Trauma

Holistic Healing Framework for Boys and Men of Color

Historically, boys and men of color have disproportionately been victims of violence and are underserved by victim service providers. Due to a combination of factors resulting from systemic and interpersonal violence, historical trauma, racially-based and state-sanctioned violence (i.e. discriminatory policies,...

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Holistic Healing Framework for Boys and Men of Color

Historically, boys and men of color have disproportionately been victims of violence and are underserved by victim service providers. Due to a combination of factors resulting from systemic and interpersonal violence, historical trauma, racially-based and state-sanctioned violence (i.e. discriminatory policies, police brutality, mass incarceration) their experience of interpersonal violence and trauma is intensified.

The National Resource Center for Reaching Victims and one of its partner organizations, Common Justice, developed a Holistic Healing Framework using a Restorative Integral Support model, an application of Integral Theory specific to addressing accumulated adversity and trauma to foster resilience and recovery. This paper conceptualizes a framework for a holistic approach to healing, called The Holistic Healing Framework, and offers a theoretical perspective on why it should be applied in victim service provision.

Common Justice
Navigating Mainstream: Reflections from Cultural Leaders

Organizations spend a lot of time researching, strategizing, and working together to serve our communities better. But what about the team in our organizations; what conditions must shift to create a more compassionate, equitable space? Join us for an interactive...

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Navigating Mainstream: Reflections from Cultural Leaders

Organizations spend a lot of time researching, strategizing, and working together to serve our communities better. But what about the team in our organizations; what conditions must shift to create a more compassionate, equitable space? Join us for an interactive question and answer conversation with cultural leaders who will self-reflect on their journey and share strategies they have developed to survive in systems not created with them in mind. A collective intersectional space that affirms and supports healing is needed now more than ever.

Panelists:

Olga Trujillo

Olga Trujillo is Caminar Latino’s lead staff for the National Resource Center for Reaching Victims and supports the work of the NRC, policy makers, systems and programs nationally on a number of issues including creating culturally responsive, trauma informed services, enhancing services and responses to Latino victims, and improving services to victims with invisible disabilities such as trauma and dissociative disorders. Olga’s legal experience also enhances her work with lawyers and courts to develop trauma informed legal advocacy and courts.

Olga Trujillo is the Director of Education and Social Change at Latinos United for Peace and Equity, a project of Caminar Latino. Olga is an attorney, trainer, internationally renowned speaker and author who has devoted her career to helping advocates, first responders and others in the field better understand the impact of trauma on survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse and human trafficking and one of a handful speakers in the US to address the issue of Dissociative Identity Disorder from a lived experience of diagnoses and healing. Olga intertwines the role of culture, and in particular Latino culture into every presentation, training or technical assistance opportunity.

Jorge Vidal

For more than 10 years, Jorge has worked in the social work field at various non-profit and public interest organizations, promoting the rights and dignity of immigrants, people living with HIV/AIDS, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals and communities. He has worked with the Latino community from diverse settings that include Washington DC, Connecticut, New York, and Puerto Rico. Jorge earned his Master of Social Work degree from Fordham University.

Jeigh Billingy

Jeigh is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, founder and director at Suspire, LLC. She specializes in crisis response, trauma and emergency management. Jeigh was trained as an Emergency Medical Technician in Southern California, and then came to Chattanooga where she earned her Bachelors in Social Work, and Masters of Social Work. She has worked in crisis and emergency management providing direct care and crisis response for over a decade. She also trains groups, organizations, individuals and families in how to prepare for and respond to crisis and trauma from a culturally inclusive lens. Jeigh works with groups and systems to understand diversity and bias as it relates to appropriate trauma informed response. In her free time, Jeigh enjoys hiking, baking, cooking ethnic foods and singing. She enjoys gardening and can often be found on her porch tending to her apartment garden.⠀⠀⠀

Registration is closed.

Please check back the Navigating Mainstream: Reflections from Cultural Leaders resource page for the recording.
The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #4

Shaping the Future of Healing Justice Communities of color and aspiring allies need time to breathe, relax, re-orient themselves with their authentic self, tend to legacies of harm and untreated trauma as well as connect to lineages of resilience. This interactive...

