19 Oct, 2017

Should I Pass You the Mic, Or Speak For You?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:58:15-04:00October 19th, 2017|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: activism, community organizing|0 Comments

With the rise of storytelling as a form of advocacy and resistance, and various forms of research and evaluation that place communities, researchers, and evaluators on the same playing field gaining in popularity, I’ve been refining my thinking and processes in develop more effective strategies for centering the voices and lived experiences of women and girls of color.

When I’m working with my clients, I always have in the back of my mind who I’m really working for. And it’s not my clients. My clients are essentially the gatekeepers. They provide the programs, services, and initiatives that are designed to reach women and girls of color. Depending on what I’m doing with clients, I’m tasked with finding ways to engage women and girls of color to share their experiences in order to measure the program, service, or initiative’s impact. But before I’m an evaluator or program designer, I’m an activist and community organizer.

The Center for Evaluation Innovation’s 2010 brief, “Grassroots Action and Learning for Social Change: Evaluating Community Organizing”, posits that evaluating advocacy initiatives and community organizing campaigns should be participatory, more prospective rather than less retrospective, learning-based, culturally responsive, and less academic. The brief also shares a framework for evaluating community organizing campaigns, which includes:

Craft evaluation questions that are relevant and useful to organizers to generate buy-in and participation
Set clear yet flexible interim benchmarks that focus on outcomes related to various organizing components (such as participation and membership, organizing wins, and organizational capacity)
Utilize data collection methods that fit the style of the organization and tailored to capture various components of organizing
Develop buy-in and trust for successful implementation
Set achievable expectations to maximize learning and sustainability
Use evaluation results to create impact
Clarify what “success” means

Innovative and engaging frameworks and methods like these is what making program design and evaluation fun for me. And you’d think that processes like these are a no-brainer, but they aren’t for many organizations and communities.

(more…)

13 Oct, 2017

Try This: The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:57:47-04:00October 13th, 2017|Categories: Speaking & Facilitation|Tags: reproductive justice, Try This|0 Comments

“The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now” is a reflective call to action process that frames our experiences, highlights the commonalities of our lived experiences, and connects our stories to the current social climate to promote action. I first learned of this process from Jamia Wilson. Jamia shared it with me as I was preparing to speech related to young women of color several years ago.

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper
Something to write with

The steps:

This process connects your personal story to current problems our communities are facing, and to the larger vision of a world we want.

Using the topic of Reproductive Justice:

The Story of Me: Share your story of how Reproductive Justice connects with your identities. Use a personal story that brought your attention to various reproductive oppressions and injustices.
The Story of Us: Share the current state of how reproductive injustices are impacting your communities. Use prompts such as “We live in a world where…” or “When I look around my community, I see…”. This can be related to policies that do more harm than good, lack of sex education in your school, or historical or current events such as the shackling of pregnant prisoners during labor and delivery or involuntary sterilization of women of color
The Story of Now: Share your vision for reproductive freedom. Use prompts such as “We will have reproductive justice when…” What would be the end game to have Reproductive Justice? What would that look like in your community?

You can do this process alone or in a group. If in a group, have participants identify the commonalities in their stories and develop a strong call to action (CTA). Try this exercise and let me know how it goes.

SaveSave

RAISE YOUR VOICE: Share one way you can use The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now process below in the comments section.

Like this post? Subscribe to the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive resources, advice, and tips to help you raise your voice for women and girls of color.

Sign Up

SaveSave

16 Aug, 2017

Self Care Corner: Face Your Worst Case Scenario

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:55:12-04:00August 16th, 2017|Categories: Self & Community Care|Tags: Self Care Corner|0 Comments

If you’re someone who, in the words of Gabrielle Bernstein, has a tendency to future trip, this Self Care Corner exercise is for you.

We all have things that we worry about, and oftentimes thinking about what could possibly happen causes more anxiety than the thing we’re worried about.

Over the weekend, I read a blog post by writer and law of attraction coach Kelli Cooper of Life Made to Order. Kelli writes:

One of the best ways to clean up your energy is a willingness to receive all outcomes. A willingness to accept the things you fear worst may happen. A willingness to believe that maybe those things have to happen in order for you to make the shifts required of you. A willingness to believe that even if these things happen, it’s still all good and you’ll be okay.

I started thinking about an issue that’s been causing me a great deal of stress over the past few months. After giving myself time to wallow in self pity and thinking about the worst thing that can happen, I took out a small notebook and began to write.

When an issue is stuck in your head and has no way of releasing itself, it can seem overwhelming.

But when you stop running from your issue, turn around and observe it with non judgment, what once seemed insurmountable begins to look like something you can deal with.

This is a process you can do alone, or (if you’re a social worker or someone in the helping professions) walk your clients through it.

