Increasing Access to Healing Services and Just Outcomes for Older African American Crime Survivors

Please join us for this interactive virtual convening to learn about a new resource for the crime victims field, the Increasing Access to Healing Services and Just Outcomes for Older African American Crime Survivors toolkit. This resource centers the voices and lived experiences of older Black victims seeking supports and services from the crime victims field and it names the various structural oppressions within society and the victim assistance field which limit the ability of older African American victims to access critical supports and services. Through a series of guided conversations, participants in this event will interface with the different parts of this toolkit, including content modules, video clips, and a reflections workbook. Participants will also have the opportunity to dialogue with and learn from subject matter experts and staff of the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life about specific strategies to enhancing services for older African American victims in their work. Moderated by Juanita Davis and Katie Block and featuring panelists LaTrice Buck.

 

Panelists:

LaTrice Buck

LaTrice Buck founded INSPIRE Consulting in 2008 to counsel, educate, and train professionals in the field of trauma and substance abuse. LaTrice was the Director of the Milwaukee Women’s Center for over 14 years providing services in areas related to elder, later life, domestic and substance abuse, from prevention and treatment to management and program implementation. LaTrice is nationally recognized as an expert and trainer in family violence, substance abuse, and mental health services. She has trained Child Welfare, W2, and Criminal Justice professionals on the signs and effects of addiction and domestic violence.

 

Juanita Davis

Juanita Davis is the Associate Director for the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life (NCALL), a project of End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin (End Abuse). Juanita provides nationwide leadership, technical assistance, and training to professionals across the country on various topics related to abuse in later life, including advancing equity principles and enhancing responses to survivors from marginalized communities. Juanita oversees NCALL’s work on the Office for Victims of Crime’s National Resource Center on Reaching Underserved Victims. She also develops training resources, materials, and publications related to abuse in later life.

 

Katie Block

Katie Block is a Project Coordinator for the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life (NCALL), a project of End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin (End Abuse). Katie provides nationwide leadership, technical assistance, and training to victim services professionals across the country on topics related to abuse in later life, and elder justice. Katie coordinates NCALL’s work on the Office for Victims of Crime’s National Resource Center for Reaching Victims (NRC); a one-stop shop where professionals and policymakers may get information and expert guidance to enhance their capacity to identify, reach, and serve all victims.

 

This toolkit, webinar recording, and shared materials can be found on the Increasing Access to Healing Services resource page.

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.

Empowering Indigenous Women and Communities Through Self-Defense

Self-defense training promotes body-oriented healing and practical safety planning. Feminist empowerment approaches to self-defense teach a wide range of resistance strategies, which include assertive communication, boundary setting, de-escalation, strategic physical escape, and physical resistance. Empowerment-based programs emphasize choice and resilience while actively challenging victim-blaming. Research shows that empowerment self-defense programs reduce trauma symptoms, help survivors find their voices, and prevent sexual assault.

This webinar presents one of the few empowerment self-defense programs that is located on sovereign tribal land and led by indigenous women. The Turtle Mountain Chippewa reservation in rural North Dakota is home to an emerging IMPACT self-defense program. Presenters will describe their collaborative efforts to develop an IMPACT program that is culturally relevant and geographically accessible to rural indigenous women and girls.

Panelist:

Shanda Poitra
Founder & Executive Director
Turtle Mountain Empowerment Self-Defense
Shanda Poitra is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She developed the courage to leave an abusive partner after taking an IMPACT self-defense class, and since then, has made it her mission to bring IMPACT to Indian Country. She is the founder and Executive Director of Turtle Mountain Empowerment Self-defense, an IMPACT program in development. She is the first indigenous woman to found an IMPACT program, and she leads a team that has made IMPACT relevant to the unique realities of rural indigenous survivors.

 

Meg Stone
Executive Director
IMPACT Boston, an affiliate of Triangle
Meg Stone is the Executive Director of IMPACT Boston, an abuse prevention and empowerment self-defense program that is part of the disability service and advocacy organization Triangle. She is leading the IMPACT Boston team in providing training and organizational support to Turtle Mountain Empowerment Self-Defense. Meg also serves as the Project Director of IMPACT:Ability, an abuse prevention program focused on people with disabilities. In this capacity she leads the organizational abuse prevention efforts at schools and disability service agencies in Massachusetts. Meg’s writing on issues of child sexual abuse, sexual violence and self-defense have been published in the Washington Post, STIR Journal, The Establishment, Role Reboot, Ms., Cognoscenti, the opinion blog of the Boston NPR station, and several Boston-area regional newspapers.

Registration is closed.

Please check the Empowering Indigenous Women and Communities Through Self-Defense 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 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.

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 #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.

