Healing is the work of coming home to ourselves again and again. Because oppression is persistent, healing must be persistent and on-going. Doing equity works requires continuous healing from the effects of oppression in order to tap into our resilience, access our agency, and express the fullness of our humanity. We believe that healing must be prioritized as we are simultaneously working collaboratively towards transformation and liberation, it can not wait until our systems are redesigned.

This workshop will provide participants an experience to center and integrate ongoing individual and collective healing processes when working, collaborating, and designing for equity.

Participants will:

• Explore how to center and integrate ongoing individual and collective healing processes

• Deepen our understanding of the relationship between healing and equity/liberation

• Participate in a healing-centered space for ritual and practice.

This workshop offers an introduction to our signature Learning Partnership framework and draws from the work of our colleague Zaretta Hammond (Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain). Learning Partnerships enable educators to build trust with students across differences of identity (race, gender identity, class, family background, life experience, etc.) and leverage that trust in service of increased student engagement and ownership of learning. The Learning Partnership framework and identity-focused discussion at this workshop are a powerful addition to a teacher’s toolbox (or anyone working with young people) in service of building relationships and providing meaningful support to students.

Participants will:

• Learn about the impact that identity, mindsets and learning conditions have on the relationship between learner and teacher

• Reflect on the salience of identity and its impact on a learner’s academic and social-emotional experience in a learning environment

• Begin planning how to build a partnership with someone that centers identity and promotes thriving and belonging.

When planning adult learning and collaboration, it’s essential to design an experience that moves beyond a series of tasks or items to address. This is particularly true when guiding a group through conversations focused on issues of equity and other emotionally-charged challenges. This workshop provides an opportunity to learn an approach for designing agendas for fostering authentic engagement and collaboration that takes into account group dynamic and well-being needs of the group.

Participants will:

• Gain new knowledge and frameworks for agenda design, whole person learning, and cultivating a positive group dynamic

• Learn new strategies, get new tools (e.g. agenda templates, meeting activities, facilitation tips) and make a plan to use them in their context.

This workshop is designed to support school leaders in learning best practices to recruit, hire, and retain Black teachers. In this experiential session, participants gain a deeper understanding of the historical and current context of Black teachers’ work and their impact on the thriving of all students. Participants assess their current efforts and learn to use an equity lens to implement more effective recruiting, hiring, and sustaining practices.

We are all living in challenging times that our past experience and training has not sufficiently prepared us for. Liberatory Design is an approach to addressing equity challenges and change efforts in complex systems. This workshop provides participants an opportunity to get a basic introduction to Liberatory Design Mindsets and Moves.

Participants will:

• Gain a foundational understanding of the Liberatory Design Process and Liberatory Design Mindsets and identify how they might be used in your work

• Identify 1-2 Liberatory Design Mindsets that could benefit your equity-focused work

• Learn how you can get started addressing an equity challenge using the Liberatory Design Process.

This workshop explores how advances in neuroscience are helping us to understand bias – how it is formed, how it “sticks” in our consciousness, its role in individual, institutional and structural oppression, and what we can do about it. Our implicit biases can lead to actions and decisions at odds with our intentions or explicit values. It is critical for individuals to understand how implicit (or unconscious) bias works so that they can interrupt its development and improve both individual interactions and relationships and interrupt policies and practices that perpetuate inequities within systems and institutions.

Participants will:

• Understand how unconscious bias operates and how it impacts individuals, institutions and structures in creating and perpetuating inequities

• Examine how unconscious bias may be at play in practices and policies in your context and discuss strategies to reduce the effect of this bias

• Get some tools and resources to use with your colleagues and those you support as you practice recognizing, shifting and counteracting implicit bias at all levels of our system.

Racial affinity structures have become a more frequently used strategy for working toward racial justice within organizations and collaboratives. Racial affinity structures support people to do their own reflection, learning, growth and healing with others positioned similarly in a system of racism (or other facet of oppression) - building relationships and processing what is most needed and meaningful for them given their identities. When affinity spaces are created alongside ongoing “alone” work and thoughtful support to come together across differences of identity, conditions can be strengthened for a more honest and liberated multiracial/multicultural community.

Participants will:

• Understand and experience affinity structures within the 3A framework (i.e. alone, affinity, across difference): learn why they are important in working to dismantle oppression, and what conditions can support them working well

• Explore tools, resources, and approaches to using and facilitating racial affinity groups in your context, including how to recognize and avoid common pitfalls.

This workshop provides participants opportunities to increase their equity consciousness and develop their capacity to create inclusive environments and make positive change their equity aspirations.

Participants will build a common space to explore and engage the following questions:

• What does it mean for ME to lead and work for equity – given my identity, life experiences, and role?

• How does oppression impact the experiences of children and adults in our system?

• What does it mean for us to build community and learn together in service of equity in our system?

We are living in complex times and are part of complex systems that our past experiences and training may not have sufficiently prepared us to understand and respond in our role as equity leaders. In this workshop, participants will understand the nature of complex systems, distinguishing between complex versus simple or complicated problems, and developing corresponding leadership approaches that match the actual complexity of equity challenges.

Participants will:

• Understand what this approach to equity leadership might mean for you, given your identity and role. Develop new insight and understanding of the skills and dispositions (cognitively, affectively, relationally) needed to lead and design for equity in complex systems.

• Develop your Equity and Complexity “lenses.” Develop an understanding of the inherent tensions, contradictions and uncertainty in leading for equity in complex systems; learn a framework and approach for problem-identification, decision-making, and taking action in your system.

• Apply these lenses to identify and frame an equity challenge in your “sphere of influence.”

Everyone can use coaching skills to become a better leader. This 3-hour workshop focused on the essentials of taking a “coaching” stand with supporting the learning, growth, and development of another individual. Participants will examine their own coaching style with a focus on equity while practicing new coaching skills with each other.

Participant will:

• Practice approaches for understanding, raising, and addressing equity issues through the practice of coaching

• Reflect on who you are in this work and what skills and knowledge you need to be successful in your role as a leader, manager, supervisor

• Deepen your understanding about what it means for you to support the learning, growth and development of another adult.