Trainings and Consultations!

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The following are trainings available to organizations and groups in any country, via Zoom, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams:

CONSTRUCTIVE ALLYSHIP
Facilitated action-oriented session supporting goal-setting in coming to terms with anti-racist, abolition, or reparations work. For individuals or communities building anti-racist culture.

DEVELOPING INCLUSIVE PRACTICE:
a. Power Dynamics, Race and Culture
b. Implicit Bias and its effects
c. Microaggressions: labelling, interrupting and defining
d. Inclusive Practice – Pragmatic answers to Organizational Issues
Each section will go down to specific topics, like implicit bias, our cultural frameworks, perceived microaggressions, tokenism, colorism, and other manifestations of structural power dynamics that play out daily in our workplace with co-workers and when working with clients/service users. The first three parts outline the specific dynamics that occur in non-profit and other spaces, and the last section addresses questions raised about practice. We will reflect on strategies currently used in organizations to create a more inclusive and collaborative environment for marginalized identities. This training discusses issues and terminology rarely addressed elsewhere.
We will address aspects such as accessibility, and collaborative partnerships that are culturally appropriate, instead of traditional outreach models. In advanced versions of this training, we will detail how to make a responsive Organizational Equity Plan for your program.​

BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL EQUITY PLANS:
In this training we look at strategies used in Building Organizational Equity Plans. This may include: Processing Past Issues and Moving Forward Collectively; Internal and external strategies; Familiarizing leadership with effectiveness and practice around a Strategic Plan; inclusion framework; recommendations from Staff Inclusion committees, and an organizational Equity Lens; Trouble-shooting: Identifying Areas of Need; Outreach, Programming, Recruiting, Structural or other Community-Building practices organizationally; Reflective exercises throughout the workshop; and lastly Adding or revising policies, procedures and practices.

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE:
This training focuses on a Culturally Responsive Trauma Informed Care lens, that address structural and historic oppression and introduces the concept of how trauma effects people and their lives. Outlines ACES, short-term and long-term effects of trauma, PTSD and other analyses of trauma and how it psychologically, socially and developmentally affects our clients.
We go through the importance of and modes of Trauma-Informed care and possible triggers in our workplaces. We compare models of delivery in direct service settings with a trauma-informed lens vs. a non-informed lens. We look at programs and program teams to reflect on how colleagues may enact TIC with each other. Some case studies might include what de-escalation, home visits or meetings could look like. We discuss different cultural frameworks and bridging intercultural communication styles that may come up in practice. Lastly, we address vicarious trauma, and ways to de-escalate and minimize secondary traumatic stress.​

BYSTANDER INTERVENTION AND DE-ESCALATION:
We will learn about different situations that may or may not require intervention.Understand what is meant by the terms ‘allyship’, ‘de-escalation’, and ‘solidarity’.
We will learn about the bystander effect, and different situations that may or may not require intervention.
Learn when it is appropriate to intervene, vocalize, use an exit strategy, or stay and de-escalate. We will address how to overcome certain inhibitions around bystander intervention. Learn how to use voice and body to create distance, de-escalate, or self-defend, in a situation, in public or in a workplace.
Learn other aspects of bystander intervention, including using your
presence or physical self as a tool of solidarity. Together we will discuss group agreements and finalize elements of a process and procedure for your team. Roleplaying is included, however participants can choose to opt out if uncomfortable.

COMMUNICATION AND COGNITIVE STYLES ACROSS CULTURAL FRAMEWORKS:
An Awareness Training:
Learn the difference between passive, assertive, and aggressive communication.
Understand the different communication styles inter-culturally, and how they interact. We reflect on ways to modify communication styles to bridge across different approaches.
We will look at collectivism vs individualism, and high vs low context cultures and how they contribute to expectations around communication.
This session will also cover different modes and objectives of communication, various cognitive and working styles, and how to address those differences in the workplace.

