Across the so-called US, we have witnessed a violent expansion of the coercive tactics used by medical and mental health systems to target MMIND* community members — including the criminalization of homelessness, laws that allow for longer periods of “involuntary treatment” with looser restrictions around who qualifies, proposals for building new “mental health jails,” and the slashing of funding for community organizations and peer-led work.
This workshop series is intended as a much needed intervention, consisting of: political education teach-ins, skill sharing, interactive workshops, and a call to action to equip ourselves and our communities with the skills and tools to intervene and provide care without relying on the state or being forced to engage with psychiatric knowledge systems. We take care of us.
*MMIND: Mad, perceived as/labeled as mentally ill, neurodivergent, Disabled
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Part 1: Psychiatric Survivor Panel Discussion
DATE: Thursday, September 26th
TIME: 6:00-8:00 PM ET
RECORDING IS AVAILABLE
Since 2020, Project LETS has been documenting and archiving the oral histories of psychiatric survivors from within and outside of the so-called US. We are deeply excited to be facilitating a panel discussion with some of our oral history narrators, who are also psychiatric survivors. We will be exploring the experiences of psychiatric incarceration, ways of making meaning out of our crisis experiences, surviving the medical industrial complex, and finding opportunities for healing as folks who have been harmed by psychiatry.
Panelist Bios:
Mik (they/she) is a multi-hyphenate creator, restorative justice facilitator, and educator based in Harlem. They have committed themselves to working with drug users, sex workers, houseless folks, and people affected by incarceration for over 5 years, with joy and community guiding their work. IG: @mikaela.mp3
Xochi N. Touma-Kajatt Shoatz (she/he/they) is the granddaughter of Russell Maroon Shoatz. They are currently a studio arts major, an art history and Spanish minor at the University of Vermont. You can find Xochi on Instagram at @_iammaroon and @xochilikemochi.
Jazz Bell (they/them) is a disabled & trans multimedia artist and consultant based in Texas. They have extensive experience navigating mental health systems, have experienced forced psychiatric institutionalization, and have a Master's degree in Social Work. Find Jazz at jazzbell.me or jazzbellconsulting@gmail.com
Barbara/Barbz (she/her) is a root worker, conjurer and energy healing practitioner that specializes in Reiki and the Black American tradition of Hoodoo. Her practice focuses on using spiritual tools to promote wellness, create healing spaces that center black/queer people and encourage folks to vision a liberated future through healing justice. Barbz can be found on her Instagram: @BARBZTHEESUNFLOWER
Part 2: Healing Outside (& In-Between) the Medical Industrial Complex & Systems of Psychiatric Knowledge
DATE: Friday, September 27th
TIME: 5:00-7:30 PM ET
RECORDING IS AVAILABLE
In this teach in and collective conversation(s), we aim to interrogate the underlying assumption that psychiatric treatment modalities are the only way to heal. Historically and present day, approaches to care and healing outside of psychiatry have been delegitimized and dismissed.
Our co-facilitators stefanie lyn kaufman-mthimkhulu, koyotl xitlalli, tamara chacón, kay, darling, and maria alejandra will be discussing what is available for care and healing beyond psychiatry, and how other healing methodologies can support us while we navigate psychiatric/medical systems, and reindigenizing (decolonizing) care inside and outside of systems.
You’ll also hear from practitioners who seek to embody non-clinical values and approaches to healing in their lives and work. There will be time for a group discussion among co-facilitators and Q+A.
koyotl xitlalli Greetings, my name is koyotl xitlalli. I am an indigi-mexican, neurodistinct, low key disabled, queer, agender earthling, & my existence can not be encapsulated within these human made identity markers that continue to center the dominant culture. I have had many teachers and mentors who have shaped my awareness. Some of the lineages of the teachings that I carry with me are from the Nahua, Maya, Be'ena'a, Q'eros, Lakota, Diné, Black feminists, Yoga, the moon, wind, water, fire, and the earth, our home.
My studies have been in plant medicine, food medicine, Indigenous pelvic wellness, psychedelic liberation training, decolonial Yoga, and I am currently in a peer support counseling program (just to name a few).
Viewing our existence through an Indigenous lens expands the possibility of being-ness. Western psychology continues to be rooted in racism and ableism, and its inception was created by white affluent men who decided what the "norm" in behavior was. It is violently limiting and has created a culture of harm within therapeutic spaces.
I'm here to disrupt that oppressive system, and replace it with Indigenous wisdom (the wisdom of my elders, ancestors, and more than human teachers).
kay is the a co-creator of cosmic healing, a queer Black sista-led healing justice practice dedicated to honoring the realities, gifts, and destinies of marginalized folks through astrology. as a disabled descendent of enslaved (and) fugitive from the imperial empire, kay denies the colonial norms of traditional astrology and is instead led by her ancestors in exploring various revolutionary potentials, like how it can help us connect with our earth(ly bodies), as we believe the body is the best teacher. as a reader + facilitator, kay considers holistic safety and embodied understanding as the foundation for self-actualization towards collective liberation.
