Cultural competency workshop for white-identifying mental health practitioners
This workshop was created based on 26 one-on-one confidential listening sessions with white-identifying therapists in Oregon on ways in which they feel they fall short in supporting clients of color, designed to help white-identifying mental health practitioners feel more connected and supportive of Black, Indigenous, Latine, and other clients of color.
I don’t want to put pressure on my BIPOC clients to educate me about racism AND at the same time want to allow for that education. It’s my job to do this work, to learn, AND my client is having their individual experience. What I’ve read is not always my client’s experience.
I can get too focused on awareness of my own shame, distracting me from focusing on supporting my client.
Workshop themes
Ronin will share tools, facilitate group and dyadic conversations, and invite deep reflection time around ways to increase groundedness and attentive connection when working with BIPOC clients. Some workshop themes include:
- Colorblindness / ignoring race can feel safer for white folks
- Getting more comfortable acknowledging race and whiteness
- Somatic awareness and settling the nervous system
- Bringing up issues around race and racism with clients of color
- Bringing up issues around race and racism with white clients
- Time to share experiences
Logistics
This cultural competency offering:
- includes 1 hour of pre-workshop homework, and 2 hours of the workshop, for a total of 3 hours
- includes supportive resources
- can be on Zoom or in-person — it is up to the group to decide
- the fee is $50 person, with a minimum of $400 per workshop (10% of all fees to go to our BIPOC student group grant)
- is in a confidential space
- email ronin@apok-ccrf.org to set up a date
Addressing common concerns:
It feels off doing this work without having BIPOC voices in the room.
Ronin’s response: Totally– this is one of many paradoxes we must sit in. A group of only white people talking about racism and whiteness is dangerous, and at the same time, we white folks have a lot of work to do, and most BIPOC equity workers in the Lane County area are burned out. They do equity work with white people during the day, and then experience racism in the predominantly white community when they are off work– it’s often just too much. To counteract some of the potential harm, I pull together resources to get voices of BIPOC teachings in the room and only do this work now that I have built trust from BIPOC equity-trainers who have shared with me that they need us to step up more to do more of our own work.
What is the point of this? Who is this for?
Ronin’s response: Although this might be a question for you all to answer as an individual and/or organization, what comes to me is we all want the best for everyone, and one place in our culture that needs attention is for white folks to become more aware of the ways in which we contribute to the cellular “weathering” of the BIPOC folks we come into contact with. Also, this work is part of the grand goal of collective liberation, about working towards cultivating a culture where we are all supported to thrive and be our authentic selves.
I am worried about saying the “wrong” thing or being judged by my co-workers in the workshops.
Ronin’s response: A benefit of a white or white-passing affinity space is that we can say things with less risk of causing harm to others. The group agreements will help guide us in offering each other grace as we muddle through, and at the same time, stay accountable– this is part of the trust-building process that I will facilitate for you all. Also, we are also working on settling into the humble truth that we will ALL say something racist at some point.
What do you mean by white?
Ronin’s response: Usually when I say “white people,” I am referring to those like me, with Protestant-culture European colonizer/settler ancestors. When I refer to “white supremacy,” I am talking about the economically-motivated caste system that we were born into, designed by the European colonizers, who were inspired by the ancient Greeks, seeing those with the lightest skin as the closest to godliness.