UNDERSTANDING TRANS IDENTITIES AND GENDER DIVERSITY: 
Participants will learn information pertaining to their communities and services, and ways to improve interactions with clients from trans and queer communities. We will address the context of gender within feminism, and examine the historical concepts of gender, including:
*the idea of gender as binary,
*feminism and social constructs,
*gender as performed,
*gender as a continuum, and/or matrix
*gender as fluid.
Trainees will learn the meanings of queer, transgender, heteronormativity, and other related terminology.
We will talk about language, vocabulary, terminology, daily structural struggles, and how gender constructs, are a concept different to sexuality.  We will discuss transitioning, presenting, passing, and not outting folks. This may include discussion around intake processes, documentation, greetings and other communication. Participants will be led through some reflection on their own gender constructs. Lastly, we will talk about different methods of alliance, solidarity and support for trans communities.​

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE and TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE – CONTEXT AND PRACTICE:
*Identity and Intersectionality
*Inclusive Practice (how to work in terms of culture, race, access, abilities, etc)
*Cultural considerations when looking at justice models
*The connection between school, exclusion and criminalization
*Restorative Justice
*Transformative Justice
*Trauma-sensitive practices
*New paradigms of harm reduction, and how that looks in schools
*Practical examples of implementation in a domestic violence setting, and with youth

BEST PRACTICE FOR RESPONSES TO VARIOUS MENTAL HEALTH SCENARIOS:
This is an introductory trainings addressed to people in direct service who interact with clients who are experiencing various states of mental health, and the best ways of approaching and working with them. We will address definitions, de-escalation, calming strategies, building safety plans and how to integrate knowledge and trauma informed practices into procedure.
Objectives include:
Understand definitions of ‘mental health’ and ‘disability’
Understand de-escalation for different situations, including suicidation, and how it relates to trauma informed care
Roleplay to practice responding to different situations​

INTERSECTIONALITY, GENDER AND THE #METOO CONVERSATION:
A facilitated discussion around #metoo and gender inequity around notions of consent.
An opportunity to reflect on, listen and share about the current cultural approach to the objectification of
different genders, and how that relates to the power dynamics that lead to situations implied in the #metoo movement.Objectives include:
Understand the historical and current ramifications of #metoo
Contextualize gender and feminist thinking
Relate this to work practices in terms of mechanisms of power

CREATING A CULTURE OF COMMUNITY AND SELF CARE:
As a continuation of Trauma Informed Care – We will raise awareness to understand vicarious trauma and how self care can mitigate its effects. We will address how to promote resilience and navigation of stressors and activators. We will increase knowledge of different types of self care, especially in terms of personal triggers. We will utilize exercises and reflections that can be used by supervisors with their teams (or families!).

STRATEGIC PLANNING CONSULTATION:
Please contact for more information.

EQUITY CONSULTATION:
For organizations, businesses and programs. Please contact for more information.

Free Workshops

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Public Upcoming Trainings:

Understanding The Effects of Trauma and Trauma Informed Care

Free to attend and welcome to all.

Q Center, 4115 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR 97217
Sunday, Jan 20, 2019 at 3-6pm
Rosewood Initiative, Gresham
Saturday, Jan 26, 2019 at 11:30am-2:30pm
North Portland Health Center
Monday, Mar 4, 2019 at 2-5pm
Sisters of the Road Cafe, 133 NW 6th Ave, Portland, OR 97209
Monday, April 1, 2019 at 2-5pm.

2017

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Today I cradled my mother in my arms

Blubbering like a baby

She told me how much she loves her momma

And I thought of how it had been the other way around
Today I carefully spoonfed my gran, tucked her in and changed her diaper. Stroked her hair and tenderly wiped her tears away.

And she thought of how it had been the other way around
Strength shows in different ways – through restraint, submission, acceptance, silence. But also in unadulterated, openfaced emoting. Floodgates opened for a second, with abandon, moment of safety, before scuttling away into a swallowed, dry place.
I saw her truest self, most naked, when not occupied hiding in an automaton wife shell, conflated love and duty, flummoxed by stimulus and new rules constructed overnight when her guard was down.

