6 Apr, 2022

Ask Nicole: Applying Reproductive Justice Beyond Programs & Services

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-04-05T09:26:50-04:00April 6th, 2022|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: Ask Nicole, Capacity Building, reproductive justice|0 Comments

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

Reproductive Justice presents an added layer to how organizations engage and hold themselves accountable to the communities they work with. While program design, monitoring and evaluation go hand in hand, it can be difficult to envision how this framework looks beyond programs and services.

From program feedback to developing leadership opportunities, it’s easier to see how to apply RJ to your programming, services, and data driven processes like research and evaluation.

But not everyone in your organization works in these departments.

If Reproductive Justice is an organizing framework that centers the leadership, perspectives and voices of people typically at the margins, how can this be applied in every area of your organization?

Let’s look at one example: Health insurance coverage.

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23 Mar, 2022

Try This: Reproductive Justice & Program Design

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-03-23T13:02:14-04:00March 23rd, 2022|Categories: Program, Service, & Campaign Design|Tags: Monitoring and Evaluation, program design, reproductive justice, Try This|0 Comments

Try this activity, and let me know how it goes for you.

I partnered with a client organization to engage staff and board of directors in understanding the Reproductive Justice framework, and its application to organizational programming and other areas respective areas.

We started with a RJ 101 session in December 2021, followed by a more advanced training for staff in January 2022.

During the January training, each program was presented, and we discussed, using the insights from the RJ 101 training, how each program currently embodies RJ values and principles OR how the program can apply these values and principles.

In comparison to the Reproductive Health and Rights models, Reproductive Justice is an organizing framework, prioritizing intersectionality and the leadership of communities of color and other marginalized identities to challenge and change structural inequities (Forward Together, 2005).

While the RJ framework is easy to understand and more relevant compared to the “pro choice” vs “pro life” debate, strategizing how to apply the framework outside of traditional community organizing contexts can be a challenge.

So, how can your programs prioritize the voices and leadership of the communities your organization supports?

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone responsible for developing programs and services
Anyone responsible for leading and participating in program evaluation activities

Here’s what you need:

Set aside a full day (or several days) for strategizing, where you and your staff can work uninterrupted (as we’re still in a pandemic, determine how this will work for an in-person setting or a virtual setting) Make sure to schedule breaks
Whatever setup you use to capture your process (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.) but make sure it’s kept in a place that you can refer back to

The steps:

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27 Jun, 2019

Back to Basics

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:40:54-04:00June 27th, 2019|Categories: Consulting|Tags: consulting, reproductive justice|0 Comments

It’s that time of year, where nonprofits, community-based organizations, and other entities spend down their budgets, finalize funding reports, reflect on their successes and create goals for the new fiscal year.

It’s a pretty hectic time for me as well. While most of my client contracts start on the calendar year, I’m rushing alongside them to get things done by the end of the fiscal year.

One of my goals for Year Four of my business is to go back to basics. Specifically in these three ways:

Blogging about reproductive justice and intersectional analysis was the initial reason people started following my work. While I’ve embedded RJ into the content I’ve created in the past, what I want now is to make more explicit RJ-related content by way of my blogs, future webinars, and trainings. There’s a major difference between learning about RJ and actually incorporating it in our personal and professional lives, and I want to help people bridge that gap.
After processing everything I’ve worked on in the past year with my clients, I’m noticing that there’s a greater need for me to strengthen how I teach and coach my clients, hone in on their learning styles and information retainment, and figure out how to best break down concepts into digestible and easy to understand formats.
When I say “raise your voice for women and girls of color”, how am I working with my clients to actualize this? What does this look like for them? How are they currently doing this, and how does my working with them as a thought partner help them reach this level of engagement with the communities they serve?

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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.

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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.

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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…”

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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.

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

“I am from a body that…”

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