Racial Equity Intelligence Series: Spring 2022

"Racial Equity Intelligence Series" is a live, online intensive workshop to move recovery support services providers working in a variety of settings beyond a superficial understanding to speaking actionably and concretely about racial equity issues. The series has three parts—the seed, the sprout, and the bloom—because all are essential.

Many community-based and clinical recovery support services providers have attended trainings recently where they received a lot of seed knowledge, learning new terms, and getting new ideas. However, these trainings may not have nurtured ideas enough to sprout, or feel rooted. This series will prioritize an arc of learning to ensure folks feel more comfortable talking about racial equity, fulfill the "what's next question," and encourage ongoing learning.

The Seed

The Seed session will provide an overview of critical racial equity terms, clearly define equity, address layers of racism, and define the history and roots of race and racism leading to white-dominant culture social constructs. To help participants counter the dehumanization of marginalized groups, during this session we will work to disrupt many external and subconscious oppressive norms rooted in:

• Societal levels: personal, institutional, systematic, cultural
• Visibility and invisibility: overt, covert
• Temporal influences: historical, periodic/occasional, every day/ongoing
• Intrapersonal/interpersonal: me, us, them
• Internalized superiority/inferiority
• Dynamics of invalidation/forms of denial

The Sprout

The Sprout session will review strategies to de-escalate and productively talk about race, racism, and racial equity. It will be beneficial for people attempting to communicate and develop strategies to address anti-oppressive practices within an organization. The session will cover racial anxiety and how to cope with it, tackling a significant barrier to talking about race and racism. We will cover strategies for communicating effectively and strategically about racial trauma, race, and racism and benefits of racial equity including: 

• Honoring and addressing racial trauma, race-based traumatic stress, insidious trauma, and historical trauma
• Creating more opportunities for people with diverse lived experiences to access services
• Increasing authenticity in the workplace, encouraging retention, and improving recruitment
• Improving service provision and opportunities for people to engage with reduced fear of oppression

The Bloom

The Bloom session will cover integration of racial-equity initiatives into recovery organizations, behavioral health organizations and the necessary policy changes. Participants will be asked to bring data from their organizations to review and be given a brief audit form to complete before the session. The facilitators will work with participants to identify next steps and a straightforward implementation strategy for racially equitable practices.

Since 2019, C4 Innovations has expanded its racial equity work to implement anti-racist practices in recovery. Our goal is to ensure that people in recovery who are most systemically marginalized by race--especially Black, Indigenous, and Latino/a/e/x people--can equitably access culturally-informed recovery support services for their chosen recovery pathway. Without racial equity, we will never achieve lasting changes that ensure equal access to housing, services and supports, opportunity, and well-being for all.

Our commitment to working with recovery support service providers and communities to achieve equitable outcomes for persons and families affected by substance use disorders is centered around four fundamental principles:

1. Centering lived experience of marginalized communities
2. Prioritizing strengths-based, community-centered processes and practices
3. Addressing the role of racial trauma and its relationship to substance use disorder
4. Aligning racial equity and recovery principles and practices
   
   

Who Should Take This Course:

Staff at all levels of health and human service agencies, behavioral health organizations, and recovery-centered organizations.

Learning Objectives:

As a result of completing this course successfully, participants will be able to:

• Actionably assessed their individual positionality to oppressive constructs
• Created a visual map to understand their positionality
• Gained knowledge and awareness of systems perpetuating oppression
• Reviewed internal and organizational practices and policies that may be upholding forms of oppression
• Engaged in thought exercises to see opportunities for change
• Examined data such as retention, stakeholder, leader, and participant data
• Reviewed mission and communities served
• Completed an audit that will give guidance to the next steps

Meet the Faculty:

