WSSCSW & Seattle University
Vanessa Jackson, LICSW
Visiting Seattle from Atlanta, Georgia, licensed clinical social worker Vanessa Jackson, MSW will explore the importance of “power literacy” when working with marginalized communities and their allies. She will offer attendees a framework of the Seven Healing Questions to support exploration into how power impacts our functioning, our relationships and our capacity to maintain a state of emotional well-being.
Power informs our lives at all levels-from how we view ourselves to how we experience the complex world of relationships around us. Unfortunately, after decades of “empowerment” programs to address the challenges facing marginalized communities, many service providers and users have very little language or understanding of how power operates and impacts our lives. This training will provide participants with an understanding of the aspects of power- power over, power with and power from within – and offer a framework of the Seven Healing Questions to support every day inquiry into how power impacts our functioning, our relationships and our capacity to maintain a state of emotional well-being. We will explore the importance of “power literacy” when working with marginalized communities and their allies. Participants will explore how failure to explicitly discuss power in clinical settings can result in re-wounding/re-traumatizing of marginalized populations and how to co-create more emancipatory interventions to support and sustain healing.
Workshop Agenda
- Introduction: Powerlessness as a path to understanding power:
The View from an Activist’s Life
- Defining Power/ Power Theory
- Three Aspects of Power ( Power Over, Power With, Power from Within)
- Power Wounding : A New View of Trauma
- The Seven Healing Questions
- Transforming Powerlessness into Power and The Politics of Healing (video)
- The Healing Power of Story Telling: Constructing New Narratives to Support Healing.
- Elements of an Emancipatory Practice
- Promising Practices for Healing Power Wounds: Listen to Communities for a Change.
- Small Group Power Processing/Large Group Reflections
- Q & A/ Evaluation
Course Objectives
- Participants will demonstrate knowledge of Power Wounding as a traumatic experience and how it manifests in clinical and community settings.
- Participants will demonstrate knowledge of the three aspects of power and how to create culturally conscious and emancipatory interventions and supports in the service of healing.
- Participants will demonstrate their ability to utilize the Seven Healing Questions as a tool for individual, family and community assessment and healing.
About the Presenter
Vanessa Jackson is a licensed clinical social worker, Soul Doula and owner of Healing Circles, Inc., a personal and professional development consulting practice. Ms. Jackson earned a Master Degree from Washington University-George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
Ms. Jackson is the author of In Our Own Voice: African-American Stories of Oppression, Survival and Recovery in Mental Health Systems and Separate and Unequal: The Legacy of Racially Segregated Psychiatric Hospitals, monographs on the history of African-American psychiatric experiences , Surviving My Sister’s Suicide: A Journey Through Grief in Living Beyond Loss: Death in the Family (Monica McGoldrick and Froma Walsh, Eds.), Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Feminist Reflections on Therapy with Low-wage Earning Women in Psychotherapy with Women: Exploring Diverse Contexts and Identities ( Marsha P. Mirkin, et al ,Eds.) and Families of African Origin: An Overview with L. Black in Ethnicity and Family Therapy, 3rd Edition ( Monica McGoldrick, et al, Eds.) . She co-edited a book, Understanding Power: An Imperative for Human Services with Elaine Pinderhughes, MSW and Patricia Romney, Ph.D. on power in clinical and community settings.
Ms. Jackson’s passion is supporting activists in creating healthy and balanced lives. She offers an Activists Assistance Program to provide politically conscious and clinically sound counseling and healing workshops to Atlanta-area feminist/queer/social justice non-profit organizations.
Schedule
Saturday, October 20, 2018
8:30AM- Registration Opens
9:00AM- Conference Begins
12:00PM - 1:30PM Lunch on your own
1:30PM - 4:00PM Afternoon Session
CEU's Offered, included in the price
5.0
Meeting Location
Seattle University- Campion Ballroom
E. Cherry St. between 12th Ave. & Broadway
The Campion Ballroom is located on the SW corner of the campus, in the Campion Residence Hall, across the street from the Lemieux Library and next to the Archbishop Murphy Apartments. Campus map. The ballroom is to the immediate left as you enter the building.
Bus
Buses 3,4
Parking
The Murphy Garage, Level 1
Parking is limited and will be on a first come first served basis. Pay machines are located inside the garage. Carpool and bus are recommended.
Refund Policy
Fees may be refunded, minus a $25 administrative charge, up to two weeks prior to the conference date, October 6, 2018. No refunds will be given after October 6, 2018.
Questions? Contact Lara (pd@wsscsw.org)