Maria Alejandra believes in the power of resistance through the reclamation of our bodyminds and bodylands; dreaming and conspiring in the construction of different worlds, while learning from ancestors, elders and peers. Re-grounding in their ancestral lands known as Colombia has allowed them to bring life to their calling and training as a space holder for embodied healing processes. As a companion, they offer the co-creation of processing, attunement, and learning spaces led by the wisdom of bodyminds for queer, BIPOC, MMIND folks.
Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is a multiply Disabled, Mad anti-carceral care worker and educator. They are rooted in historical and political lineages of Disability Justice and Mad Liberation, and show up for their communities as an organizer, parent, birth & death worker, peer supporter, writer, conflict intervention facilitator, and holistic healing practitioner. As the Director of Project LETS, their work specializes in building mental health care systems that exist outside of the state, reimagining everything we’ve come to learn about mental distress, and supporting care workers to build access-centered, trauma responsive practices that support whole bodymind healing. As a survivor of psychiatric violence, they are committed to supporting folks in accessing self-determined care without police or cages of any form.
and tamara (mara) chacón, msw
Hi, I’m mara - a chronically ill/spoonie, non-binary, lesbian, neurodiverse, mixed-race Chicané, cat parent, root tender, space holder, and radical care worker. I have been nurtured by the wisdom of countless ancestors, elders, natural forces/plant kin/animal kin, and Black/trans/indigenous/disabled activists in this work. I am here to do my part to disrupt, abolish, reimagine, and rebuild the broken systems of care around me.
To pay the bills, I have spent the past 10+ years doing direct service, development, and equity work within nonprofit systems seeking to aid people experiencing homelessness, poverty, and hunger. To work toward true justice, I am planting seeds and building pathways for radical care providers like myself to create sustainable, community-centered networks of care that reindigenize and decarcerate wellness.
I am currently spending my time building a practice as a radical care, grief, and disability doula and creating community care networks with mutual aid groups in Portland, OR (land of the Multnomah people).
Part 3: Interactive Workshops
WHEN: Saturday, September 28th
TIME: All workshops will be starting at 12:00 PM ET
We will have several workshops going at the same time. Each workshop has different topics, facilitators, and lengths. You can choose which workshop you’d like to register for below:
Planting the Seeds: Cultivating Peer-Support Networks by and for Young People
90 minutes
For a young person in mental health crisis, there are countless landmines to navigate, some of which include: mandated reporting, the school-to-prison pipeline, the troubled teen industry, and rapidly evolving technological surveillance. This space will be a teach-in and discussion-based workshop for youth to build upon each other's knowledge and lived experiences of these punitive institutions so that they can collectively develop stronger strategies to take care of themselves and each other.
Cap: 20 participants. Open to young people up to age 21. No knowledge or experience necessary! BIPOC youth will be prioritized.
Facilitator: Heena Sharma
heena (they/she) is a queer nonbinary aquarius weirdo, an indian savarna un/re-learner, a disabled new yorker trying to survive long covid & covid denialism, a youth co-conspirator with auntie/uncle vibes (depending on the day), a wayward facilitator & educator who thinks (and talks) nonlinearly, and a prison abolitionist organizer striving towards collective liberation via radical care. they are based in lenapehoking (harlem, ny). you can connect with heena at heena@projectlets.org or once in a while on the dying ashes of twitter @heenasharma_
Anti-Blackness and sanism in mental health care
2 hours
A workshop exploring the many ways anti-Blackness and sanism inform the "care" mental health workers offer and concrete ways to interrupt this violence in clinical spaces. This workshop will center the lived experience of those harmed by these systems of oppression while interacting with the mental health system.
Cap: 25 participants. Open to Black students and practitioners of mental health care / studies / disciplines.
Facilitator: Alyssa Christopher
Alyssa Christopher (they/them) is a mad, fat, disabled, Black/biracial, genderfluid agent of rage and sometimes (a lot of the time) 4th year clinical psych grad student. Their work in clinical psych spaces is focused on interrupting carcerality/anti-Blackness/sanism/queer-/transphobia, and radicalizing other mad mental health workers into fugitivity/co-conspiracy with (mad) liberation and psychiatric abolition. They hope to offer this workshop as a space for Black mental health "care" workers/students to build critical consciousness around sanism and explore what fugitivity/co-conspirator action looks like when Black mad lives are at the center of our care politics. In their free time you can find Alyssa reading romance novels (and crying), watching anime, getting tattooed, painting pictures of the clouds/sky, and dreaming about food/new recipes.
