giving back to the community project
February 2007
An update from Dr. D’Andrea: Moving to finalize the location, purpose and format of the GBTCP at the ACA annual convention.
Building a Vision and Unity in the Counseling Health and Education Professions:
A Social Justice Perspective
** Please note that this is a summary of many of the ideas expressed by members of the NIMC Giving Back to the Community Project along with input from representatives from ACES, AMCD, CSJ, and the NIMC… changes can be made but we need to have a completed agenda and statement of purpose very soon to promote our marketing of this initiative.
Proposed purpose and format
Purpose: The Giving Back to the Community Project (GBTCP) is designed to serve three (3) primary purposes.
First, it provides a unique opportunity for mental health, educational, administrative professionals, students, and community activists from diverse fields and disciplines in the greater Detroit area to come together with ACA members from across the nation to articulate their views of a new vision for the mental health and education professions. This will be accomplished by securing time in which leaders and grassroots workers/social justice advocates from Detroit will share their views along with those members of ACES, AMCD, CSJ, and the NIMC regarding the positive directions the fields of mental health and education can take in better serving the needs of people from diverse groups in our society.
Second, the GBTCP provides an opportunity for mental health, education, administrative professionals, students, and community activists from diverse fields and disciplines in the greater Detroit area to come together with ACA members from across the nation to discuss practical ways in which we can develop a greater sense of unity among ourselves and other persons with whom we all have contact in our communities as we strive to foster a greater sense of human dignity and development in our work endeavors. This includes but is not limited to developing a new network of contacts among the persons from diverse fields and disciplines in the greater Detroit area, graduate students in the area, and those members of ACES, AMCD, CSJ, and the NIMC who attend and participate in this special event.
Third, the GBTCP is aimed at providing time in which the discussions and training that ensue from this project will result in new and more effective intervention efforts among the mental health, education, administrative professionals, students, and community activists from diverse fields and disciplines in the greater Detroit area as well as with those members of ACES, AMCD, CSJ, and the NIMC) who participate in this event. The underlying premise in this objective is to highlight how our collaborative efforts in Detroit can enrich the professional work we all do in our local communities.
Proposed Format:
The GBTCP will be held at ***** from 12:00 noon – 4:30 pm on Thursday March 22, 2007. The format of this event will include: [1] an opening address regarding the ways in which we can create a new social justice vision and a greater sense of unity among ourselves and our allies; [2] responses and added suggestions by persons in the greater Detroit areas as well as comments by other members of ACES, AMCD, and/or CSJ; [3] smaller break-out sessions that focus on more specific aspects of the vision and unity theme described in points #1 & 2; [4] a second action-oriented plenary; [5] an open and public evaluation of the GBTCP; and a public presence to share the ideas generated at the GBTCP at the opening reception of the ACA Convention.
Proposed agenda:
12:00 noon – 12:45 pm – Opening address entitled “Providing the Space to Build Unity and Vision in Detroit and Around the Country: A Social Justice Perspective” (possibly done by Dr. Thomas Parham – Long-time leader and visionary in ACA). This address will: [a] provide an opportunity to state the format for the GBTCP, [b] provide a clear context for other collaborative discussions that will follow this opening address; and [c] present the view that social justice counseling strategies that are aimed at effectively addressing the complex problems of racism, classism, hetereosexism, ageism, ableism, and other forms of cultural oppression and violence represent the keys in the new helping paradigm that is unfolding in the fields of mental health and counseling.
12:45 – 1:30 pm – Responses from 2 or 3 persons (possibly 2 persons from the greater Detroit area and 1 person from AMCD, ACES, CSJ, or the NIMC) who will focus on and expand the opening speaker’s comments by directing attention to some of the practical strategies that can be implemented to promote a new vision and a greater sense of unity among human service professionals and educators in the greater Detroit area and around the country.
1:30 – 1:45 pm Break
1:45 – 2:30 pm Smaller breakout sessions entitled something like: “Dealing with Racism, Sexism, and Violence in Our Schools and Communities: A Social Justice Perspective;” “Building New Professional Networks that Promote Vision and Unity: A Social Justice Perspective;” “Developing New Competencies to Support Our Vision and Unity: A Multicultural-Advocacy Perspective.”
2:30 – 2:45 pm Break
2:45 – 4:00 pm Second Plenary Session – “Where do we go from here in terms of implementing any of the ideas that were discussed in the GBTC project?”