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The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #4

Shaping the Future of Healing Justice

Communities of color and aspiring allies need time to breathe, relax, re-orient themselves with their authentic self, tend to legacies of harm and untreated trauma as well as connect to lineages of resilience. This interactive virtual workshop is designed to provide a community of support where participants may practice techniques to slow down and reconnect to their strength, creativity, and spirit.

Session Objectives:

To provide participants with information about the natural responses to and effects of stress, vicarious trauma, and the various healing modalities used to reduce its impact as a form of sustaining the wellbeing of advocates and those they are of service to.

Panelists:

Maria del Rosario Franco Rahman

Maria del Rosario Franco-Rahman, RYT 200, is sustained by visions of a loving, harmonious world where healing and liberation resound and we all thrive. She is the founder and CEO of Con Todo Corazon where she works locally and nationally offering heart-centered holistic healing services designed to support personal and social transformation. Her work centers the healing and liberation of women of color survivors, advocates, activists and service providers and our fellow communities on the margins. Maria’s healing work includes yoga and Dance from the Heart, an intuitive form of healing body movement. She is a student of cross-cultural healing methods including shamanic apprenticeship. Her fifteen years of service to survivors of gender based violence includes direct service to undocumented domestic violence survivors in her role as the Residential Program Manager at a Latinx culturally-specific transitional shelter, offering holistic healing retreats to survivors and service providers as well as co-authoring “A Holistic Healing Model for Counselors, Advocates and Lawyers Serving Trauma Survivors: Joyful Heart Foundation Retreat” published in Traumatology, 2017 and currently serves as a consultant for Women of Color Network and Women Empiwerment Teaching Artist with Critical Mass Dance Company. Maria is a Xicana moving through this world honoring her ancestors and the coming generations con todo corazon.

Zoë Flowers

Zoë Flowers is author, content creator and writer with the Huffington Post. Her poetry and essays can be found in Stand Our Ground; Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Assault and the new anthology, Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse. Her articles and interviews can be found on The Grio, Bloom Magazine, and several online journals.

In 2004, Zoë interviewed women about their experiences with domestic and sexual violence. From Ashes to Angel’s Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood is the book that emerged. ASHES – is a play that breathes life into the original stories chronicled in Zoë’s book and includes new stories about the media, campus sexual assault, body image, and the journey to self-love. ASHES has had many successful performances including; Yale University’s Fearless Conference, The White House’s United State of Women Summit in
2016, National Coalition against Domestic Violence’s National Conference, Smith College and Brown University in 2018.

For the past twenty years, Zoë’s worked at several state domestic violence coalitions and spent the last 8 years at the Women of Color Network where she started as a consultant and transitioned to the Director of Survivor Programs. Zoë also served as a holistic healer at the Joyful Heart Foundation (JHF) which was founded in 2004 by Mariska Hargitay (aka Det. Olivia Benson on Law and Order SVU).

In 2012, Zoë left JHF to launch Soul Requirements, Inc. a healing centered consulting company that combines her artistic endeavors, domestic violence expertise and holistic healing practices. Since then, she’s facilitated individual and group healing sessions, retreats, and workshops from New York to Ecuador. She returned to JHF as a consultant to run the trauma center the organization shepherded after the Newtown school shootings. Months later she joined the organization’s retreat team. The organization’s retreat model and healing techniques conducted by Zoë and hercolleagues were evaluated by Georgetown University and can be found in Traumatology, 23(2), 143–152.

Zoë has appeared on National Public Radio, was the keynote speaker for The Florida Coalition Against Sexual Violence statewide conference, The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and The Maryland Women of Color Network’s Conference.

In 2019, she presented a workshop entitled, “Utilizing Performance as an Intersectional Response to Violence Against Women in Fez, Morocco and conducted listening sessions in London, UK and Edmonton, CA. She was also the keynote speaker at SUNY Adirondack’s We. Say. No Conference, Delaware’s Victim Service Conference, and returned as keynote for The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Prevention Summit.

