Our conference theme is Healing-Centered Engagement. An idea that Dr. Shawn Ginwright coined which moves beyond trauma informed care and utilizes community to find healing and joy. A healing-centered approach centers Hope and understanding that we are more than our trauma.

Wednesday, May 8, 2024 from 9a to 4p - all VIRTUAL!

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is the Jerome T. Murphy Professor of Practice at Harvard Graduate School of Education. His groundbreaking work on trauma, healing, and the empowerment of African American youth has earned him a reputation as an innovator, provocateur, and thought leader in the field of education. His research has been instrumental in reshaping the discourse surrounding youth development. Dr. Ginwright’s introduction of the concept of "healing-centered engagement" in 2018 has revolutionized the field, providing an asset based approach to addressing youth trauma and fostering resilience. His work has been cited in the New York Times, and he is a highly sought-after speaker on topics ranging from civic engagement and youth activism to the transformative power of healing.

is an intuitive, passionate, and entirely unapologetic leader who strives to honor the seven generations in her work. she has worked in a variety of fields across the country, including higher education, social work, workforce development, state government, EDTech research, and entrepreneurship. throughout her career the overarching theme has been to radically disrupt systems that didn’t intend for people like her to win.

in this, it has been critical to reclaim her power, shift the paradigm of what’s possible, and lead from radical love as she activates the boldly hopeful, outrageously human-centered approach that she brings to the every space she occupies within community. she specializes in culturally-responsive, trauma-informed leadership that is rooted in equity and healing in robust ways that is as unapologetic as it is effective. she values authenticity, wisdom, humor, community, and liberation which is seen in her steadfast commitment to speaking truth to power, living on purpose, and disrupting the status quo with radical joy.

dr. sarahlloyd has a ba in advertising from washington state university, an ma in educational leadership & policy studies from university of northern colorado, and a ph.d. in social justice leadership from saint martin’s university. she lives in olympia, washington with her three daughters and their rescue pittmatian.

Grounding Through Movement and Breath: Practices to Prioritize Your Self Care, Self Regulation, and Interconnectedness.

Abbie Carr is a Youth Development Professional, Student and Instructor of Yoga and Meditation to adults and youth. Abbie believes in the personal and organizational usage of mindfulness based practices to transform our inner and outer worlds to be more connected and co-regulated. 

In this session you will learn various mindfulness based practices using movement and breath to ground yourself, groups, and youth. Session will include a group meditation and facilitation on various breathing techniques and mindful movement to calm the nervous system, and center in space together somatically.

Adults as Authentic Partners: Reimagining Youth Engagement to Cultivate Healing Centered, Liberatory Spaces.

In his keynote address at the 2021 Reimagining the Future of Afterschool Conference, Dr. Shawn Ginwright, youth educator and scholar, posed the following question, “How can our youth work shift our society from trauma to transformation?” Dr. Ginwright’s question speaks to the unique potential and power of youth programs to be sites of healing, resilience and liberation for all young people, particularly those who are most oppressed and marginalized. His question is also a call to action to transform how we engage with youth, from serving youth, doing things to and for youth, to doing things with youth, engaging them as authentic partners in the journey towards a more equitable and sustainable future. Within the context of youth mentoring programs, transforming the way we engage young people is a hot topic, generating a great deal of energy and excitement. At the same time, there is a growing recognition that making the shift from serving youth to engaging youth as authentic partners is complex, challenging, and messy, requiring adults to challenge and unlearn deeply ingrained, implicit norms, values and practices.  During this session, participants will be invited to sit in and engage with the complexity and messiness of authentically partnering with young people. Grounded in Paolo Freire’s pedagogy of Praxis, this session will engage participants in deep reflection and dialogue, inviting participants into a process of unlearning and learning. We will explore the barriers that exist within us that get in the way of authentically partnering with young people, and learn effective ways to address these barriers. Incorporating a variety of modalities including introspective reflection, storytelling and dialogue, this session will cultivate mindset shifts and tools that enable participants to be co-creators of healing centered, liberatory spaces with young people, spaces that affirm the inherent dignity and humanity of all young people and foster our collective wellbeing.

Starting a Black Youth Affinity Group. 

Dr. Miller supports Affinity Groups in K-12, college and professional settings. In his session, participants will learn about what anti-Blackness is and learn concrete strategies and examples of curriculum used when running Black youth affinity groups. Lastly, there will be time for attendees to start strategizing how they start there own Black youth affinity group.

Talking to Youth: The HEEADSSS Assessment. 

Lisa is a medical student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who has extensive experience working with children and adolescents in clinical settings. The prevalence of psychological trauma is rising in the youth population. However, many mentoring and youth development professionals may not feel confident asking questions about sensitive psychosocial information. The HEEADSSS Assessment (an acronym for Home, Eating, Education, Activities, Drugs, Sexuality, Safety, and Suicidality) is an established framework used by medical professionals to interview pediatric patients about sensitive topics. This framework can also be useful for youth mentors to promote a youth-mentor alliance and ensure that critical information is not missed. Session outcomes are: 

- Participants will be trained to use the HEEADSSS assessment as a tool to effectively and confidently talk with adolescents about sensitive topics. 

- Participants will have the opportunity to role-play interactions with peer(s) to practice their conversational and interpersonal skills.  

