Love Made Visible: Cultivating Awareness, Protection, and Radical Healing for B/IPOC Educators
February 2023 – May 2023
11:00 a.m. -12:30 p.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. ET
view your time zone
Online via Zoom
This event has passed and registration is closed.
Optional Community Check Ins
February – May 2023
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET (view your time zone)
I had to examine, in my dreams as well as in my immune-function, the devastating effects of overextension. Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the difference. Necessary for me as cutting down on sugar. Crucial. Physically. Psychically. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
-Audre Lorde
As B/IPOC educators, we often find our professional work permeating our personal worlds and though this can be one of our strongest assets when supporting the wellness of our school ecosystems, it also runs the risk of severely compromising our ability to metabolize stress, create or maintain boundaries and prioritize our own wellness over the needs of our communities.
Join us in creating a brave healing space specifically for B/IPOC school staff and school partners in which we can safely acknowledge the unique experience of being a care-provider in a racialized society and explore the many impacts it has on our lives, our bodies and our school ecosystems.
What
Love Made Visible: Cultivating Awareness, Protection and Radical Healing for B/IPOC Educators is a series of four Community of Practice gatherings (90-minutes each) s and four community check-ins (60-minutes each) focused on naming the institutional barriers to our wellness and examining the many ways B/IPOC educators can find care in school cultures and systems that consistently causes harm, trauma, and (mental and physical) fatigue as a result of our intersectional identities as B/IPOC folks, simply showing up to work every day.
Together we will build a container in which we are able to be our full and expansive selves while exploring the impeding social constructs and internalized notions that often compromise our holistic wellness and prevent our renewal. In the spirit of Sankofa, we will reflect upon our past personal and historical experiences to identify critical learning that may better support us in meeting the mental health and wellness needs of ourselves and our students.
How
Community of Practice sessions will be 90-minute facilitated gatherings themed on an arc exploring our exploration of the following guiding questions:
- What crises are B/IPOC educators impacted by in their workplaces?
- How are those crises structural and embedded specifically within educational institutions and systems?
- What do B/IPOC educators need to move toward recovery from those crises?
- How can our community develop, implement, and sustain those practices to move toward personal and collective healing and renewal?
Community check-ins will be 60-minute optional gatherings to meet between sessions and discuss reflections on the CoP sessions and to gain support or accountability toward self-care. Participants will discuss integration of practices referenced during that month’s CoP session and/or provide gentle accountability for practicing self-care. The check ins format will include: an Opening Ritual, discussion via a talking circle, and a closing Ritual (a self regulating practice).
Session Dates
- February 9, 2023
- March 9, 2023
- April 6, 2023
- May 11, 2023
Community Check-In Dates
- February 23, 2023
- March 23, 2023
- April 20, 2023
- May 24, 2023
Learning Goals
Together we will…
- Engage in a brave and generative space for self & community introspection that interrupts educator isolation and fosters co-regulation
- Identify and investigate institutional and internalized barriers to wellness for B/IPOC educators
- Access ancestral and community wisdom to address those institutional and internalized barriers
- Expand our self and collective care toolbox with community valued and evidence-based practices (such as poetry, song, art, movement, journaling, talking circles, altar building, reconnection with nature, critical text reviews, etc.)
- Build meaningful connections to external people, places, and ideas that serve as protection against a culture that values productivity over our humanity
Note: this workshop is designed with the assumption that participants are entering with a baseline understanding of trauma & resilience & trauma informed care.
Intended Audience
Anyone B/IPOC school staff or partner that tends to the well-being of young people in school settings (school leaders, educators, community service providers, guidance counselors in higher education, social workers, etc.).
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is this program eligible for Continuing Education Hours (CEH)? No.
- Will this offering be recorded? No.
- Do I need to attend all four main sessions? Yes, it is preferred that participants attend all sessions so that we cultivate safety, belonging and connection. The community check-ins are optional.
- Who can I contact if I have additional questions? Email us at scrr [at] cars-rp.org with “Love Made Visible” in the subject line.
Faculty
Oriana Ides (she/her), MA, LPCCI, PPS
SCRR Field Coach
Oriana Ides is the School Mental Health Training Specialist at CARS, who approaches healing the wounds of trauma and oppression as core elements of social justice. She has worked with young people across life course from elementary school to college, and has served as teacher-leader, school counselor, classroom educator and program director. She is committed to generating equity within school structures and policies by focusing on evidence-based mental health techniques and institutional design. Her work to forge a more just world is motivated by and dedicated to Amilca Ysabel Mouton Fuentes.
Alica Forneret (she/hers)
Alica Forneret is the SCRR Pedagogy of Grief content strategist, steering and guiding our training, events, and partnerships to ensure a grief attuned focus to our school crisis recovery & renewal work. Alica is an educator, speaker, and consultant dedicated to creating new spaces for people to explore grief and grieving. She is the Founder and Executive Director of PAUSE, an organization focused on supporting Communities of Color through grief and end of life.
Darryn Green (he/him)
Darryn Green is an SCRR Field Coach and is an Independent Training Consultant and Coach with a history of working in collaboration with child welfare professionals and other youth-serving professionals in the non-profit sector, providing training, facilitation, youth involved curricula development, in addition to technical assistance with program development, evaluation, strategic planning, administrative systems development, and volunteer management.