In 2020, she’ll be speaking in front of 4 classes at the University of Florida and will speak and teach 1 class at Skidmore College. This fall, she will be keynote speaker at the National Latin@ Institute in New Orleans, LA, the Victim Justice Symposium on October 5, 2020 in Des Moines Iowa, and for the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic Violence on October 7, 2020.

Registration is closed.

Please check the The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color resource page for the recording.
The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #3

Shaping the Future of Organizing: Applying the Lessons Learned from Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Organizers This virtual panel will explore the successes challenges and lessons learned from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Movement in Canada as a potential...

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The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #3

Shaping the Future of Organizing: Applying the Lessons Learned from Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Organizers

This virtual panel will explore the successes challenges and lessons learned from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Movement in Canada as a potential framework for addressing violence against women of color in the United States.

Panelist:

Junetta Jamerson

Junetta Jamersonis an emancipationist, anti-racism expert, community builder, and award-winning Black Youth educator in Edmonton, Alberta. She has worked extensively on issues ranging from discrimination and inequity to women’s uplift and empowerment.She is one of the founding members of Black Women United YEG, an advocacy collective committed to the advancement and protection of Black Women and Girls.While her projects have taken her to numerous international countries, it is her work with women and youth in Edmonton’s African-Canadian community of which she is most proud.

Annika Leonard

Wherever she goes Annika Leonard feels called to create spaces where deep healing can occur, particularly in the lives of Black women, femmes, girls & youth. On a national level, Annika has participated in the ACE-DV Leadership Forum of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and has been consulted with the National Resource Center on Sexual Violence under several projects including the 2018SART protocol and the Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative project. Annika has served as the Chair of the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault where her organization, Priceless Incite LLC., operates as a sexual assault service provider in the city of Milwaukee. Annika has a Bachelor of Science in Human Services and a Master of Business Administration from Cardinal Stritch University. Her continued studies and 15+ years of experience honoring and holding space for people most impacted by violence allow her to present offerings in the form of workshops, keynotes, and guiding us to be in alignment with our truth through her organization Priceless Incite. Annika has developed a unique culturally specific curriculum for Blackyouth that cultivate their self-awareness, leadership,and wellness to bring about deep, radical, and cultural solutions to ending violence.

Rachelle Venne

Rachelle Venne is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women (IAAW). She has over twenty years of experience with building collaborative partnerships in the non-profit, corporate and government sectors. Rachelle has held a variety of positions to prepare her for her current role, including Contract Analyst for Children’s Services, Project Officer for the Urban Aboriginal Strategy in Edmonton and small business owner.

IAAW is a provincial non-profit organization with a focus on eliminating barriers and creating opportunities for Aboriginal women in Alberta. Rachelle leads the organization with a common-sense and collaborative approach. With statistics for Aboriginal women disproportionately high in areas of violence and incarceration, yet very low around decision-making and board room tables, the work can be overwhelming at times.

In 2012, Rachelle received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her community service with REACH Edmonton. In March 2017, Rachelle was selected as one of six Canadian NGO delegates to attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. Her other accomplishments include being appointed to the Government of Alberta’s Métis Women Economic Security Council, Alberta Order of Excellence Council, Alberta Joint Working Group on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls, Alberta Recycling Management Board and recently just joined the Board of the Edmonton Community Legal Centre.

Using innovation and several community partners, Rachelle is guided by her own experience as a 22-year-old Metis single mom going back to school after fleeing violence. Her 3 children are now 36, 34 and 32 years old and a great source of pride. Rachelle enjoys spending time with her 5 grandchildren and travelling with her partner Glenn when she is isn’t working or volunteering.

Moderator:

Zoë Flowers

Zoë Flowers is author, content creator and writer with the Huffington Post. Her poetry and essays can be found in Stand Our Ground; Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Assault and the new anthology, Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse. Her articles and interviews can be found on The Grio, Bloom Magazine, and several online journals.