- Participants will gain confidence in continuing this dialogue with youth in the real world

Elevating ‘El Corazon’: Affirming Cultural Capital to support Latin@/x/e youth in K-12. 

Latinx youth are culturally wealthy. Too often, our educational system scrutinizes Latinx youth as deficit, reinforcing harmful stereotypes about their commitment to education. The reality is, under the right mentorship, guidance and care, Latinx youth (and all youth of color) can thrive. Tara Yosso’s six part Cultural Wealth Model, is a tool that can be used to identify the assets students embody from their home culture. By understanding the 6 forms of capital, you will have the tools to better support the students we all collectively work with. The goal of this workshop is to define the six capitals and find ways to create micro-validation moments that propel youth through the education system. with tangible tools that empower young people to have ownership of their own healing as they transition to adulthood.

Healing Centered Engagement for LGBTQIA+ Youth.

As a Black trans youth who spent most of her childhood in foster care, Nia Clark consistently struggled to find acceptance and support from the adults around her. Channeling that lived experience, she has spent nearly 20 years changing systems from within as a consultant, trainer, direct service provider, researcher, and LGBTQ+ youth advocate. She worked for over eight years as a direct care counselor and Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) trainer at The Home for Little Wanderers, one of the nation's oldest youth-serving agencies.

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and LGBTQIA+ youth are both over-represented in systems of care and, unfortunately, face relentless bias and discrimination from the very adults tasked with their care. In order to adequately address the needs of these youth, providers must be equipped with both an intersectional lens and cultural humility to inform their conversations, interventions, services, and organizational policies. In this webinar, participants will review and practice using Healing Centered Engagement, an evidence-based framework that has proven effective with marginalized and minoritized youth. Learn ways to engage youth who have experienced racial and anti-LGBTQ trauma along with tangible tools that empower young people to have ownership of their own healing as they transition to adulthood.

Dreaming & Scheming: Applying Healing-Centered Principles to Youth-Based Work

Robin D.G. Kelley said, “without new visions, we don’t know what to build, only what to knock down. We not only end up confused, rudderless, and cynical, but we forget that making a revolution is not a series of clever maneuvers and tactics, but a process that can and must transform us.” Through unpacking the limitations and expansiveness of our own imagination in this work, we’ll demonstrate how a healing-centered approach in tandem with radical imagination can help sustain us for the long work of social and systems change. This workshop is inspired by radical imagination enthusiasts like adrienne marie brown and the healing-centered engagement framework led by Dr. Shawn Ginwright and Flourish Agenda.

Neurodiversity & Mentoring: No Seriously, What Is It and What Do We Do?

Session Outcomes: Attendees will gain vocabulary needed to speak about neurodiversity in an inclusive way -participants will be given one simple tip for accommodating neurodiversity for each standard of the Elements of Effective Practice -attendees will have opportunity to check themselves for ableism and bias against neurodiversity Description: Has your mentoring program ever served a child whose brain just seemed to work differently? Come learn about neurodiversity! Neurodiversity is the reframing of diagnoses that have stigmatized young people and made it unnecessarily difficult for them to succeed. Join this session to learn more and take your first steps towards inclusivity for neurodiverse youth in your program.

More Than Broken 

Over the past 50 years, the field of psychology and medicine has learned a lot about the causes and effects of trauma on the human mind, body and spirit. The field of Trauma Informed Care was developed as an approach, which takes trauma into account when diagnosing and treating individuals. But what if we also respect the parts of a person that are vibrant, strong and undamaged? What if we acknowledge the role that healing plays in our lives and the lives of young people?

This is a Healing Centered Approach, one that expands the vision of trauma informed care to include a more holistic understanding of ourselves, especially as it relates to caring for youth. This workshop will provide knowledge and strategies to being in relationship with young people in a way that honors them as whole people and promotes well-being.

Long Term Youth Mentoring for Bereaved Youth

Join Tuesday’s Children staff for experiential learning seminar meant to provide practical tools and knowledge for everyone striving to be empathetic agents of change in the lives of bereaved and traumatized youth. In this workshop you will gain skills to support system change in mentoring youth who have experienced traumatic loss. Sara, will seek to Increase your knowledge of the definition of trauma and traumatic events, help you better understand how trauma can impact youth and their physical selves and walk away being able to apply these learnings to strengthen resiliency in youth as well as build your knowledge around how mentoring can help youth walk healthy post loss journeys.

Healing Starts with You: Recognizing Your Context and Needs to Better Serve Youth

A variety of personal experiences led to Sophia's interest and career in youth development. She has spent nearly nine years serving youth and families in Seattle; the majority of those years working at Friends of the Children Seattle, mentoring youth, managing program projects, and now supporting the program as a director. She has a bachelor's degree in Applied Behavioral Science, serves as a co-facilitator of Friends Circle, an internal staff development group, and facilitates relationship building with schools and caregivers for internal staff. She is currently working on a certificate in Paralegal Studies at Edmonds CC. 

In this session we will discuss how our lived experiences affect how we show up in our work and how to challenge or accept how we are showing up. This session will also focus on ways to recognize our need for healing and not being able to pour from an empty cup. The main goal of this session is to walk away with a better understanding of one's self, and ways to give to yourself in an area of work that is focused on giving to others. Outcomes: Gaining understanding of how your lived experiences are brought into the work you do. Identifying triggers and blind spots Practicing appropriate self-disclosure Setting boundaries Creating a road map to your self-care and healing.