Ashley Stewart, Ph.D., MSW, LSW, is an Adjunct Expert, Trainer & Curriculum Development Specialist at C4 Innovations. She received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, College of Social Work, and her master’s at Columbia University. She is an Assistant Professor at Temple University, College of Public Health, School of Social Work, training interdisciplinary students about social justice theories and frameworks and translational skills for anti-oppressive practice. Ashley’s work centers on addressing institutionalized forms of identity-based oppression. She works in solidarity with mental and behavioral health providers. She supports institutions, corporations, organizations, and leadership teams to identify ways to reduce harm and determine appropriate steps toward sustainable culture change. Her focus is on moving away from performative diversification efforts and shifting the institutional and organizational culture to be equity-centered. Ashley provides racial equity training, consultation, and support and understands and respects the intricacies inherent in equity-centered work. Her research focuses on, institutionalized forms of oppression, industrial, organizational equity [IOE] and EQ equity intelligence. Her research includes assessing the intersections of identity, structural oppression, health and mental health, and policy. In addition to the advanced study of the consequence and causes of identity-based oppression, Ashley supports implementing anti-oppressive practices at organizational, structural, programmatic, and clinical interventions. She runs a small practice providing counseling and support for organizational leaders to work through their roles being tasked with creating anti-oppressive and equitable change.

Livia Davis, MSW, Chief Learning Officer at C4 Innovations, is responsible for corporate learning direction, goals and policies. She has over twenty-five years leadership and management experience in behavioral health, recovery and supportive housing. Livia is an experienced facilitator in supporting federal, state and local communities build critical capacity to expand, improve, and sustain services and a member of C4's Racial Equity and Recovery consultation team focusing on the implementation of anti-racist practices in recovery. Livia also serves as C4’s team leader for recovery related training to states addressing the opioid crisis under SAMHSA's Opioid Response Network. Her career spans over 15 years of experience as a direct service provider working in behavioral health, recovery, housing, and homeless services, and 10 years as a facilitator of initiatives focused on convening stakeholders to work together to transform entrenched positions to move forward together. Her first-hand experience living and working in a large recovery community in Denmark (founded by her great-grandfather in 1912 and with 125 people residing and working there) is the foundation for her commitment to advance recovery, equity, and building community. She is a founding board member of the Duffy Health Center (community health center/health care for the homeless) in Massachusetts. In six years as Project Director for SAMHSA’s Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS), Livia worked with a large team to implement a national strategy to advance recovery-oriented systems, best practices and the integration of peers. BRSS TACS reached 115,000 people from 2011 to 2017 and developed resources ranging from a Medication Assisted Treatment toolkit to Core Competencies for the Peer Workforce. She is passionate about meaningful conversations, interdisciplinary collaboration, and constructive conflict as a foundation for innovation. Various national media (CNN, Washington Post, Boston Globe) have covered her work to promote innovative solutions to address homelessness. 

Course Facts:

• Dates: Thursdays, March 31, April 7, and April 14, 2022
• Time: 12:00 - 3:00 PM ET 
• Subject: Racial equity, behavioral health, recovery
• Practice level: Intermediate
• CE credit:
  • ASWB: 9 hours
  • NAADAC: 9 hours
  • NBCC: 9 hours
• Course type: Live and interactive online instructor-led sessions plus engagement reading and processing exercises between sessions
• Covered topics: Race and racism in recovery, differential access to recovery support services, trauma, racial trauma, race-based traumatic stress, and historical and insidious trauma 

Training Certificates 

Certificates of Completion are awarded to participants who have attended all 3 sessions, completed all required learning activities, scored higher than 80% on each weekly quiz, and completed the course evaluation form and certificate request form. 9 hours of continuing education credit will be awarded upon completion of this course through ASWB, NAADAC, and NBCC. Certificates will be emailed directly to participants roughly two weeks after the completion of the final webcast.

Accommodations 

If you need accommodations for disability, please contact C4’s Managing Director, Rachel Ehly, rehly@c4innovates.com. 

Grievances 

If you would like to report a complaint, please email Ken Kraybill, C4 trainer, kkraybill@c4innovates.com; or C4 Managing Director, Rachel Ehly, rehly@c4innovates.com. 

Group Registration 

C4 Innovations, Provider #1457, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. C4 Innovations maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 10/17/2020 to 10/17/2023. Social workers completing this course receive 9 continuing education credits.

C4 Innovates has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6576. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. C4 Innovates is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

This course has been approved by C4 Innovates  as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #100990, C4 Innovates is responsible for all aspects of their programing.