Quills hurt. Especially when they get under your skin. Unless you learn to quickly defuse and de-escalate these situations, your program or classroom outcomes may be at risk.

We’re here to help. We’ve worked with youth of all ages and understand the challenges a prickly personality can raise during your programs.

We’ve helped youth workers, educators, teams, parents, and leaders gain confidence and implement effective communication tactics to de-escalate prickly porcupines.

Spikey the Porcupine.


With our team, you will:

  • Access tactical tools to help you de-escalate and better connect with young people.

  • Discover new ways to connect with young people and feel more confident when working with prickly personalities.

  • Gain confidence and implement effective communication and de-escalation tactics with our services.

We give you practical and research-based best practices to de-escalate prickly situations

How it works

Everything you need to connect and communicate with youth and team members in three easy steps.

Buy the book

Access practical and research-based best practices to de-escalate prickly situations with the ground breaking ARISE methodology described in How to Talk to Porcupines: A Youth Worker’s Communication Field Guide.

Engage the process

Learn from workshops designed with you and your team in mind.  Whether you want to build from the techniques presented in the book or dive deeper into a topic, we have a workshop for you and your team

Continue learning

Feel confident you have all the tools you need to work with prickly personalities.