4:00 – 4:20 pm – Open evaluation of the project
4:20 – 5:30 pm - Adjourn and move across the street to have a public presence in promoting the notion of the need to create a greater sense of vision and unity in the counseling profession that embraces a social justice perspective. Rather than use the term “A March and Rally”, it is suggested that the term “having a public presence” may better capture our efforts to go to the opening ACA reception at the Convention Center with posters and perhaps flyers that describe the purpose of the GBTCP, the ways in which we are approaching the challenge of building a new vision and greater unity in the profession, and the need for such actins to occur on an on-going basis in ACA at the opening reception.
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The 2007 Giving Back to the Community Project:
Building Unity and Vision with Counselors in Detroit
The “Giving Back to the Community” program was initiated by the National Institute for Multicultural Competence (NIMC) and the American Counseling Association (ACA) during the 2005 ACA convention in Atlanta, Georgia. The Giving Back to the Community (GBC) project is intentionally designed to achieve two fundamental goals.
First, the GBC project is designed have counselors attending the annual ACA convention work collaboratively with other counselors, educators, and human service providers in the local communities where the annual conventions to address relevant community issues in ways that foster mutual growth and professional development.
Second, the GBC is aimed at highlighting the unique challenges people in the local communities where the annual ACA convention is held and describing the types of services counselors can provide that effectively address these challenges.
There are many reasons why Detroit is a perfect city for ACA and the NIMC to host another giving back to the community initiative. Detroit is a metropolitan city with the types of racial and class divides that characterizes many large urban metropolitan communities. It is a metropolitan community, which could really benefit from the professional services and expertise of ACA leaders. Since the ACA conference unites large numbers of helping professionals for its convention it seems only right that these individuals and ACA would offer their services and give back to the community which will host its convention.
The 2007 ACA and NIMC “Giving Back to the Community” initiative is designed to serve a three fold purpose:
To bring together mental health serve providers in the Detroit area and counselors from ACA to learn from each other
To dialog and create a unified vision of helping professionals
To provide different types of training based on the needs of the community
It is proposed that a site in the downtown area, which is less than a mile from the convention center, be selected for the training site. Dr. Chaney from Oakland University is working on establishing a suitable site.
A call would go out to community agencies and schools in the area to elicit their support and involvement in the day of learning. Dr. Chaney is coordinating this effort to contact agencies.
The goal would be to have 50-100 participants from Detroit involved in the training. In addition 50-75 graduate students from different universities who will be attending ACA will be asked to participate. NIMC leaders are in the process of pledging to bring 1-10 students from their respective universities in an effort to train young professionals in community activism, social justice counseling, and advocacy.
This training/day of learning would happen on the day before the ACA convention begins and it would be held from 9am to 3:30 pm. What follows is a TENTATIVE agenda for the Day of Giving Back to the Community. Clearly, we need to have a large group discussion about proposed changes individuals might want to suggest in this PROPOSED agenda.
TENTATIVE AGENDA
A plenary would be held in the morning aimed at building unity and vision around 9:00 am – 11:00 am. During this time period local community activists and mental health service providers would engage in a dialog about the road blocks and barriers that hider building collective unity and vision and how to transform these barriers in to a collective vision for action.
From 11:00 am –12:30 the large group will break up into smaller thematic groups to discuss issues of particular relevance to the persons in the greater Detroit area who are working in diverse human service settings. This may include groups that focus on children and adolescent issues, work-related issues with persons who have contract HIV/AIDS, individuals with substance abuse issues, family violence, sexual abuse, persons with disabilities, individuals adversely impacted by various forms of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism and other forms of cultural oppression, and other high risk populations. In addition to having groups that focus on these issues, we may want to encourage discussion/professional development groups that also focus on prevention, empowerment, advocacy, social justice organizational development considerations.
From 12:30-1:30 will be a break for a working lunch.
From 1:30-2:30pm Participants will re-convene into their groups to focus on the types of new action strategies that they might employ as a result of participating in the first half of the day’s training and discussions.
From 2:30-3:30 will be a closing plenary and call for “collective action.” This call could direct attention to [1] how the participants from the Detroit/Michigan area might network with one another to build on the new ideas that were generated during the day’s training and development activities to more effective service the persons they are working with and [2] have the ACA/CSJ/AMCD/NIMC members discuss how the day’s activities have led them to think about new action strategies they might employ individually or in concert with these national organizations upon leaving Detroit at the end of the convention.
From 3:30 the group will march from the site to the Convention Center for the opening party of the Exhibit Hall.
