Class Consciousness: Talking Money, Power, and Survival with Clients

Join us for a 2 hour thought provoking workshop and discussion designed to explore how clinicians understand class consciousness in therapeutic spaces and within mental health systems. We will examine how class shows up in therapy - with clients, in supervision, and within ourselves. This workshop offers reflection and tools for navigating these class dynamics, while centering the experiences of marginalized identities.

What to Expect:

• Learning new ways to reflect and acknowledge class differences with clients 
• Explore how class shows up in our workplaces and the broader mental health system
• Engage in a group reflection about our own stories about class 
• Participate in an open-mic style sharing and group discussion

Who This Space Is For:

Therapists, peer support workers, coaches, and others in helping professions (as well as students) who are curious about class consciousness and want to deepen their understanding of how it shows up in our work, in ourselves, and in systems.

Group Agreements: 

1. Take Space, Make Space:We come as humans first, ready to unlearn, learn, and be held with humility. No one is the expert in this space. Contribute to the collective, not from a place of extraction. Practice Take Space, Make Space to balance voices in the room.
   
2. Honor Lived Experience:Lived experience is sacred knowledge and holds equal, if not greater, value than degrees, certifications, or titles. Ancestral, somatic, spiritual, collective, or individual—every path to healing is valid. There is no “one right way” to care for ourselves or others.
   
3. Acknowledge Power and Privilege:Recognize how power, privilege, and access show up in the room. Decenter yourself when needed and amplify voices often silenced or overlooked.
   
4. Address Harm with Care:Mistakes will happen. When harm occurs, approach it with care and accountability as acts of love and repair, without shame or punishment.
   
5. Be Real and Human:Show up imperfect, messy, and authentic. This is not a space for performative healing or professionalism. Show up as you are, honoring your needs—eat, drink, or turn off your camera as needed. Assume others are coming from a place of good intentions.
   
6. Align with Liberation:This space is rooted in radical values like liberation, disability justice, abolition, and anti-Zionism. Respect these principles.
   
7. Maintain Confidentiality: Protect the confidentiality of any clients or personal stories shared in this space.

Accessibility:

Zoom offers live captioning. If further accessibility tools are needed please let us know.

Meet The Presenters: Kissu Taffere, LCSW and Jada Carter, PsyD

Kissu: Kissu Taffere (she/her) is a licensed clinical social worker in Texas and California. Her experience spans international organizations and community-based settings across three continents. Born in Ethiopia to Eritrean parents, she immigrated to the U.S. as a child, sparking her commitment to racial justice and the intersections of mental health, anti-Blackness, and migration. Kissu primarily serves first- and second-generation immigrants and BIPOC clients in her therapy practice. She also facilitates support groups with an immigrant rights organization, provides clinical support to refugee resettlement agencies, and partners with universities to develop curricula on refugee mental health. A writer, auntie, and proud granddaughter of ancestors who resisted colonization — and who always made time for three finjals (small cups) of coffee — Kissu seeks to honor their legacy through her work.

Jada: "I am an African American woman proudly from Oakland, CA and a pre-licensed psychologist currently practicing in Illinois. I have provided mental health services to a diverse group of clients across the lifespan, including asylum seekers/refugees, children and families from marginalized communities, survivors of domestic violence and other traumatic experiences, and individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+. As an African American woman with experience in navigating my own various intersecting identities, I am committed to social justice and to de-stigmatizing mental health care, in order to increase accessibility of mental health services to marginalized communities."