In 2004, Zoë interviewed women about their experiences with domestic and sexual violence. From Ashes to Angel’s Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood is the book that emerged. ASHES – is a play that breathes life into the original stories chronicled in Zoë’s book and includes new stories about the media, campus sexual assault, body image, and the journey to self-love. ASHES has had many successful performances including; Yale University’s Fearless Conference, The White House’s United State of Women Summit in
2016, National Coalition against Domestic Violence’s National Conference, Smith College and Brown University in 2018.

For the past twenty years, Zoë’s worked at several state domestic violence coalitions and spent the last 8 years at the Women of Color Network where she started as a consultant and transitioned to the Director of Survivor Programs. Zoë also served as a holistic healer at the Joyful Heart Foundation (JHF) which was founded in 2004 by Mariska Hargitay (aka Det. Olivia Benson on Law and Order SVU).

In 2012, Zoë left JHF to launch Soul Requirements, Inc. a healing centered consulting company that combines her artistic endeavors, domestic violence expertise and holistic healing practices. Since then, she’s facilitated individual and group healing sessions, retreats, and workshops from New York to Ecuador. She returned to JHF as a consultant to run the trauma center the organization shepherded after the Newtown school shootings. Months later she joined the organization’s retreat team. The organization’s retreat model and healing techniques conducted by Zoë and hercolleagues were evaluated by Georgetown University and can be found in Traumatology, 23(2), 143–152.

Zoë has appeared on National Public Radio, was the keynote speaker for The Florida Coalition Against Sexual Violence statewide conference, The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and The Maryland Women of Color Network’s Conference.

In 2019, she presented a workshop entitled, “Utilizing Performance as an Intersectional Response to Violence Against Women in Fez, Morocco and conducted listening sessions in London, UK and Edmonton, CA. She was also the keynote speaker at SUNY Adirondack’s We. Say. No Conference, Delaware’s Victim Service Conference, and returned as keynote for The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Prevention Summit.

In 2020, she’ll be speaking in front of 4 classes at the University of Florida and will speak and teach 1 class at Skidmore College. This fall, she will be keynote speaker at the National Latin@ Institute in New Orleans, LA, the Victim Justice Symposium on October 5, 2020 in Des Moines Iowa, and for the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic Violence on October 7, 2020.

Registration is closed.

Please check the The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color resource page for the recording.
The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #2

Shaping the Future of Protective Structures This virtual panel will highlight community models of change and provide information on the various ways aspiring allies and advocates can serve as proactive partners in the move to end Gender-Based Violence. Panelists: Purvi...

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The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #2

Shaping the Future of Protective Structures

This virtual panel will highlight community models of change and provide information on the various ways aspiring allies and advocates can serve as proactive partners in the move to end Gender-Based Violence.

Panelists:

Purvi Shah

Purvi Shah is a writer and social justice advocate. While serving as the Executive Director of Sakhi for South Asian Women, she won the inaugural SONY South Asian Excellence Award for Social Service. In 2017, through a participatory change process, she authored a year-long study, Seeding Generations, which spurred New York City community-based interventions for people who cause harm and abuse. She is also the author of two books of poetry, Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006), and Miracle Marks (Northwestern University Press, 2019). During the 10th anniversary of 9/11, she directed Together We Are New York, a community-based poetry project to highlight Asian American voices. Her favorite art practices are her sparkly eyeshadow, raucous laughter, and seeking justice. Discover more @PurviPoets.

Maria del Rosario Franco Rahman

Maria del Rosario Franco-Rahman, RYT 200, is sustained by visions of a loving, harmonious world where healing and liberation resound and we all thrive. She is the founder and CEO of Con Todo Corazon where she works locally and nationally offering heart-centered holistic healing services designed to support personal and social transformation. Her work centers the healing and liberation of women of color survivors, advocates, activists and service providers and our fellow communities on the margins. Maria’s healing work includes yoga and Dance from the Heart, an intuitive form of healing body movement. She is a student of cross-cultural healing methods including shamanic apprenticeship. Her fifteen years of service to survivors of gender based violence includes direct service to undocumented domestic violence survivors in her role as the Residential Program Manager at a Latinx culturally-specific transitional shelter, offering holistic healing retreats to survivors and service providers as well as co-authoring “A Holistic Healing Model for Counselors, Advocates and Lawyers Serving Trauma Survivors: Joyful Heart Foundation Retreat” published in Traumatology, 2017 and currently serves as a consultant for Women of Color Network and Women Empiwerment Teaching Artist with Critical Mass Dance Company. Maria is a Xicana moving through this world honoring her ancestors and the coming generations con todo corazon.

