Building Communities to Meet Crisis: Resourcing our Relationships

We are ...a community of mental health workers, clinicians, psychiatrists, current and prior users of mental health services, advocates, artists, and survivors of trauma and adversity, who are interested in exploring the link between personal and societal transformation.

Institute for the Development of Human Arts

Part of IDHA's Fall 2022-Spring 2023 virtual training series CROSSROADS OF CRISIS

<h3>To learn more, please visit: <a href="https://www.idha-nyc.org/crossroads-of-crisis" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.idha-nyc.org/crossroads-of-crisis  </a></h3><h3>*ASL and live closed captioning provided*</h3><h3>NOTE: 3 CE credits are available for this class. Learn more about CE credits at IDHA <a href="https://www.idha-nyc.org/ce-information" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.</h3><h2>Class Description</h2><p>How can we build the capacity of our communities to meet a crisis before it arises, and support each other when it does? Too often, crisis intervention is outsourced to carceral systems, which reduce individual autonomy and further reinforce communities’ reliance on these structures. A person in crisis tends to be viewed in isolation, divorced from a wider social context that shapes every aspect of their well-being. By resisting the urge to see crises through an individualized lens, we can recognize the role a community plays before, during, and after a crisis. When we turn toward each other and cultivate networks of support, we can proactively create the conditions necessary for communities to become self-sufficient and meet the needs of a crisis head-on, reducing dependencies on systems that are both overburdened and can lead to more harm than healing. </p><p>This class will provide a framework for the importance of community care, grounded in the ancestral wisdom and current practices of Black and Indigenous communities. Faculty members will highlight transformative crisis prevention and intervention practices such as de-escalation, harm reduction, and safety planning – with an emphasis on strengthening interpersonal relationships and practicing mutual aid. Together, we can build community-based models of care that prioritize self-determination, healing, and compassion.</p><h2>Learning Objectives</h2><ul><li>Explain how resourced communities are essential to crisis prevention and management, in contrast with police/carceral systems</li><li>Analyze why carceral systems are not suited to meet crisis in a healing, transformative, and justice-oriented way</li><li>Discuss community-based strategies of what actually works to prevent and cope with crises</li><li>Define and practice the exercise of podmapping (Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective), demonstrating how care is practiced in a much larger network across individuals, collectives, organizations, and institutions</li><li>Identify tools and resources to build networks of care in your own community</li></ul><h2>Faculty</h2><p><strong>Allyson Inez Ford, LPCC </strong>(she/her) is a multiracial, pan, neurodivergent mental health therapist specializing in Eating Disorders, OCD, and Trauma- with lived experience. Allyson is passionate about bringing in concepts of Transformative Justice, Anti-Oppression and Abolitionist care into the mental health space in both theory and praxis. Allyson is rooted in a deeply relational lens and enjoys providing education to community spaces.</p><p><strong>Jason Sole</strong> (he/they) is a formerly incarcerated abolitionist. He has been a criminal justice educator for 13 years and is currently an adjunct professor at Hamline University in the Criminal Justice &amp; Forensic Science Department. He has facilitated hundreds of circles in jails, prisons, and communities across the nation. Jason is also the co-founder of the Humanize My Hoodie Movement in which he challenges threat perceptions of Black people through clothing, art exhibitions, documentary screenings, and workshops. He is a Core Member of a Relationships Evolving Possibilities (REP) where several abolitionists respond to community harms in the Twin Cities. In addition, he recently launched the Institute of Aspiring Abolitionists for people who’d like to learn more about abolitionist frameworks.</p><h2>What You Get</h2><p>Registration includes the 3-hour class session, an optional 90-minute discussion group one week after the live class (Sunday, February 26 from 12-1:30 pm EST), and access to IDHA’s School for Transformative Mental Health on Mighty Networks (our virtual learning community where you’ll have the opportunity to engage with other students and your faculty).</p><h3>Questions? Email us at contact@idha-nyc.org</h3>

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