Here are 9 questions to ask yourself:

(more…)

9 Aug, 2017

Try This: Storytelling for Reproductive Justice

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:45:38-04:00August 9th, 2017|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: reproductive justice, Try This|0 Comments

(Image: Renee Bracey Sherman. Source)

“Reproductive Justice can be used as a theory for thinking about how to connect the dots in our lives. It is also a strategy for bringing together social justice movements. But also, it is a practice-a way of analyzing our lives through the art of telling our stories to realize our visions and bring fresh passions to our work.” ~ Loretta Ross, “What Is Reproductive Justice?” (Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change)

Why is storytelling so powerful? Because it works. Before video, social media, and other media we use today, many of us remember listening to stories as children from our parents and grandparents. Stories resonate with us and helps us build powerful connections with others. Sharing our story also helps others to build compassion, especially when they haven’t had the same experience.

Storytelling isn’t something new when it comes to advancing Reproductive Justice. Testifying before political leaders, using social media, blogging, podcasting, or video, attending speak-outs, or simply sharing between close friends and loved ones are some examples of how storytelling can be used as an empowerment tool. And today’s exercise will hopefully do just that.

This exercise can be found in the We Are Brave Toolkit: Building Reproductive Autonomy and Voices for Equity, created by Western States Center (with a few adaptations from me). The exercise was co-authored by Karla Castaneda, Diego Hernandez, Oscar Tzintzun, and Rebecca Shine of Momentum Alliance in Portland, Oregon.

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper to write on (or notepads)
Writing utensils for each participant
Flip chart paper and markers
Chairs arranged in a circle (or have the participants seated on the floor in a circle if they are able to)

The steps:

There are several parts to this exercise, but I’m focusing on the writing portion. The writing prompt given is

“I am from a body that…”

Using the prompt, spend 15 minutes or so sharing how Reproductive Justice connects with your identities. Being a young person, person of color, woman, trans person, person living with a mental health diagnosis, coming from a poor background, living in a “red” or flyover state, are just some identities we can write about.

Here’s a slight adaptation: In 2011, I spoke on a Congressional Black Caucus panel on on young women of color and reproductive health activism. I wasn’t sure how to craft speech. Jamia Wilson shared this process of connecting my personal story to current problems our communities are facing, and to the larger vision of a world we want:

The Story of Me: Share your story of how Reproductive Justice connects with your identities (This is essentially the “I am from a body that…” prompt)
The Story of Us: Share the current state of how reproductive injustices are impacting your communities using the prompts “We live in a world where…” or the prompt “When I look around my community, I see…”
The Story of Now: Share your vision for reproductive freedom using the prompt “We will have reproductive justice when…”

(more…)

2 Aug, 2017

Ask Nicole: 4 Ways to Become Better at What You Do

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:45:05-04:00August 2nd, 2017|Categories: Consulting|Tags: Ask Nicole, consulting|0 Comments

Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

No one starts out knowing every thing. It takes a while to get there. And when you finally obtain a level of mastery, there will always be more opportunities to hone your skills and expertise.

If you become frustrated because you feel like a novice, amateur or (even worse) a fraud, you’ll never realize your full potential. If you believe that you know everything there is to know, you prevent yourself from learning new ways of approaching your work.

Here are 4 ways to become better at what you do:

Surround yourself with people who are better at what you do

This can be a little intimidating, but if you shift your perspective from one of intimidation to one of opportunity and a willingness to learn, it can be priceless.

One of the benefits of surrounding yourself with people who have a higher level of expertise and/or who have been in your field for some time is that it allows you to not only learn their way of thinking; you can learn about the pitfalls they may have encountered while on the road to honing their knowledge. You probably won’t dodge bullets completely, but you’ll be able to spot those pitfalls more quickly.

Heads-Up: It’s very common to be so inspired by someone else that we may imitate them. Interestingly, you will notice that surrounding yourself with people who are better at what you do often leads to developing your voice from their perspective. Your blogging, podcasting, speaking, social media presence, and more may take on the tone of that person(s). However, the more your confidence grows, the more you’ll be able to develop your own voice and perspective while still being inspired by the people who helped you along the way.

Find paid, free and low-cost opportunities for training and professional development

Back when I had a day job, I LOVED going to one-day or multi-day trainings, many were local to my area and were free. Mostly because it allowed me to be away from the office. I also enjoyed when my employer would invite trainers to the office who facilitated on interesting topics. (Maybe being away from my desk and not doing any work is why I enjoyed those, too).

(more…)

Should I Pass You the Mic, Or Speak For You?

Try This: The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

RAISE YOUR VOICE: Share one way you can use The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now process below in the comments section.

Like this post? Subscribe to the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive resources, advice, and tips to help you raise your voice for women and girls of color.

Self Care Corner: Face Your Worst Case Scenario

Try This: Storytelling for Reproductive Justice

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

“I am from a body that…”

Ask Nicole: 4 Ways to Become Better at What You Do

Surround yourself with people who are better at what you do

Find paid, free and low-cost opportunities for training and professional development

This Is A Custom Widget