Annika Leonard

Wherever she goes Annika Leonard feels called to create spaces where deep healing can occur, particularly in the lives of Black women, femmes, girls & youth. On a national level, Annika has participated in the ACE-DV Leadership Forum of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and has been consulted with the National Resource Center on Sexual Violence under several projects including the 2018SART protocol and the Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative project. Annika has served as the Chair of the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault where her organization, Priceless Incite LLC., operates as a sexual assault service provider in the city of Milwaukee. Annika has a Bachelor of Science in Human Services and a Master of Business Administration from Cardinal Stritch University. Her continued studies and 15+ years of experience honoring and holding space for people most impacted by violence allow her to present offerings in the form of workshops, keynotes, and guiding us to be in alignment with our truth through her organization Priceless Incite. Annika has developed a unique culturally specific curriculum for Blackyouth that cultivate their self-awareness, leadership,and wellness to bring about deep, radical, and cultural solutions to ending violence.

Lórien Castelle

Lórien Castellehas been an advocate and activist working to address gender based violence for over two decades. She joined the team at the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NYSCADV) in 1998 and split her time between NYSCADV and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence from 2011 through 2013 in order to launch a statewide prevention initiative in Pennsylvania. Ms. Castelle has the honor of working with several national organizations across the United States including, as a trainer consultantfor the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health, a trainer and consultant to Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, a consultant to the Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Council convened by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and worked to create an online resource PreventIPV: Tools for Social Change(preventipv.org.)Most recently became faculty for the Safe and Together Institute promoting a domestic violence informed child welfare model internationally.As Director of Prevention for NYSCADV and former Principle Investigator for a statewide prevention project with the Centers for Disease Control for over a decade, she is responsible for promoting best practices for preventing and responding to domestic violence and coordinating diverse stakeholders to design and implement regional and state level initiatives. Ms. Castelle provides a wide range of coaching, support and training to domestic violence programs and allies throughout New York State and to coalitions, organizations and communities throughout the United States.

Moderator:

Zoë Flowers

Zoë Flowers is author, content creator and writer with the Huffington Post. Her poetry and essays can be found in Stand Our Ground; Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Assault and the new anthology, Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse. Her articles and interviews can be found on The Grio, Bloom Magazine, and several online journals.

In 2004, Zoë interviewed women about their experiences with domestic and sexual violence. From Ashes to Angel’s Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood is the book that emerged. ASHES – is a play that breathes life into the original stories chronicled in Zoë’s book and includes new stories about the media, campus sexual assault, body image, and the journey to self-love. ASHES has had many successful performances including; Yale University’s Fearless Conference, The White House’s United State of Women Summit in
2016, National Coalition against Domestic Violence’s National Conference, Smith College and Brown University in 2018.

For the past twenty years, Zoë’s worked at several state domestic violence coalitions and spent the last 8 years at the Women of Color Network where she started as a consultant and transitioned to the Director of Survivor Programs. Zoë also served as a holistic healer at the Joyful Heart Foundation (JHF) which was founded in 2004 by Mariska Hargitay (aka Det. Olivia Benson on Law and Order SVU).

In 2012, Zoë left JHF to launch Soul Requirements, Inc. a healing centered consulting company that combines her artistic endeavors, domestic violence expertise and holistic healing practices. Since then, she’s facilitated individual and group healing sessions, retreats, and workshops from New York to Ecuador. She returned to JHF as a consultant to run the trauma center the organization shepherded after the Newtown school shootings. Months later she joined the organization’s retreat team. The organization’s retreat model and healing techniques conducted by Zoë and hercolleagues were evaluated by Georgetown University and can be found in Traumatology, 23(2), 143–152.

