OUR Cries: The Role of CISM in Racial Violence

Presentation Details: This workshop will be presented as an interactive workshop using either GoToWebinar or Zoom so that participants can see me as I present.

Purpose and content: Our country (and even around the world) saw many challenges last spring and summer with the murder of George Floyd and the prior murders of other Black people (and others like Breonna Taylor) pushed many in our country into outrage and massive protests. We also saw an increase of unprovoked violence against Asians over the last year along with brazen acts of violence by white supremacists, leaving BIPOC individuals and communities in a constant state of trauma and real fear.

With the national protests and subsequent violence against peaceful demonstrators, we saw the negative impact on employees of all backgrounds, and others wanting to be advocates and allies to stop violence against BIPOCs. Employees struggled daily for months trying to deal with the traumas we all witnessed and continued to see. Most recently we witnessed the storming of the US Capitol by people carrying Confederate flags, swastikas and other symbols of groups whose sole purpose is the decimation of all BIPOCs.

Employers were suddenly thrust into trying to protect employees, stakeholders, and create safe spaces to discuss the difficult parts of ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion; while others were unsure how to support employees who were emotionally traumatized and communities were reeling from looting and other forms of violence; some from within and some violence perpetrated by outsiders (read white supremacists).

The purpose of this workshop is to see how we can and must address the needs of employees for emotional and physical safety while at work; including being free from the risk of or actual acts of hate and violence, because they are BIPOCs, immigrants, LGBTQ and/or women. This purpose is also to discuss the need to have clinical and non-clinical CISM responders who are diverse in racial and cultural backgrounds as well ensuring that CISM responders have a strong understanding in diversity, equity and inclusion practice to be able to guide leaders in the workspaces and support traumatized employees to help in the healing process.

As a POC and someone who is well-versed in guiding conversations on coping with and healing from racial trauma, I (along with many other BIPOCs) were called on many times during the past year to guide these conversations (with much success) to help employees and employers work through the traumas; while supporting companies' efforts to ensure safer work spaces and support others in creating and developing ways to become true allies; which in turn helps to increase companies productivity and helping employees using modified versions of the Mitchell model to accommodate for the racial component.

OUR Cries will be based on the acronym I've developed:

O: Oppression: How current and historical racial/cultural oppression and racial violence impacts individuals and communities and how it impacts employees in the workplace
U: Understanding: We must affirm and acknowledge the oppression and violence. This can only be done when we have a level of cultural responsiveness and aware of our own biases. We must also understand that better recruitment of BIPOCs and bilingual CISM responders is critical and should support in increased recruitment and retention to serve various employers/communities.
R: Respond by creating safe spaces for impacted persons to share and find healing using the Mitchell model, but ensuring that we are "naming" the trauma for what it is.