From Practitioners to Co-Conspirators: Alternative Harm Reduction Strategies for Systems Workers
2 hours
In this workshop we will utilize intuition and shared wisdom to identify what parts or our work are particularly carceral, dehumanizing, and violent mechanisms of the state. We will collectively workshop in smaller groups to identify opportunities for resistance and strategies to reduce harm. We will strive to move our mind-set from “practitioners” to “co-conspirators” with the communities we work with, knowing that these systems often hoard life-saving resources, guarded by dehumanizing and inaccessible “protocols”. We will explore how we can utilize informed-consent, choice-based, and harm-reduction practices to mitigate compounded systemic harm, decode access, map and hack the sanist systems many of us still need and rely on on to live and fight another day (read:medical, mental health, basic needs, benefits systems). We will co-vision alternative approaches and strategies that will help us to question our relationship to carceral interventions and protect ourselves spiritually and materially to the best of our abilities. The goal of this workshop is to collectively explore realities + practices that maintain autonomy, dignity, and ideally build deeper trust with the communities we aim to support.
Cap: 70 participants
Facilitator: Es Leso
Es is a mad, mutltiply-disabled, queer, second-gen, mixed-race (costarricense + white ashkenazi jew), non-binary femme. Es's life/work is deeply informed by their experiences as a lifetime psych and medical-industrial-complex survivor. They've had the privilege of dreaming and building queer/trans/disabled community spaces in NYC for the last decade and a half. Es has also worked as a social worker for the last 10+ years, co-creating care & access maps with other mad & disabled folks navigating varying service systems throughout the city. Es is an abolitionist who believes the revolution will not be systematized and views social work as a relatively flawed practice of harm reduction. Es's interests include poetry, graphic novels, and the New York Public Library. Es is the Oral History Coordinator @ Project LETS a project working to gather narratives of psychiatric incarceration & abuse, with the aim of creating an "by-us-for-us" historical and informational archive of survival strategies for others navigating the psychiatric industrial complex.
Facilitator: Adrian Marcano
Adrian (they/them) is an Afro-Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian, disabled, neurodivergent, nonbinary, native New Yorker. They are currently trying to find ways to have joy under capitalism and ableism, such as really letting themselves get into a hyperfixation (sewing) and petting their cat Popeye. Adrian has worked as a social worker for the last seven years and believes that the field is fundamentally flawed; they work with a harm reductionist framework to co-create genderful and intergenerational trauma holding spaces with participants and coworkers.
Astrology as a spiritual alternative to clinical therapy
2 hours
No attendee cap
In this two-hour space open to practicing astrologers, enthusiasts, newbies & skeptics, we'll explore the healing potential in astrology as a consistent practice. Returning regularly to your natal astrology and/or the astrology of the moment provides opportunity for holistic reflection, as well as self/collective understanding & affirmation. kay will offer ideas and discussion questions for how to utilize this cosmic language for deconditioning, re-indigenization, existential meaning-making, and self-actualization either on your own or with a consulting astrologer.
Facilitator: kay, darling
kay is the a co-creator of cosmic healing, a queer Black sista-led healing justice practice dedicated to honoring the realities, gifts, and destinies of marginalized folks through astrology. as a disabled descendent of enslaved (and) fugitive from the imperial empire, kay denies the colonial norms of traditional astrology and is instead led by her ancestors in exploring various revolutionary potentials, like how it can help us connect with our earth(ly bodies), as we believe the body is the best teacher. as a reader + facilitator, kay considers holistic safety and embodied understanding as the foundation for self-actualization towards collective liberation.
Supporting Peers Through Psychiatric Incarceration
2 hours
No attendee cap
In this workshop space open to anyone who supports folks through psychiatric incarceration, including psych survivors themselves, we’ll explore strategies used to keep people out of psych wards (resources to use before a crisis is happening), skills and resources when someone is inside (whether they initially entered voluntarily or involuntarily), tools for getting people free, and providing care after psychiatric incarceration. We’ll be engaging with a holistic range of healing modalities and possibilities for care during crises, and also talk and tangible survival resources, such as Psychiatric Advance Directives. Stefanie will share ideas and resources as a psychiatric survivor who has spent the last decade getting and keeping people out of psych wards; and we will collectively engage in discussion questions and strategizing around how to keep our people safe and free.
Facilitator: Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is a white (Puerto Rican + Ashkenazi Jewish), queer + non-binary, multiply Disabled, Mad anti-carceral care worker and educator. They are rooted in historical and political lineages of Disability Justice and Mad Liberation, and show up for their communities as an organizer, parent, birth and death worker, peer supporter, writer, conflict intervention facilitator, and holistic healing practitioner. As the Director of Project LETS, their work specializes in building mental health care systems that exist outside of the state, reimagining everything we’ve come to learn about mental distress, and supporting care workers to build access-centered, trauma responsive practices that support whole bodymind healing. As a survivor of psychiatric violence, they are committed to supporting folks in accessing self-determined care without police or cages of any form.