Zoë has appeared on National Public Radio, was the keynote speaker for The Florida Coalition Against Sexual Violence statewide conference, The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and The Maryland Women of Color Network’s Conference.

In 2019, she presented a workshop entitled, “Utilizing Performance as an Intersectional Response to Violence Against Women in Fez, Morocco and conducted listening sessions in London, UK and Edmonton, CA. She was also the keynote speaker at SUNY Adirondack’s We. Say. No Conference, Delaware’s Victim Service Conference, and returned as keynote for The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Prevention Summit.

In 2020, she’ll be speaking in front of 4 classes at the University of Florida and will speak and teach 1 class at Skidmore College. This fall, she will be keynote speaker at the National Latin@ Institute in New Orleans, LA, the Victim Justice Symposium on October 5, 2020 in Des Moines Iowa, and for the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic Violence on October 7, 2020.

Registration is closed.

Please check the The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color resource page for the recording.
The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #1

Shaping the Future with Culturally Specific Innovations: This dynamic virtual roundtable will highlight the need to lift up the pre-pandemic innovations being made by culturally specific organizations in reaching and supporting survivors from communities of color. Participants will be provided...

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The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #1

Shaping the Future with Culturally Specific Innovations:

This dynamic virtual roundtable will highlight the need to lift up the pre-pandemic innovations being made by culturally specific organizations in reaching and supporting survivors from communities of color. Participants will be provided with culturally specific responses that extend beyond leaving, going to shelter, and calling the police. Participants will also hear what survivors and advocates of color are seeing, hearing, and feeling in their communities. Join us for this virtual roundtable to share what is happening in your community as we envision the way forward for victims of crime from communities of color. Moderated by Zoe Flowers, featuring panelists Purvi Shah and Maria del Rosario Franco-Rahman.

Panelists:

Purvi Shah

Purvi Shah is a writer and social justice advocate. While serving as the Executive Director of Sakhi for South Asian Women, she won the inaugural SONY South Asian Excellence Award for Social Service. In 2017, through a participatory change process, she authored a year-long study, Seeding Generations, which spurred New York City community-based interventions for people who cause harm and abuse. She is also the author of two books of poetry, Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006), and Miracle Marks (Northwestern University Press, 2019). During the 10th anniversary of 9/11, she directed Together We Are New York, a community-based poetry project to highlight Asian American voices. Her favorite art practices are her sparkly eyeshadow, raucous laughter, and seeking justice. Discover more @PurviPoets.

Maria del Rosario Franco Rahman

Maria del Rosario Franco-Rahman, RYT 200, is sustained by visions of a loving, harmonious world where healing and liberation resound and we all thrive. She is the founder and CEO of Con Todo Corazon where she works locally and nationally offering heart-centered holistic healing services designed to support personal and social transformation. Her work centers the healing and liberation of women of color survivors, advocates, activists and service providers and our fellow communities on the margins. Maria’s healing work includes yoga and Dance from the Heart, an intuitive form of healing body movement. She is a student of cross-cultural healing methods including shamanic apprenticeship. Her fifteen years of service to survivors of gender based violence includes direct service to undocumented domestic violence survivors in her role as the Residential Program Manager at a Latinx culturally-specific transitional shelter, offering holistic healing retreats to survivors and service providers as well as co-authoring “A Holistic Healing Model for Counselors, Advocates and Lawyers Serving Trauma Survivors: Joyful Heart Foundation Retreat” published in Traumatology, 2017 and currently serves as a consultant for Women of Color Network and Women Empiwerment Teaching Artist with Critical Mass Dance Company. Maria is a Xicana moving through this world honoring her ancestors and the coming generations con todo corazon.

