About this offering:

Our work in the gender-based violence movement is full of nuance and complexity. The daily challenges and joys are set against a backdrop of systems of oppression and intersect in countless ways with other social justice issues. In short, this work is not easy. Over the next few months, we are teaming up with Dr. Leticia Nieto to co-create collective spaces to honor and process through the various emotional states and realities of this work.

Join us for series of workshops with Dr. Leticia Nieto to find ways to better support yourself as advocate and in turn, deepen your advocacy skills to better support survivors. Together we will explore these questions:

• How can we better incorporate an anti-opression lens in our advocacy practices?
• What are the ways to promote healing and liberation within our team and organizations?

For this session, Dr. Nieto will kick things off with a brief overview of a liberation model/framework. Building on that foundation, participants will move into a facilitated dialogue about how to weave the framework into their work and everyday lives. This month's focus will be on exploring the character strengths that influence how each of us shows up and participates in this work.

To help guide this discussion, we invite you to take the VIA Adult Survey ahead of time. The survey is a 96-question, scientifically validated tool that identifies and ranks 24 character strengths. It usually takes about 10–15 minutes, and you’ll receive a descriptive results report when you finish. We’ll be drawing from the free report in our session, though there are also more detailed reports you can purchase if you’re interested.

You can find the survey here: VIA Adult Survey.


CEUs available.


As this is a highly interactive and relational workshop, Dr. Nieto has provided some guidelines for co-creating an online culture of relational integrity and professionalism:

BEST PRACTICES FOR VIDEO PARTICIPATION

• Find a private enough space to be able to fully participate.
• Protect the privacy of group members and people in your household, ensure an appropriate container for sensitive content, and preserve confidentiality. Avoid public places.
• If at all possible, use a computer rather than a phone for your primary connection; in addition to the somatic advantages to a larger screen, using a computer will allow you to move between “gallery view” (where you are able to see the entire circle of members) and “speaker view” when there is a key focus on an individual, such as when doing a presentation or participating in role work.
• As much as possible, have a good enough internet connection.
• Be prepared to use a phone for audio as a backup in case computer audio fails.
• As a general rule, keep video “on"; due to the highly relational nature of our work together, we count on the visual signals and perceivable gestures that are rich elements of communication.
• Please name your access needs and do what is needed to take care of yourself (including turning camera off or moving as much as you need to). Listen to the needs of your body and use breaks —move, hydrate, etc.
• Use the chat freely to capture important content and insights as collective note-taking space. Save the chat at the end if desired.
• Keep in mind that Zoom chats are not confidential - even “private” notes between participants can be seen in the chat records.
• It is generally wise to start out muted and mute when you are not speaking.
• List your name and pronouns in your zoom box. If willing, offer the pronunciation of your name in the chat.
• Feel free to offer land acknowledgement that is meaningful to you in the chat (acknowledgement for the place where you are, other places you have lived, the place where you were born)

About the Facilitator:

Leticia Nieto, PsyD, LMFT, TEP is a leadership coach, psychotherapist, and educator specializing in liberation and equity, cultural responsiveness, motivational patterning, and evolutionary creativity. Her 2010 book, Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone, is an accessible analysis of the dynamics of oppression and supremacy that offers readers ways to develop skills to promote social justice.

The Beyond Inclusion. Beyond Empowerment approach has a focus on clarifying complexities of working across significant differences and on understanding dynamics of oppression, supremacy, liberation, and healing. This approach enables participants to develop a common language and analysis about oppression and liberation while deepening commitment to social justice.