Building an anti-racist volunteer program: 

When an organization that leverages volunteers to support incarcerated people who are eligible for parole hired us, they were concerned about their volunteers’ ability to work cross-racially to meet their desired outcomes and live out their anti-racist values. Utilizing our restorative and transformative justice approach we supported them to develop a multi-racial leadership team to identify problems of practice and develop an action plan to revamp their volunteer training, recruitment and onboarding strategy to be in line with their anti-racist values. Through experiential training and coaching, this team identified ways in which anti-Blackness was showing up within their community and how their current volunteer program was not adequately addressing the skills needed to have authentic, equitable and empowering relationships across race. This team was able to transfer their learning with BCWT to embed anti-racist strategies into their volunteer program throughout the volunteer life cycle. 

Outcomes:

• The development of a multi-racial anti-racist leadership team

• Identification of how anti-blackness manifests within current volunteer program

• Creation of an anti-racist volunteer on-boarding and maintenance strategy that emphasizes skill-building for cross-racial relationships

Strengthening the community muscle to talk about race and bias:

An organization that offers mental health and social emotional learning support to NYC public schools hired us to engage staff in conversations about anti-blackness and racial bias within the school community. School leaders were unsure how to approach this work, but knew they needed to start somewhere. It seemed like their students were more comfortable talking about race than the adults, and in the meantime, harmful practices were occurring without the systems, structures or skills to address them. In order to create a sustainable pathway for this work to continue beyond the partnership and to anchor the work in what was happening within the school community, BCWT began with supporting the client to identify a diverse Racial Equity Leadership Team. In working with the team we learned that the staff were disconnected from each other, and therefore trust was hard to gauge. Because examining racial bias requires vulnerability and trust, we decided to engage the staff in personal storytelling activities as an opportunity for staff to build deeper trust and intimacy. We learned that while the staff have been together for years, they rarely had conversations about their lives outside of work, let alone examine issues like anti-blackness, power, privilege and bias in the workplace. Telling stories about their journeys as educators, the cultures of their respective communities, and the values that guide them on the job and in their personal lives, the staff grew closer and increased their ability to take in new knowledge, uncover truths about how racism was playing out in their school community and reflect on their own practices. This project is ongoing, but at the end of Phase 1, this community was able to identify a diverse leadership team to continue building the infrastructure for change, gathered  feedback from staff to help set goals for ongoing relationship building, identify data sources to begin engaging in data-informed decision making to identify problems of practice, and develop a roadmap for what skills need to be taught to improve racial literacy and anti-racist practice. 

Outcomes:

• Client identified a Racial Equity Leadership Team 

• Staff developed a shared understanding of white supremacy,  anti-Black racism and identified manifestations of each within their practice and within their school climate and culture.  

• Racial Equity Leadership Team gathered data from staff and developed an action plan to improve climate, racial literacy and anti-racist skill-building

Full-day RJ/TJ exposure to kickstart reflection and action around strengthening relationships, repairing harm, and increasing accountability:

In a 2-session Restorative/Transformative Justice Training/Workshop, we collaborated with an organization’s DEI team to reflect on racial justice, equity and belonging within their organizational culture. We supported them with tools to build community, reflect on their shared and individual  values, and to engage in restorative dialogue as a way to understand needs when harm is experienced. Through the process, the team was able to:

Outcomes:

• Strengthened relationships among participants who reported feelings of disconnection and isolation

• Team identified and practiced skills needed to work more restoratively within the organizational context

• Team learned and practiced skills to address interpersonal harm and promote greater accountability within the workplace

Addressing disproportionality in public schools:

Nicole and Suzanne met while working on a 4-year collaboration with the New York City Department of Education. We worked within two public schools to highlight, address and combat inequities, such as, the disproportionate suspension/exclusion of predominantly students of color, LGBTQ students, and students with learning and other disabilities/needs. We centered relationship and trust building across all levels of the school community as the first step towards creating a solid foundation for a massive system-wide change. This included wide-scale implementation of community building circles and experiential opportunities to learn and practice Restorative Justice approaches as a community. With an eye on building the capacity of staff and student leaders we provided school-wide training, leadership coaching, and re-designed systems in partnership with school leaders to be more data-informed and student and family-centered. The results were:

Outcomes:

• Revamped discipline policy to one that centers addressing student needs and repairing harm

• Established coordinated care teams to effectively case manage and support high risk students and families

• Lasting structures that enable continued community-building, such as:  

• Circle-based social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum

• Annual youth-led Week of Social and Political Action

• Staff-led wellness and racial equity “lunch and learn” series

• Drop-in community-building circles both for adults and for students 

• Decreased student suspensions, expulsions and exclusion from classrooms

• Increased student attendance

• Increased use of restorative approaches to address conflict and repair harm at all levels within the school community

• Increased student leadership

• Increase in students’ feelings of trust, safety, equity, and sense of community as reported on annual surveys and in exit interviews

• Both staff and students’ reported an increase in their ability to engage in meaningful and courageous conversations about race, identity, cultural awareness, implicit bias, and systemic injustice.

These examples don’t speak to you? Contact us to discuss customizing an experience and work scope that meets your unique needs.