Annika Leonard

Wherever she goes Annika Leonard feels called to create spaces where deep healing can occur, particularly in the lives of Black women, femmes, girls & youth. On a national level, Annika has participated in the ACE-DV Leadership Forum of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and has been consulted with the National Resource Center on Sexual Violence under several projects including the 2018SART protocol and the Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative project. Annika has served as the Chair of the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault where her organization, Priceless Incite LLC., operates as a sexual assault service provider in the city of Milwaukee. Annika has a Bachelor of Science in Human Services and a Master of Business Administration from Cardinal Stritch University. Her continued studies and 15+ years of experience honoring and holding space for people most impacted by violence allow her to present offerings in the form of workshops, keynotes, and guiding us to be in alignment with our truth through her organization Priceless Incite. Annika has developed a unique culturally specific curriculum for Blackyouth that cultivate their self-awareness, leadership,and wellness to bring about deep, radical, and cultural solutions to ending violence.

Moderator:

Zoë Flowers

Zoë Flowers is author, content creator and writer with the Huffington Post. Her poetry and essays can be found in Stand Our Ground; Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Assault and the new anthology, Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse. Her articles and interviews can be found on The Grio, Bloom Magazine, and several online journals.

In 2004, Zoë interviewed women about their experiences with domestic and sexual violence. From Ashes to Angel’s Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood is the book that emerged. ASHES – is a play that breathes life into the original stories chronicled in Zoë’s book and includes new stories about the media, campus sexual assault, body image, and the journey to self-love. ASHES has had many successful performances including; Yale University’s Fearless Conference, The White House’s United State of Women Summit in
2016, National Coalition against Domestic Violence’s National Conference, Smith College and Brown University in 2018.

For the past twenty years, Zoë’s worked at several state domestic violence coalitions and spent the last 8 years at the Women of Color Network where she started as a consultant and transitioned to the Director of Survivor Programs. Zoë also served as a holistic healer at the Joyful Heart Foundation (JHF) which was founded in 2004 by Mariska Hargitay (aka Det. Olivia Benson on Law and Order SVU).

In 2012, Zoë left JHF to launch Soul Requirements, Inc. a healing centered consulting company that combines her artistic endeavors, domestic violence expertise and holistic healing practices. Since then, she’s facilitated individual and group healing sessions, retreats, and workshops from New York to Ecuador. She returned to JHF as a consultant to run the trauma center the organization shepherded after the Newtown school shootings. Months later she joined the organization’s retreat team. The organization’s retreat model and healing techniques conducted by Zoë and hercolleagues were evaluated by Georgetown University and can be found in Traumatology, 23(2), 143–152.

Zoë has appeared on National Public Radio, was the keynote speaker for The Florida Coalition Against Sexual Violence statewide conference, The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and The Maryland Women of Color Network’s Conference.

In 2019, she presented a workshop entitled, “Utilizing Performance as an Intersectional Response to Violence Against Women in Fez, Morocco and conducted listening sessions in London, UK and Edmonton, CA. She was also the keynote speaker at SUNY Adirondack’s We. Say. No Conference, Delaware’s Victim Service Conference, and returned as keynote for The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Prevention Summit.

In 2020, she’ll be speaking in front of 4 classes at the University of Florida and will speak and teach 1 class at Skidmore College. This fall, she will be keynote speaker at the National Latin@ Institute in New Orleans, LA, the Victim Justice Symposium on October 5, 2020 in Des Moines Iowa, and for the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic Violence on October 7, 2020.

Registration is closed.

Please check the The Way Forward: Emerging Strategies for Crime Victims of Color #1 resource page for the recording.
Preparing to Reopen: Lifting Up Strategies for Programs Serving Victims

As states begin to lift stay-at-home orders, service providers are working to determine the best path for their service users and organizations within the context of the ongoing public health crisis. Their path to reopening largely depends on the population...

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Preparing to Reopen: Lifting Up Strategies for Programs Serving Victims

As states begin to lift stay-at-home orders, service providers are working to determine the best path for their service users and organizations within the context of the ongoing public health crisis. Their path to reopening largely depends on the population they serve; with overall safety concerns impacting when, how, and to what extent they can reopen. During this interactive strategy session, a variety of providers who serve victims from diverse populations across the lifespan, will lead a panel discussion on the unique measures organizations may adopt as they prepare to reopen. Participants will be invited to share their current plans for reopening (or staying closed). Please join us as we continue to strategize together on sustaining services for all victims.

Registration is closed.

