Transforming trauma and toxic stress into resilience and well-being.
Project Thrive is grounded in positive psychology, trauma-responsive practice, and resilience science. Our core mission is simple: to help the helpers. We support individuals and organizations serving high-need, low-resourced communities where chronic trauma and strain lead to burnout, turnover, and toxic stress. We don’t chase perfection—we focus on what is optimal, sustainable, and proven to work in the real world.
The Invitation
This is an invitation to live inside the life you actually have—to face hard realities without letting them swallow your whole day. It means focusing on what you can actually influence right now: setting a necessary boundary, leaning on a trusted colleague, or taking one small, practical step forward.
Four Core Focus Areas
1. Elements of Wellbeing (SPIRE): SPIRE covers spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional dimensions. Notice where you’re thriving and where you might be languishing in your daily life, and direct targeted care to whatever needs support right now.
2. Mindsets: Unpack the internal narratives that shape how you process difficult experiences. Shift away from unhelpful self-judgment and move toward open, compassionate curiosity to recognize a fuller, more balanced reality.
3. Skills, Habits & Choices: Build practical capacity through deliberate behaviors and repeatable routines. Learn to optimize boundaries, regulate emotions, stay present, and deepen relationships through small, intentional daily choices.
4. Optimism: Acknowledge hard realities without letting them control the whole story. Uncover where personal agency, hope, and purpose remain so you can keep possibility alive and stay connected to what matters most.
Who It’s For
Project Thrive is tailored for organizational leaders embedding sustainable well-being, educators navigating classroom demands, clinicians & behavioral health helpers facing secondary traumatic stress, parents & caregivers supporting youth through adversity, and frontline staff serving high-need communities.
Resiliency Training Works
Resilience is a practical, learnable skill rather than a static trait, and research consistently confirms that targeted training creates lasting, measurable change. Studies show that even a single three-hour training significantly reduces secondary traumatic stress in frontline workers, with benefits sustained a full year later.1 Furthermore, randomized controlled trials demonstrate that resilience programs directly reduce intent to quit among healthcare and service professionals,2 while engaged, well-supported organizations experience up to 51% less staff turnover3—protecting both frontline teams and high-need communities.
2026–2027 Project Thrive Solutions
People-serving agencies cannot solve burnout through individual resilience alone, and employees cannot sustainably thrive without structural support. Real burnout prevention requires a dual approach: building a stronger agency culture and directly supporting its people. Services are delivered both onsite and virtually.
Keynote Address (50 Min) — Craig Pierce, PhD: An inspiring, energizing message that leaves attendees grounded, capable, and ready to thrive in high-demand environments.
Project Thrive Overview (≤60 Min) — An essential framing on how employees and leadership share power in building a thriving workplace culture.
Creating Thriving Workplaces (60–90 Min) — Core insights on shared organizational power paired with guided reflection to build an individualized replenishment plan.
Solutions for People & Workplaces (90–120 Min) — Comprehensive presentation addressing personal recovery and structural change, including actionable ways to reform HR policies that foster burnout.
Customized Organizational Resilience Training
Resilience is a learnable skill. This multi-phase program equips staff with practical tools to build self-care into daily life, strengthen emotional regulation, and establish intentional habits.
Phase 1: Discovery & Assessment
Includes leadership orientation, confidential HR/document discovery (reviewing turnover, evaluations, PTO, sick leave, and FMLA), a custom pre-training survey, and a strategic action plan presented to executive leadership.
Phase 2: Education & Staff Implementation
Features 90–120 minutes of interactive education for staff, leadership, and board members (includes printed workbooks), cross-functional implementation team facilitation, 3 months of facilitated staff cohorts, and a 6-month impact evaluation.
Phase 2 Add-ons: 6-month Leadership Coaching Circles (monthly 90-min meetings) or 3-month Individual Leadership Coaching (bi-weekly 50-min sessions).
Phase 3: Change the Conditions — HR & Systems Consulting
When an agency’s workforce is depleted, the ethical response is to change institutional conditions. We offer two consulting options:
- Option 1: Employee manual review with high-level recommendations for policy refinement.
- Option 2: Complete employee manual overhaul with 3 alignment meetings and a print-ready manual complete with standardized policy forms.
Delivery & Travel Logistics
Virtual Delivery: Standard presentation/consulting fees apply.
Onsite Delivery: Presentation fee plus standard travel expenses (domestic business-class airfare, ground transport, lodging, and GSA-rate per diem).
About Dr. Craig Pierce
Dr. Craig Pierce, PhD, LMFT, LPCC is a Board-Certified PTSD Clinician and Founding CEO of Southwest Family Guidance Center with over 40 years of clinical experience serving high-need families. Combining professional expertise with personal lived experience, Craig developed Project Thrive around a central truth: that hardship and hope, grief and joy can coexist—a stance he describes simply as “living inside of both.”
When adults thrive, our children, employees, and organizations do too.
Let’s start nurturing resilience—and thriving together.
Ready for more?
Complete The Engagement & Inquiry Form
📩 Email Courtney Custer, Program Consultant
📞 Or call us at (505) 830 1871
1 Grabbe, Higgins, Baird & Pfeiffer, Medical Care, 2021.
2 Lau, Choi, Wong, Ang et al., Scientific Reports, 2025.
3 Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Meta-Analysis.