Tools & Strategies

Ongoing PERsonal education

I continue my training with ongoing education and opportunities. I work to actively develop a better understanding of different areas that are blindspots for me, because we all have them! This personal work includes attending lectures, book signings, special events, reading literature by anti-bias leaders and social justice crusaders and developing relationships with the social justice warriors that I admire. You'll see a few examples in the image carousel above.

Additionally, I actively participate in my community and use my voice through social activism in protests, marches and attending city council meetings, when possible. In order to know what my communities need, I have to keep a pulse on what they're asking for in terms of support. Of late, #blacklivesmatter has come to the forefront of my lens, though it's always been especially close to my heart.

Turning Ideas Into Action:

(The 6-I's)

I know it's not easy to know where to begin or even how to begin and that's where I come in. This work can be emotionally intense, all-consuming, and at times brutal to the psyche. This work can feel overwhelming, draining and even incapacitating, in some ways. However, my job is to be your filter. When you decide to hire me, I take in all the newest statistics, headlines, current issues you're grappling with in your particular environment, and preferred topic(s) you'd like to learn about. Then, I give it all back to you in incremental, digestible ways complete with tools and strategies to prepare you for future situations.

My goal is The 6-I's

  1. Investigate - I research the newest information about the topics of interest you identify.

  2. Individualize - I work with you to tailor my program to your environment's specific needs.

  3. Inform - First, give you historical context for the topics we cover and how that background impacts the current circumstances we face.

  4. Introspection - Here is the part where we slow it down and turn inward. We narrow our focus to unpacking the life experiences and background of your immediate team and determining what areas of support and trust need to be built in order to authentically reflect and practice owning our biases and prejudices and preventing the strength of their impact in the future.

  5. Integrate- I retrain your group's way of thinking by having you practice new thought patterns and strategies. I show you how to identify bias patterns of thinking and actively rewire those paths so you can ACT through an anti-bias lens. How we can positively impact the work place using our new tools and strategies?

  6. Impact - I check in with you to see how the training is turning into action and we set up follow up workshops to keep the conversation going and the practice progressing. This work is ongoing and always evolving, so I make myself available to support you in that. I also work with you assess your clientele and co-plan actionable steps to reform any systemic policies or decisions that prevent you from fully serving your client populations. How can we encourage more inclusive interactions with each other and then ultimately with our clients moving forward? What do we need to take into account that maybe we overlooked before? What could impact our clients' experience or what about their identity and background needs to be acknowledged serves before we can understand what they really need from us in our our exchanges?

A Hybrid of Resources

In order to give you the most versitle and up to date tools and strategies, I draw from a variety of sources. Some stem back to my early training and others are more current resources that I've researched. However, the reason all of these work so seamlessly is that I've had years to creatively meld these sources together to generate new and EFFECTIVE ways of presenting and wrestling with this critical information.

Resources Include:

  • Reputable News Outlets

  • NAEYC Membership

  • Teaching Tolerance

  • Responsive Classroom

  • Anti-Bias Education Training

  • My Own Anti-Bias Curriculum

  • Critical Friends' Group Training

  • Positive Discipline Training

  • Various Anti-Bias Literature

  • Anti-bias Events & Lectures

  • Franklin Covey's Unconscious Bias Training

  • People of Inspiration Social Studies Curriculum

  • Critical Dialogue & Courageous Conversations Training

  • BrenĂ© Brown's Philosophy "Choosing Courage Over Comfort As A Leader": Tapping into uncertainty, risk, vulnerability, and exposure

  • School Reform Initiative: A Community of Learners Program of Protocols

...and MORE!