Please check back for the recording.
Supporting Survivors who have Experienced Trauma Cope with COVID-19

This unprecedented health crisis is challenging for most of us. For people who have experienced trauma it can be even more so. The isolation of the statewide Safer-at-Home orders and the unpredictability of the coronavirus can trigger flashbacks and panic...

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Supporting Survivors who have Experienced Trauma Cope with COVID-19

This unprecedented health crisis is challenging for most of us. For people who have experienced trauma it can be even more so. The isolation of the statewide Safer-at-Home orders and the unpredictability of the coronavirus can trigger flashbacks and panic attacks. The fear of contracting Covid-19 can create high anxiety making it hard for survivors to cope. The uncertainty and potential chaos of hospital responses may make it difficult for survivors to seek care if they need it. In this hour-long virtual discussion we will explore what you can do to help and offer a few resources.

Esta crisis sanitaria sin precedentes es un desafío para la mayoría de nosotros. Para las personas que han experimentado un trauma puede ser aún más difícil. Las órdenes estatales de aislamiento (Safer-at-Home) y la imprevisibilidad del coronavirus pueden desencadenar flashbacks y ataques de pánico. El miedo a contraer COVID-19 puede crear una gran ansiedad que dificulte a los sobrevivientes sobrellevar la pandemia. La incertidumbre y el caos potencial de las respuestas de los hospitales pueden dificultar la búsqueda de atención médica de los sobrevivientes si la necesitaran. En esta discusión virtual de una hora de duración, exploraremos qué puede hacer usted para ayudar y ofreceremos algunos recursos.

Registration is closed. Please check back for the recording.
BOYS and MEN of COLOR: COVID-19 Listening Session

Centering Survivors from Underserved Communities The past few weeks have brought significant and unprecedented changes to our lives and work. While everyone is impacted by the COVID-19 public health crisis, the impact is far greater on people from underserved communities:...

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BOYS and MEN of COLOR: COVID-19 Listening Session

Centering Survivors from Underserved Communities
The past few weeks have brought significant and unprecedented changes to our lives and work. While everyone is impacted by the COVID-19 public health crisis, the impact is far greater on people from underserved communities: older adults, people with disabilities, communities of color and so many more. Prior to COVID-19, these communities were already underserved by victim services despite experiencing higher rates of victimization. These same communities have access to fewer resources, which compounds the challenges they already face and the new challenges created by COVID-19.

To ensure these survivors from underserved communities are at the center of all COVID-19 response efforts, we need to better understand the impact this health crisis is having on survivors’ needs and better resource the crime victim services field to respond to their needs. We are hosting a series of listening sessions designed to surface the unique challenges facing survivors from specific underserved communities and to identify solutions. We believe that the collective wisdom and creative-problem solving within our field is needed now more than ever. We invite you to attend and share your perspective.

This session is full. Please check back for the recording.
OLDER ADULTS: COVID-19 Listening Session

Centering Survivors from Underserved Communities The past few weeks have brought significant and unprecedented changes to our lives and work. While everyone is impacted by the COVID-19 public health crisis, the impact is far greater on people from underserved communities:...

<< Back

OLDER ADULTS: COVID-19 Listening Session

Centering Survivors from Underserved Communities
The past few weeks have brought significant and unprecedented changes to our lives and work. While everyone is impacted by the COVID-19 public health crisis, the impact is far greater on people from underserved communities: older adults, people with disabilities, communities of color and so many more. Prior to COVID-19, these communities were already underserved by victim services despite experiencing higher rates of victimization. These same communities have access to fewer resources, which compounds the challenges they already face and the new challenges created by COVID-19.

To ensure these survivors from underserved communities are at the center of all COVID-19 response efforts, we need to better understand the impact this health crisis is having on survivors’ needs and better resource the crime victim services field to respond to their needs. We are hosting a series of listening sessions designed to surface the unique challenges facing survivors from specific underserved communities and to identify solutions. We believe that the collective wisdom and creative-problem solving within our field is needed now more than ever. We invite you to attend and share your perspective.

This session is full. Please check back for the recording.