Black Women's Collective Care Circles
The Black Healing Centre’s Collective Care Circles are culturally competent Black-led multilingual psychosocial support groups for the Black community of Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). Our Collective Care Circles provide a weekly caring and supportive space that focus on deep listening, storytelling and communal care. The groups focus on learning skills with the intention of managing anxiety, depression and trauma in the body.
The Black Women’s Collective Care Circles:
Group 1, will focus on Working With What Is:
Working With What Is, is a psychosocial support group that engages deep listening and storytelling to encourage everyone to come in with what they are holding and where they want to get too. We will work with elements of Journaling (awareness of and attention to and honouring thought) , loving kindness and self compassion (grounding and cultivating space within) , social presenting theatre (getting unstuck), playback theatre (listening to self and other, spontaneity, creativity , improvisation) and guided visualization (symbols and the unconscious).
Group 1 Objectives:
Objective 1: to feel care, and reciprocity of support, community and trust.
Objective 2: to learn some skills to be able to listen to self, become aware of thoughts, feelings, behaviours, triggers and tolerance, to become benevolent witness for each other and ourselves, to develop self compassion and go beyond self acceptance into enjoyment.
Objective 3: come as you are, bring what you hold : racial trauma, general mental health, relationships, family and cultural expectations, school stress, as well as, aspiration, goals, dreams & strivings.
Group 2, will focus on Healing Trauma:
Healing Trauma is a psychosocial support group that aims to engage with our difficult stories that sometimes don’t receive the care, the time and the space that they need. It’s a deep listening, storytelling and communal space where everyone comes in with what we are holding and an openness to explore what is and where we want get to. The work explored in group 2 will go further than the work that group 1 will be doing. Group 2 will go deeper in terms of community and vulnerability. Everyone who signs up for group 2 has to committee to the full 12 weeks to foster a safer and consistent healing space for everyone.
Group 2 Objectives:
Objective 1: To feel care, and reciprocity of support, holding and community space and trust. Come as you are, bring what you hold. We will respect your rhythm ABSOLUTELY.
Objective 2: To learn some skills and strategies to manage the negative effects of trauma in your body and your life.
Objective 3: To be able to listen to self, become aware of thoughts, feeling, behaviours, triggers and tolerance, to become benevolent witness for each other and ourselves to develop self compassion and find the words for your own journey.
Pricing:
To honour the therapists labor and gifts we will not be to providing these circles for free.
(1) 180$/ month for 1 group.
(4) If you have the means please consider gifting a Black woman access to free mental health care HERE.
Please note:
(1) These groups are reserved for Black women ages 21+.
(2) In order to ensure everyone feels nurtured, spots are limited.
(5) These groups will be guided in English.
(6) Insurance receipts are available for this course! Please check with your insurance to know if psychosocial support is covered.
MEET THE THERAPIST:
Dr. Lisa Ndejuru is a psychotherapist, psychodramatist and theatre practitioner.
Her practice is about creating accessible, non-medicalized, scalable strategies for healing and change in our communities, impacted by the violence of anti-blackness in all its forms. Violence flattens our lives and creates silences. Lisa wants to work on intergenerational transmission of trauma, breaking the silences and repairing trust within our communities. Lisa works to open pathways to wellness, emancipation, and finding one’s voice in a post-colonial context of everyday oppression, systemic racism, and large-scale political violence. Lisa’s work on trauma started in her community with survivors of organized violence and colonial violence. She was one of the 2017 Concordia public scholars and the first John F. Lemieux fellow for genocide studies in 2018. As the 2020 Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto’ faculty of information, she is working with the “Vansina collection” of Ibitekerezo tales.