Boys and Men of Color: Healing from Systemic and Interpersonal Trauma

Please join us for this virtual roundtable to engage in an intergenerational conversation about the hurt, pain, and rage experienced by boys and men of color. Panelists will contextualize the role of racial and historical trauma within the experience of interpersonal violence and trauma.  Insight on how trauma symptomatology for men of color has often been criminalized and a hypersensitivity of Black and Brown male masculinity can contribute to over-policing Black and Brown communities, police brutality and murder, dehumanization, and mass incarceration will be explored. Panelists will share the ways in which boys and men of color have been harmed, both interpersonally and systemically, and the different ways we have healed and can heal moving forward. Participants will hear from  panelists the holistic ways their work has supported the healing process of male survivors of color. Moderated by Richard Smith, featuring panelists Lisa Good, Bruce Purnell, Bella BAHHS and Alexander Davis.

 

Panelists:

Lisa Good

Lisa Good, MSW, is a recognized authority in grief and trauma recovery. She is founding director of Urban Grief, a trauma-informed community-based organization that educates on the effects of violence and supports those affected through outreach and victim advocacy. She is the former director of SNUG (formerly known as Cure Violence) and has over 25 years of human service experience. She is an experienced speaker and trainer, facilitating trauma-informed workshops such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and community events, and faith-based workshops aimed at creating healing spaces and empowering community members through information about trauma, grief, and resilience.

She is the recipient of numerous awards and was recently honored for her leadership on trauma and community violence during Women’s History Month by the City of Albany.  Other recognitions include Capital District Women’s Resource Center; Working Woman of Achievement Award, Working Families Party Progressive Woman Champion Community Leader Award for Leadership in Trauma and Violence Reduction, Capital District Labor-Religion Coalition: On the Frontlines Award and the NAACP Community Service Award. She currently serves as an expert on the Department of Justice’s National Resource Center for Reaching Underserved Victims of Violence (NRC) and leads a grassroots initiative; training/coaching indigenous community leaders on trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resilience.

She is not only an advocate, but also trauma survivor and in 2017, was selected to become an Everytown Survivor Fellow. As a Survivor Fellow, she uses her personal experiences with gun violence to raise awareness at local, state and national levels about the cost of gun violence and need for sensible gun legislation reform. Her survivor story has been featured in Vogue.com, on Medium Daily Digest and the national social media campaign during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. She remains active in the fight to eradicate violence, increase awareness about the traumatic impact of exposure to violence and break down the walls of isolation and fear by connecting community members with each other as resources and mutual support.

 

Bruce Purnell

Dr. Bruce Purnell is the founder and executive director of a community based non-profit organization called The Love More Movement. He is a psychologist, author, artist, speaker and community activist.  Dr. Purnell is a direct descendent of Underground Railroad conductors, Station Masters, Freedom Fighters and Educators. Like his ancestors, he has dedicated his life to creating a world where Love, Joy, Peace, Hope, Purpose, Equity, Transformation and Liberation are lifestyles.

Through Dr. Purnell’s journey he has instructed at The University of Cincinnati and The University of Lagos, Created a Legacy Foundation at Howard University and Conducted Academic and leadership Boot-Camps at Bowie State University. His latest initiatives involve building Community, Mobile and Virtual Safe and Brave spaces called Healing Stations and a methodology to train Transformative Life Coaches & Healing Leaders (TLCHL). His legacies include founding Seniors Offering Unconditional Love (S.O.U.L.) and an international, grass roots Mental Liberation movement called “The OverGround Free-Way”.

Dr. Purnell currently serves as a subject matter expert for The Black Mental Health Alliance, SAMHSA, The American Psychological Association, The Vera Institute of Justice and The Department of Justice for topics involving Trauma Informed Practices, The mental health of Boys and Men of Color, Suicide  Prevention, Substance Use, Abuse & Addiction, Victims of Violent Crimes and many aspects of violence, mediation and models for restorative justice.

 

Bella BAHHS

Bella BAHHS (Black Ancestors Here Healing Society) is a revolutionary millennial artist and visionary, nationally known for making sedition irresistible. Through her art, activism and advocacy, she incites civic engagement and influences participation in the fight for social justice and prison abolition. Born and raised on Chicago’s West Side, BAHHS is a raptivist, spoken word artist, songwriter, storyteller, movement strategist and consultant, community architect and champion for survivors of systemic violence.

BAHHS was thrust into the national spotlight in 2015 when a video of her heartfelt performance at a local march for justice for Laquan McDonald went viral. The following year, she co-organized the #LetUsBreathe Collective’s Freedom Square Occupation – a 45-day occupation of a Chicago “secret” police precinct, Homan Square, notorious for kidnapping, torturing and forcing confessions from Black men. Freedom Square became a defacto civic leadership art camp for the North Lawndale community, where BAHHS co-directed daily programming for youth. The summertime occupation was covered by national media outlets, urging the country to critically examine the world we exist in and to radically re/imagine the world we want to create.

Acknowledged for the visionary leadership and energy she brings to the fight for a more just and humane country, BAHHS joined the Open Society Foundation as a 2017 Soros Justice Fellow. She organized a cohort of arts-activists, the Sister Survivor Network (SSN), to curate accessible cultural events and opportunities to uplift marginalized survivors of carceral trauma, while mobilizing support to drastically reduce America’s prison population.