In the still of dawn, on the precipice of two goodbyes, time closes like an accordion. Distance then opens, like an accordion, between her, and I, and gran. Time, distance, nature, decay, separates us eternally.

—

On the eve of her funeral we realize there are so many soons and one days, but only one definitive too late. I would have liked to make her laugh again, to feed her my cooking, for her to taste mint jelly again.
—

After midnight we flew over a lit city, looked down through a clear night sky and marvelled at its cold crisp lines, of the impeccable order of one light next to another and then another. I thought of their obliviousness, of their all-in-row-ness, as they struggle with each internal turmoil, of the utter chaos and storming that occurred in each neat little lit-up box, night after night. Of every tense silence, swirling emotion, oscillating dread and relief, read gesture, unspoken discord. Of intergenerational obfuscation and murky, muck-filled embrace, mired and obscured love, choked with guilt and questions. In moments snatched back, out of reach, and some certainly inaccessible, frozen with their undeniable passing. There we sit, brimming with anxiety, spilling with judgement, obsessed with aesthetic, neatly and quietly in adjacent lines, blinking on and off.

2018

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DIASPORA

Listening hard through the night, hearing gravel crunch under tyres, tiny rubbing footsteps, the fluttering of sleeping hens, and the hum of suburbia. Tonight I am listless and searching. I am unsettled and grasping for fulfilment; spectacle, the abject, voyeurism, titillation, the empty space of sky.

If I strain, I might hear the whisper from my mum 5000 miles away, reassuring and omniscient. I might reach into the aether and bring back my grandmother who I snatched moments with mere months before her leaving, months after I finally arrived. Perhaps I could wrench into this dimension the time lost whilst waiting for a piece of paper to tell me where I could finally rest. Twenty-something years of distance, of normalizing disconnection, of building detachment for survival, of flitting from one coordinate to another to distract from this process of limbo, of expectation. Perhaps I could twist this vision of myself into a familiar, comforting and attached version capable of satisfaction, relishing in joy. I could smash the fucking limbo instead of swimming in it like oxygen, like the heavy cloak that forces my head and gaze to stare out the window looking for what is missing. I could move around the little paper pieces into an order that makes sense, a family of togetherness, touching, picturesque and at ease.
Unsettled, because settling was never a choice, after the first and third displacement. One foot ready to run, feelings wrapped in a box, packaged and shipped on. I am wrestling with peace and tension, grabbing at altercations and violence, waiting for something to be ripped away again.

Fix My Head #10

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Latest and final issue is out, featuring Kiki Nicole, Julian Smuggles, Haley Elizabeth, Sashiko Yuen, Joyce S Lee, The Breathing Light, Mallrat, Sea Mason, Cuatl and Brat Collective.

It was an incredible five years of tours and interviews and very surreal rockstar treatment that I didn’t deserve. The folks who have contributed, who I have invited, and who I have connected with through this medium are brilliant and beautiful. I hope to continue building community through different means, like education. I will still be making my anti-nationalist comics about trauma, gender, race, etc: called The Swan The Vulture, and the more wordless/abstract Distortion. Many hugs X
#poc #zines #fixmyhead #pdx

IMG_8838

2016

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To know what I know, to see what i see

To understand how things could be.

To want to shake it out of people

Their truth

To coax from the patterns that fall in between the pretty little flowers, their salvation.

Terrifying to have finally arrived at the peak of the mountain, awaiting others’ arrival.

To stock every piece of belly and love in their successes, to be shaken with despair when they are disappointed.

I can see the path, identify the pass, on the ridge, from the edge.

To be the one that remains, after all those fallen before me, a lottery absurd. I would like to collect the cut peonies into a bundle, safe and dry. On a shelf, no vase, no urn. No box, no burial, high up where no thing or time can touch you.
It’s ok,

I knew what things were even if you didn’t.