Category: Facilitation

Help with identifying students who may be ready for advanced racial equity training

Q: We require all our students that work or do volunteer service work with youth to complete a day-long racial equity workshop. It’s a 101-level experience, but how do I gauge and identify students that are ready for a 201?

A: I’m delighted you want to do a next level.

This could be racial affinity groups; it could be a 201 level or even a 1.5 bridge.  I’m thinking this next level would really look at white privilege, the common dynamics of racism and also maybe some internalized dominance and internalized racism, and empowerment for both people of color and white folks to practice how to speak up and interrupt racist dynamics.

First, set the context of what you’re planning to do in the next level, E.G.

In the next workshop, we are going to be doing racial affinity groups. In the white affinity space, we’re going to talk honestly about the daily racist dynamics that happen, when we have had racist attitudes and behaviors ourselves, and ways we can interrupt them in us and other whites BEFORE we negatively impact people of color. And in the people of color space, we’re going to talk about the daily grind of racism in our lives and then how do we support each other and how might we want to speak up or at least seek support to address the racist dynamics we’re experiencing.

A few ideas for identifying students who are ready for this next level of work:

Self-assessment. Offer the type of skills and activities that you are looking to develop and have them use a 0 to 10 scale to reflect, not at all ready, completely ready and not at all willing, totally willing.

Continuum.  List these on a chart and have participants make tick marks or add stickers to where they are, and you’ll get a sense of the readiness/willingness among the room. And then you could ask those who scored themselves higher to opt in to a “next level”

Scenarios. Create some realistic scenarios of things that happen when students are out partnering with community members to dismantle oppression and create liberation. Have them write out their “what would you do” answers. It could be an activity in your 101 or in the evaluation.  Those whose ideas and responses seem more advanced can be invited to the next level of training.

You could put all these on a worksheet and anonymously have people write out what they might say and then have each worksheet with a number on it or a symbol and then you review the responses and send out an email that says, “You’ve been identified as someone who’s interested and willing”.

Ask different supervisors, advisors to review the workshop list of participants and anybody else they work with and suggest who they think might be ready based on your learning outcomes. NOTE: advisors and supervisors may not even be ready for the 101 session, so they may not understand enough to recommend, but it’s another way for you to get a few more names to consider.

When topics that are close to mandated reporting arise

Q: I’m in a group setting facilitating and someone shares something that borders on the edge of a mandated reporter situation.

A: Full disclosure, I’m not an expert on mandatory reporting. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.  But here’s the thoughts that I have –

If your organization is early in addressing these issues and there are not many safe places people can go to raise issues, then anticipate that in a workshop that builds authenticity, connection, and honesty, that people are going to bring up issues that may get close or cross that line to requiring mandatory reporting.

Make sure you talk to HR, Ombuds, or anybody else in the organization that is related to mandatory reporting.  E.G. anyone involved in bias response, grievance processes. Let them know you want to have their name, number, email and any suggested next steps for people who need a confidential place to talk through what’s going on/strategize how to move forward. This might be on a chart or slide or cards for folks in the workshop.

Ask HR or the Ombuds person what they recommend for your opening. I want them to help you do this because they need to realize that the culture is such that people are using workshops to share very challenging difficult situations that may be at the level of mandatory reporting. Maybe they are not finding other ways to do so in the organization.

It could be perception that HR is a sieve. Many organizations I go to (true or not), people will say, “I will not go to HR because I did once, it got back to my supervisor, I will never do it again.” Now, that could have been five years ago, but the culture is much older sometimes than the current reality. HR could be completely different; they could be revolutionized and brilliant today.  But if the stories are still there, the impact is, too.  So, you can help the reporting and support structures better know what the climate is by engaging them prior to the workshops.

You can set up understanding in your opening.

“Our intent here is to have an open honest engaged conversation And, sometimes in these workshops, people have issues in their organization with another person that is a mandatory reporting situation. Do you all know what that is?

You may want to have a slide that has the description and clarify if your role is a mandatory reporter. Teach them what it is, give them a couple of examples E.G

“So, someone says, I’m being sexually harassed by a colleague, or if someone says there is verbal battering and verbal bullying happening in our organization… I need to be a part of helping that get reported. If you’ve got some of those situations during the session or break or afterwards, I will gladly be a support and if you tell me about the specifics, I may need to report.”

In the workshop, if someone shares something that’s close to the line, you might say,

“I am so sorry that’s going on or happening to you, it really gets my attention. How many folks have heard or seen similar dynamics?”

Notice, it’s a shift to the full group conversation and off the one-on-one specific example. Then you can encourage talk in general about when these types of situations happen, what could be some resources.  You can also keep it at the facilitator level and reference another organization where similar dynamics happened, and what they did or some resources they had.

And of course, reinforce your willingness/availability to stay after the workshop.  Make it clear…these types of situations are counter to an inclusive organizational culture, so you want to support everyone getting the support, the resources, and the skills to be able to shift their one-on-one situation as well as the climate and the culture.

Conveying group membership

QUESTION: “What are the most effective ways to convey group membership to dominant identities? I have packaged language that I’m comfortable with to communicate concepts like privileged identity, but when fragility and all that kicks in…”

ANSWER: In the recordings of the June and July webinars I discuss a number of activities to get people to understand the concepts of group membership as well as privileged and marginalized groups. From having them share stories about times they mattered and felt marginalized, to using the Group Identity Cards to share their group memberships and talk about socialization experiences (thirty different categories of difference – one on each card). And then the Playing Card activity simulation where they quickly experience privilege and marginalized group dynamics.

I want people to learn these concepts through experiential activities. I use an activity that I adapted from LeaderShape and Sustained Dialogue called “Who Are You?” I have people recognize their I: individual traits, then G: group memberships. So, who are you as an individual and people respond about their likes, leisure activities, qualities, passions:

• I am someone that loves theater,
• I’m someone that loves to be outdoors, or
• I love just sitting in front of a warm fire.

They get to acknowledge we’re all individuals 1^st before they acknowledge their multiple group memberships. They do the same activity with their partner, who are you, but this time they use the Group Identity Cards.  When their asks “Who are you?” they can look down at the 30 options, and claim their various group memberships, for instance related to nationality, family stats, disability status, race, etc.

In this way, they’re naming their group memberships long before I talk about privileged/marginalized, but it’s in the room because you already have the mattering and marginalization stories.

So, I recommend that we don’t lecture about privilege and marginalization. If you only have a little bit of time, you may want to tell some stories about yourself. I’d start with times you were marginalized and then always ask who relates. And then, if you want to talk about your own privilege I would talk about when you weren’t as aware and how folks in the marginalized identities and some people in privileged identities helped to coach you, and now you know better.

I like to engage folks in sharing experiences and then I’ll backfill the concepts about privilege and marginalization.

And so, we may want to be even more thoughtful about meeting people where they are and having people’s stories be the ones that actually help people marinate in the concepts of group membership, marginalization & privilege.

And then, the Gallery Activity which you’ll see in the different materials from those webinars where people actually write out times they observed or experienced marginalization and microaggression.

Instructions before folks start writing would be:

• No names
• Make them generic
• A time when nobody said something/intervened
• A time when you experienced something, but somebody at least tried to speak up.
• Fold them in half, trade them five times, come back to a new group of eight or ten people.
• Read those stories aloud. By then, folks that are “in fragility” are usually more open to sitting back and listening to the experiences of others around them.