Trauma-Informed Frameworks for Leadership, Teaching, and Institutional Life
Colleges and universities now operate in an ecosystem marked by stress and trauma. Faculty and staff are overwhelmed, students are in crisis, and broader social and political tensions have reshaped campus life.
These conditions can destabilize institutions, eroding trust, fracturing communication, and weakening their ability to carry out their core mission.
Blackbird Trauma Training (BTT) provides trauma-informed frameworks that enable colleges and universities to navigate these conditions with clarity, integrity, and increased imaginative capacity. By applying these frameworks, institutions are better positioned to make sound decisions, maintain community, and lead with purpose — even in difficult times.
Transforming Communities Through Trauma-Informed Leadership
Marjorie Florestal is founder and primary consultant at Blackbird Trauma Training.
For more than three decades, Marjorie has worked in law, higher education, and international policy. She served as a tenured professor at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law and has taught at the University of California Berkeley and Davis. At UC Davis, she designed and taught the first trauma-informed lawyering course.
Before entering academia, Marjorie served in the Clinton Administration, where she represented the United States in disputes before the World Trade Organization and negotiated international trade agreements. She later designed and managed legal reform initiatives in several African countries, working with organizations including USAID and the African Development Bank to support institutional development and governance.
Marjorie holds a JD from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow Scholar and Fulbright recipient. She also holds a Master’s degree in Jungian Psychology from Sonoma State University and is completing a PhD in Human Development at Fielding Graduate University, where her research focuses on narrative identity and self-authorship.
She is co-author of Trauma-Informed Law: A Primer for Practicing Lawyers (American Bar Association, 2023), a foundational text on trauma, resilience, and professional responsibility in the legal field. Her broader scholarship and teaching explore the intersections of narrative identity, trauma, storytelling, and leadership development.
Born in Haiti and raised in the United States, Marjorie has lived and worked internationally, including in France, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, Senegal, and Cape Verde. These experiences inform her cross-cultural and trauma-informed approach to leadership and education.
Blackbird Trauma Training Company 