SASHA Center will host an immersive, in-person professional training Oct. 17 designed to help social workers and other helping professionals strengthen how they support Black women who have experienced sexual assault and gender-based violence.
The training will take place from noon to 5 p.m. at Avalon Healing Center, 601 Bagley St. in Detroit. Participants can earn 4.5 social work continuing education units (CEUs) through the program, which is being offered in collaboration with the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Part of SASHA Center’s Culture Cures and History Heals programming, the training will connect history, lived experience and culturally specific interventions with practical approaches professionals can apply in their work. The program draws on SASHA Center’s 16 years of work centering the experiences of Black women and girls.
“To support Black women, girls and others who have experienced sexual violence, we have to understand the history, culture and lived experiences that shape how they navigate trauma, healing and the systems meant to support them,” said Kalimah Johnson, LMSW, ACSW, LCSW, SASHA Center founder and CEO. “This training program gives professionals an opportunity to further that understanding and walk away with tools they can use to provide more culturally responsive, trauma-informed care.”
The program begins with “Bearing Witness,” an exploration of the history of sexual violence against Black women in the United States. Participants will examine historical records, writings, archival materials and documented experiences, including the stories of Recy Taylor and Rosa Parks’ early advocacy on behalf of Black women who experienced sexual violence.
The training will then focus on practical application, including trauma-informed and culturally responsive care, culturally specific interventions, centering lived experience in social work and human services, and language and communication, including African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
Participants also will examine how assumptions and stereotypes surrounding Black women can create barriers to being heard, understood and supported, as well as Black literature and scholarship that inform culturally specific approaches. Practical strategies for working with Black experiencers of sexual assault and gender-based violence also will be addressed.
Johnson will lead the training alongside Neefesha Marion, MSW, program specialist and MIHP coordinator at Henry Ford Health, and AeYanna Yett, MSW, Ph.D. candidate and facilitator with SASHA Center.
Johnson has 24 years of experience advocating for and counseling experiencers of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. She previously worked as a sexual assault and domestic violence social worker with the Detroit Police Department and taught interpersonal and community social work at Marygrove College. She created Black Women’s Triangulation of Rape Model, which examines systemic barriers Black women face when seeking services following sexual assault.
Marion specializes in sexual assault and domestic violence as a social work consultant, expert trainer, group facilitator and educator. Yett’s research centers on Black women’s sexual pleasure, healing and health outcomes after violence through Black feminist thought.
The program is intended for social workers throughout Southeast Michigan, as well as advocates, clinicians, behavioral health and human services professionals, service providers, community leaders and others whose work brings them into contact with Black women, girls and those who experience gender-based violence.
Participants will receive a certificate of completion, and lunch will be provided. Registration is available through SASHA Center’s website: https://www.sashacenter.org/workshopsandevents.