BAHHS is a founding member of The Decarceration Collective’s (TDC) and has worked closely with Lead Criminal Defense Attorney MiAngel Cody since 2016 to develop successful anti-carceral advocacy campaigns for federal prisoners sentenced to die behind bars for drug offenses. In 2019, TDC garnered national attention when Kim Kardashian donated to support the nonprofit’s efforts to disrupt injustice through litigation.

BAHHS is also a founding member and co-chair of the statewide Women’s Justice “Redefining the Narrative” Task Force, a historic convening of more than 250 women leaders from across Illinois united to strategically reduce harm to women and their children before, during and after incarceration while working to drastically cut the women’s prison population by 50% or more over the next seven years.

 

Alexander Davis

Alexander Davis CGP; they, them, alex and Love is a 90’s baby born in Brooklyn, New York. Alex’s family is from Honduras and the South Mississippi. The Legacy Alex stand on comes from ancestral wisdom, the people movements that come before them, the Women who has unconditionally cared for them, and the Struggle. Alex is a Healing Justice Organizer with H.O.L.L.A! (How Our Lives Link Altogether), which is a grassroots organization that stands on the Legacy of other grassroots movements such as The Green haven Think Tank. H.O.L.L.A! focuses on using Human and Healing Justice practices and Community organizing as a portal for youth who have been impacted my structural violence, can become leaders of their communities.

 

Moderator:

Richard Smith

Richard Smith leads the National Resource Center for Reaching Victims work around boys and men of color. In this role, he is responsible for facilitating an expert working group of 13 individuals and delivering technical assistance and training nationally aimed at helping mainstream and community-based organizations better identify, reach, and serve boys men of color who have survived violence.

As the National Director of United for Healing Equity, Richard oversees Common Justice’s effort to build a movement that ensures that people of color who experience violence identify and act on their legitimate authority as survivors; that people of color are positioned and equipped to leverage collective power for healing equity; that system actors establish an explicit commitment to healing equity in their institutions and are held accountable; and, in partnership with the leaders on the ground, that policy solutions are identified and secured.

With over two decades of experience in leading and developing community-based programs, Richard’s work has supported the healing process of historically oppressed groups, specifically currently and formerly incarcerated youth and adults and youth of color. He also provides training and technical assistance to agencies across the country, using an approach grounded in empowerment theory and critical race theory.

Currently an assistant professor at LIU Brooklyn’s Social Work Department, Richard has guest lectured at numerous colleges and universities on issues such as systemic racism, mass incarceration, and trauma and healing.

Richard has received numerous awards and fellowships: Citizens Against Recidivism Award, New Leaders Council Fellowship, and Just Leadership USA Leading With Conviction Fellowship. He was recently awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Forward Promise Fellowship for Leadership.

Richard holds an M.A. from the University at Albany in Africana Studies and is a doctoral candidate at SUNY Albany’s School of Social Welfare where his research focus is male survivors of child sexual abuse. Richard lives in New Jersey and is the proud father of two sons, Kaden (5) and Kaleb (7).

 

Registration is closed.

Please check Boys and Men of Color: Healing from Systemic and Interpersonal Trauma resource page for the recording.

Reclaiming the Power of Breath: A Virtual Healing Series with Zoe Flowers

There’s so much going on. Our chests are tight. We are experiencing fear and confusion. It may be hard for you to sleep, be present, and keep a handle on all you need to do.  And we still have “jobs” to do. It is our pleasure to present another set of healing sessions with advocate, healer, writer, poet, and filmmaker Zoe Flowers.  Zoe provided almost 1500 advocates with her virtual wellness sessions from March to May 2020. She is returning on June 11th to guide us through another round of sessions to help us stay grounded, manage our stress and alleviate anxiety.

 

Panelists:

Zoe Flowers

Director of Survivor Programs @Women of Color Network, Inc.

 

Zoe Flowers leads the National Resource Centers Work to promote healing services for survivors from historically marginalized communities. She is a seasoned domestic violence advocate, author and filmmaker. 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 upcoming 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.

Registration is closed.

Please check the Reclaiming the Power of Breath: A Virtual Healing Series with Zoe Flowers 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 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.

Reclaiming the Power of Breath: A Virtual Healing Series with Zoe Flowers

There’s so much going on. Our chests are tight. We are experiencing fear and confusion. It may be hard for you to sleep, be present, and keep a handle on all you need to do.  And we still have “jobs” to do. It is our pleasure to present another set of healing sessions with advocate, healer, writer, poet, and filmmaker Zoe Flowers.  Zoe provided almost 1500 advocates with her virtual wellness sessions from March to May 2020. She is returning on June 11th to guide us through another round of sessions to help us stay grounded, manage our stress and alleviate anxiety.

 

Panelists:

Zoe Flowers

Director of Survivor Programs @Women of Color Network, Inc.

 

Zoe Flowers leads the National Resource Centers Work to promote healing services for survivors from historically marginalized communities. She is a seasoned domestic violence advocate, author and filmmaker. 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 upcoming 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.

Registration is closed.

Please check the Reclaiming the Power of Breath: A Virtual Healing Series with Zoe Flowers resource page for the recording.