemic, it was personal, too.
By sharing her experience in a safe, structured way, Bex:
Her experience is now helping shape safer responses for other survivors navigating similar systems.
From Experience to Impact Bex’s story is one example of what happens when survivors are not just heard, but listened to in a way that leads to action. Every contribution through SAF: Builds survivor-led evidence Informs real-world resources Strengthens professional practice Drives systemic change You are not sharing into silence. You are shaping what comes next.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
ACCPH Accredited • 6 CPD Points
A practical and engaging exploration of trauma, its impact on the brain, body and behaviour, and how professionals can create safer, more effective and compassionate environments for people affected by adversity and trauma.
Delivered by Mayameen Meftahi BEM, Founder and Lead Trauma Specialist at BeyondTrauma Academy CIC and creator of the award-winning BeyondTrauma™ Recovery Programme, this training brings together professional knowledge, lived experience and survivor-informed insight to provide a deeper understanding of trauma and recovery.
Combining lived experience with professional practice, Mayameen offers insight into the realities of trauma, the responses that can sit beneath behaviour and the practical approaches that can support people more effectively.
This training moves beyond theory, helping professionals understand the real-life impact of trauma and how to embed trauma-informed principles into everyday practice.
Understanding Trauma
Develop a clearer understanding of trauma, adversity and the ways traumatic experiences can continue to influence thoughts, emotions, behaviour, relationships and everyday functioning.
The Brain, Body & Survival Response
Explore what happens when the brain and body perceive threat, including the role of adrenaline and survival responses, and why these responses can continue even when immediate danger has passed.
Triggers & Trauma Responses
Understand how obvious and less obvious triggers can activate trauma responses and how these may present through anxiety, avoidance, anger, withdrawal, emotional numbing or other behaviours.
Looking Beneath Behaviour
Explore how behaviours that can appear challenging, disengaged or difficult may make greater sense when viewed through a trauma-informed lens — helping professionals move away from judgement and towards understanding.
Trauma-Informed Communication
Consider the impact of language, professional interactions, trust, choice, boundaries and communication on someone who has experienced trauma.
Creating Safer Professional Practice
Explore practical ways professionals and organisations can reduce the risk of further distress, promote emotional and psychological safety and embed trauma-informed principles into everyday interactions and environments.
From Understanding To Application
Apply the learning to real-world professional practice and consider what can be done differently within your own role, team or organisation.
This training is suitable for professionals and teams working with children, young people or adults who may have experienced trauma, adversity, abuse or violence.
It can support work across:
Education • Health & Social Care • Criminal Justice • VAWG & Survivor Services • Community & Voluntary Organisations • Frontline & Support Services
No previous specialist trauma training is required.
3 Hours • Half Day • Full Day
Training can be commissioned for organisations and professional teams through live online or face-to-face delivery.
Longer formats provide additional space for discussion, reflection, practical application and exploration of trauma-informed practice within the organisation’s own setting.
ACCPH Accredited • 6 CPD Points
Participants completing the accredited training receive certification recognising their continuing professional development.
Give your team the knowledge and practical understanding to look beyond behaviour, recognise trauma responses and respond with greater awareness, compassion and confidence.
