Healing

This web page chronicles my healing training, education, relationships, and practices for youth, families, and non-human mammals since the 1970s.

1970s

Met a social worker named Brenda Strong Nixon,  the longtime former executive director of Associates for Renewal in Education, Inc. (A.R.E.) and one of the founders of the Consortium for Youth Services and Consortium for Child Welfare who would later become one of my foremost mentors.

Met Samuel H. Wilson, Jr. and Anna Hall (who were married at the time), two theater professionals and youth outreach workers who would later become two of my foremost mentors.

1980s

Completed a Youth Fellowship at the U.S. Institute for Peace & District of Columbia Arts Center in the summer of 1986.

Met Baba Chuck Davis, at a West African Dance class at Howard University. He was a RN, choreographer, dancer, dancer teacher, and community health and nursing educator. Baba Davis was the first person to strongly encourage me to study nursing.

Began studying Contact Improvisation with Cathy Paine & Mixed Media in 1986.

First worked as a facilitator in 1987 for the DC Urban League & SMYAL (for LGBTQ youth) in 1987, beginning a lifelong practice as a fieldworker for neighborhood violence prevention.

Trained at the Wilkins Family Child Care Center under Rosyln Wilkins in 1987.

Took a summer course in trauma informed care with Dr. Amos N. Wilson at Providence Hospital's Adult Education Program in 1988.

Took coursework in 1989 with Dr. Amos N. Wilson in anti-racist social psychology at Medgar Evers Community College in Brooklyn, NYC.

Took first vows as an Ordained Buddhist Upāsikā (with advanced mindfulness training) in 1988 at Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Thailand under Maechi Chandra Khonnokyoong.

Began working with Samuel H. Wilson, Jr. at the Arena Players in 1988 in Baltimore, MD.

Began studying herbology and African holistic health in 1988 with Dr. Llalia Afrika, Donatella Egwu & Maria Sabina at the Banneker Recreation Center in Washington, D.C.. DCAC (Summers).

Offered (with Deborah Roffman, a pioneer in the field) sexuality education workshops at the Park School and other locales in Baltimore, MD and Washington, D.C. in 1986, 87, and 89.

Began working in 1988 as a night nurse at DC General, Maryland General, and Providence Hospitals. 

First became a Licensed Nurse (LPN) in 1988 (at Baba Davis' suggestion) after studying at the Capital Health Institute School of Practical Nursing & Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C. Baba Davis was one of my teachers.

Took the boards test (NCLEX) and became an RN.

Took workshops with Lee Donald Stern to learn the Alternatives to Violence Project methods. Mr. Stern then asked me to lead a support group for young "offenders" at the Lorton Reformatory prison outside of Washington, D.C. in Virginia. 

Began studying deep pressure therapy at MidAtlantic Holistic for humans and non-human animals, and, in 1989, began working semi-annually at the Maryland State Fair to offer mindfulness combined with deep pressure therapy for agitated farm animals and domesticated pets (such as dogs and cats).

1990s

Began studying Indigenous approaches in 1990 for restorative justice practices and talk circles with Ruth Revels, a Lumbee tribeswoman, elder, and teacher.

Began working with Brenda Strong Nixon in youth services as well as organizing with the Consortium for Youth Services and Consortium for Child Welfare.

Became an RNP via SNB-RNP in 1991.

Earned a Certificate in 1991 in trauma informed care & harm reduction from the Armstrong School & A.R.E. 

Became a Licensed Social Worker (LSW) in 1992 after passing the ASWB at the Clinical Social Work Institute in Washington, D.C.

Completed practitioner training in 1992 with Augusto Boal at the ATHE Conference in Atlanta, GA.

Took another stage of perpetual Upāsikā vows with the AI fellowship in Philadelphia in 1993 (AI was a small, private humanistic, American Buddhist peace fellowship founded by my dear friend Nizah Morris).

Completed practitioner training in 1995 in Conflict Studies with the Peace Troupe & Gary Wood in Fort Royal, VA.

Earned Certificates in 1996 from the Midwest Holistic School of Massage (Columbus, OH) plus Yoga for Children & Wat Po Healing at the Suai School (Thailand).

Studied at the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality in 1996.

Earned a Certificate (Level I) in 1996 in Tuina & Qigong Healing from the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine in the Guangdong Province in Southern China.

Worked intermittently as a part-time night nurse at the Walter P. Carter Mental Health Hospital in Baltimore from 1991 to 1995.

Worked as a part-time night nurse at  the Ohio Hospital for Psychiatry in 1995 and 1996.

Worked as as a part-time night nurse at Hahnemann Hospital and St. Joseph's Hospital from 1997 to 1999.

