Training Summary:

This training will assist providers in reflecting on their own power and privilege within their personal identities, while also considering the intersectional context of the system involved youth and families they support. Through personal assessment, group discussion, and multimedia, participants will define three types of microaggressions, explore examples through news and pop culture, and discuss how microaggressions are directed at a variety of different identity categories (i.e. race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc.). Finally, through group activity and roleplay, participants will explore four possible responses to microaggressions and reflect on how their choice of response is related to their level of power & privilege. All examples given are within the context of working with system-involved youth & families. Together, we will develop examples of the 4 C responses—clarification, curiosity, compassion, & confrontation—to support system-involved youth in school-based settings.

Class Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

1. Define microaggression & differentiate between three types of microaggressions;

2. Acquire four strategies for responding to microaggressions; and

3. Roleplay responding to microaggressions in small groups & analyze each person’s responses based on individual levels of power & privilege.

Learning Application:

1. Participants can understand how microaggressions can undermine relationships with system involved youth and those that support them in school-based & community settings.

2. Participants can choose and apply the most effective response to a given microaggression based on context within efforts to support system involved youth in various settings.