Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,
We at Acknowledge Alliance see and hear the outcry across the nation and world for change due to systemic inequities. We’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the pain of the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others in the Black community who have lost loved ones in similar unjust brutalities across generations.
We stand together with Black students, Black teachers, Black families, and Black communities for racial equity and justice. While we may not have all the answers, we want to be part of the change. Resilience requires acknowledging pain and trauma. It requires looking inward at our participation in other’s pain. It requires authentic connection with others. It requires action.
In order for us to promote lifelong resilience and serve the students and educators who need our support, we have to see, hear, and value them. And to really do that, we need to look deeper and understand the systems of privilege and oppression, systemic injustice, and the underlying issues in society that have directly and/or indirectly affected each individual, including ourselves.
Our team at Acknowledge Alliance made it a priority to talk about race, power and privilege as a group over the last five years. We participated in agency workshops that helped us learn about and engage with cultures and communities that are different from our own. We particularly spent this week listening, reflecting, unlearning, learning, sharing resources, and having uncomfortable but necessary conversations to educate and better ourselves – as therapists, as mentors, as leaders, as community members. Our agency’s core values include cultural humility and diversity. We strive to acknowledge, understand and respond to a diversity of cultures. We believe it’s important to provide culturally appropriate and culturally responsive services. We share, support, and challenge each other to maintain the most reflective practices.
Schools and teachers have the capacity to shape the knowledge, mindsets, and skills of our youth. As mental health professionals serving school communities, we work to be inclusive, curious and open to all perspectives and dialogues. We have the best interest of students and teachers in the forefront of our work at all times, even when that means confronting the trauma of discriminatory practices that many of our youth face. The relationships that we build are strengthened by our foundation of humanity, love, care, trust, dignity, and resilience. Just like we focus on long-term outcomes in our therapeutic work, we will focus on creating long-term change in our community by helping our youth envision new possibilities for their future without being held back by systems of discrimination.
Together in community,
Acknowledge Alliance
Click here for some resources to help with learning, action and dialogue.