Completed practitioner training in mindful movement, oral history, and community research between 1995 and 1998:

• Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen (1995). 
• Alexander Technique with Barbara & William Conable (1995-1996). 
• Laban/Bartenieff Fundamentals, Motif Description, Effort Phrasing, Space Harmony, Labananalysis with Vera Maletic & Odette Blum (1995-1997).
• Ideokinesis & Ethnography with Drid Williams (1998-2000).

Earned a Certificate in Conflict Studies at the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago, IL.

Audited advanced coursework in Negotiations & Conflict Management at University of Baltimore in 1999.

2000s

Studied healing circles (hocokah), talk circles and medicine wheels with Anne Keller, Lakota elder and teacher, in 2000 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Worked as a part-time night nurse at FutureCare,

Studied with Barbara Kaiser on children's behavioral health.

Roots to Branches

From these roots, I branched out as a healer in the following ways.

United States

• I led or co-led hundreds of workshops, mediations, facilitations, trainings, and programs involving healing practices of mindfulness, restorative justice, conflict transformation, anti-violence, and gender-and-sexuality education. 
• I worked at public and private schools (grades K-12), nonprofits, community centers, and homeless shelters throughout the Northeast, Southern East Coast, and Midwest United States.
• Some of the many schools within which I offered workshops or residencies were the Lewis Ada H. Middle School in Philadelphia; the Canton Arts Academy in Columbus, Ohio; Harlem Park School in Baltimore, Maryland; as well as McKinley High School and Rudolph Elementary School in Washington, D.C. 
• Some of the many recreation centers or community centers within which I offered workshops or residencies were or are the McKim Center, the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, 29th Street Community Center (formerly called the Barclay Recreation Center), Penn North Kids Safe Zone/Haramabee Center, Cecil Kirk Recreation Center, Chick Webb Center, Ella Bailey Recreation Center, Gardenville Center, James D. Gross Center, Greenmount Center, Twelfth Street YMCA, Market Five Gallery, the Stable Arts Center, and the 3rd Avenue Space.
• I was one of the practitioner-educators on a research team sponsored in part by Coppin State University's Allied Health and Nursing programs that carried out a mindfulness study at Cecil Kirk Recreation Center in Baltimore. 
• I was one of five Program Managers for an initiative called Children’s Behavioral Health Interventions, a joint program of St Joseph's Hospital, Hahnemann Hospital, Lewis Ada H Middle School, and four other under-served schools in the greater Philadelphia region. This initiative attempted to study the use of mindfulness and restorative practice to transform the behavioral health and wellness of students within predominately African American, historically under-resourced schools.
• I was a manager charged with ensuring the fidelity of mindfulness and mindful movement interventions on a team of practitioners for a research study at Franklin Square Elementary/Middle School partly sponsored by the Kennedy Krieger Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
• I co-facilitated or co-managed trainings for the Urban League, the Arena Players, the DCAC, Project RAISE, the Minority Task Force on AIDS/FACES; Bebashi, Inc.; Unity; GLAAD of Decatur, IN & Chicago, IL; NAASCA; Public Allies; SMYAL; OutPost; Innerground Railroad Project; My Sisters Place; and House of Ruth.
• I taught extensively in jails, prisons, and juvenile detention facilities as a healer, mindfulness guide, and restorative justice practitioner. I offered monthly healing circles focusing on de-escalation for young "offenders" at Lorton Reformatory beginning in 1989 long before that facility’s closing, and served as a liaison with agencies dedicated to providing services for re-entry to prisoners who were to be released. I taught weekly "writing for peace" workshops at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women through the Goucher Prison Education Program. I also led  restorative healing circles at the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center, Alfred D. Noyes Children's Center, Franklin County Juvenile Detention Facility, and the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

International

• For Genders Within International Rescue League, (a nonprofit organization that I co-founded), I traveled internationally once or twice a year in in 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1997 to cities like Ilé-Ifẹ in Nigeria, Kingston, Jamaica, Bridgetown in Barbados, Monrovia in Liberia, and Accra in Ghana to conduct mediations, rescues, and healing on behalf of oppressed women and LGBTQ peoples who were in imminent danger or to accompany them to safety on pre-arranged freight or cruise ships. (The idea for the work of Genders Within now continues in the work Rainbow Railroad Rescue (https://www.rainbowrailroad.org).
• My work for Genders Within also took met to the Mediterranean, within African immigrant communities in coastal Italy; Nigeria, and the Caribbean, including missions to accompany oppressed queer peoples seeking to flee their homelands. 
• I co-founded (with Achara Saetang and Gloria Phellps) the Innerground Railroad Project, and the now defunct Rak Kun Kham Phes Project (รักคนข้ามเพศ/Rạk khn k̄ĥām pheṣ̄), to offer women-focused and LGBTQ affirming healing throughout Southeast Asia (especially Thailand) and to co-teach harm reduction workshops emphasizing positive, supportive understandings of gender difference.