October 17-20, 2023 (Eastern Time)

VISIONS' PACE (Personal Approach to Change and Equity) Level I workshop is a comprehensive and intimate introduction to the strategies involved in creating multicultural environments. Upon completion of this course, we are confident that you will possess the necessary skills to identify and challenge "isms" within yourself, others, and organizations. This session emphasizes emotional growth, cognitive learning, and opportunities to practice new approaches.

PACE I serves as the foundational workshop provided by VISIONS. By the end of this course, we believe you will have acquired the following skills:

Identifying previously unconscious biases and misinformation within yourself, others, and organizations.
Enhancing effective communication across differences.
Recognizing personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural barriers to inclusion.
Understanding the enduring personal impacts of historical and contemporary exclusion and oppression, such as the effects of sexism on both men and women.
Facilitating change within groups and organizations to establish a supportive, inclusive environment.

Schedule:
October 17-20, 2023
Morning session 9-11:30am ET
Afternoon session 1-3:30pm ET

Cost: $1,150; $1,350 for those attending for CE credit.

Continuing Education Information

CE Credits Offered: 17

Learning Objectives

As a result of attending PACE I workshop, participants will:

Learn VISIONS' Three Dimensions of Change model.
Identify their historically included and historically excluded group memberships.
Summarize and explain the Multicultural Process of Change model.
Demonstrate awareness of how social and hierarchical power dynamics can operate in personal and group interactions.
Apply VISIONS' Feelings as Messengers emotional literacy model.
Utilize VISIONS’ Feedback as an Antidote to Oppression framework to analyze and mitigate the impacts of negative conditional and unconditional feedback in interpersonal and group settings.
Practice VISIONS' Skills for Effective Communication Across Difference.
Describe and apply VISIONS' Modern Oppression and Survival Behavior/Internalized Oppression framework to an analysis of dysfunctional interpersonal encounters.

This program is Approved by the National Association of Social Workers (Approval # 886744521-6539) for 17 continuing education contact hours.

Vigorous Interventions in Ongoing Natural Settings, Inc. (VISIONS, Inc.) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7400. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Vigorous Interventions in Ongoing Natural Settings, Inc. (VISIONS, Inc.) is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Facilitator Details

Michelle Holmes

Dr. Holmes spent years practicing primary care medicine in the South Bronx and among a largely immigrant population in a Cambridge neighborhood health center. In 2000 she transitioned to full-time epidemiology research, and she is based at Brigham Women’s Hospital where she is an Associate Professor of Medicine. Her research interests include lifestyle factors (diet, weight, physical activity, psychosocial factors, and common medications such as aspirin) affecting the quality of life and survival after a breast cancer diagnosis. She has helped to design a longitudinal study of non-communicable disease (obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer) at 5 sites in sub-Saharan Africa, relying on VISIONS principles to facilitate that multicultural collaboration. Michelle is both a dynamic presenter and a compassionate facilitator.

Leena Akhtar

Based in Western Massachusetts, Dr. Leena Akhtar brings a perspective she developed having grown up and lived in several different countries to her diversity and inclusion work. After starting her career in finance, she engaged in trauma studies at NYU and then earned a PhD from Harvard University. She has extensively researched and worked on issues of cultural change around discrimination, harassment, and power-based violence in organizations and institutions, work that she continues to do via her consultancy, The Greater Us, in addition to collaborating with VISIONS.

S. Gene Washington

Mr. Washington has 30 years of experience in leadership and management in major corporations. He is skilled as a Team Development and Change Management facilitator and has developed and conducted multicultural educational processes for over ten years. He is a military veteran and actively supports numerous community organizations. As a corporate manager, he was a key leader in corporate change and transition projects. He maintains an interest in understanding cultural worldviews and their influence on the relationships between people in organizations and teams.

Registration Details

Schedule

PACE I is offered over four consecutive days, with a morning and afternoon session from 9-11:30am and 1-3:30pm occurring on each day. A general outline for the major curriculum pieces to be covered on each day is below.

Day 1: Introductions, VISIONS Guidelines for Effective Communication Across Difference, Cultural Learning Activity, Multicultural Process of Change, and Contracting for Change.

Day 2: Welcome, Contracting (continued), Feelings as Messengers & Emotional Literacy, Cultural Sharing, Multiple Identities, Historically Included/Excluded Identities

Day 3: Modern Oppression and Survival Behavior/Internalized Oppression; Alternative Behaviors; Feedback/Recognition as an Antidote to Oppression

Day 4: Final contract review; Application Work; Closing

Refund and Cancellation Policy

If a workshop is canceled by VISIONS, participants will receive a full refund. If a participant cancels more than 30 days in advance of the training start date, they can receive a full refund or transfer to another session.

If a participant cancels 15-30 days in advance, they can receive up to a 50% refund or have a 50% discount applied to a future training.

Cancellations made 14 or fewer days in advance of the training are not eligible for a refund or transfer to another training.