Culturally Informed Support for Black Women Survivors: The Safe Space Project
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Although much has been written about surviving and thriving after abuse, there are very few resources for addressing the needs of Black women. Dr. Tyffani Monford begins this training by discussing the historical and current failures of victim services to meet the needs of Black women. She discusses the resulting mistrust of systems that claim to assist survivors. She then directly addresses the legacy of slavery and the myths about Black women that continue to cause harm and contends that the failure to attend to this history and these myths has consequences for treating survivors.
Dr. Monford then describes the Safe Space Project, which provides support groups for Black women. She reviews what support groups can and cannot do and offers tips for engagement and interpersonal connection. Dr. Monford describes how to set up safe support groups, including developing rituals, addressing key topics, and offering healing practices. She provides examples throughout the workshop and concludes with discussion of how professionals can move forward with providing more effective services for Black women.
Training topics include:
- Historical and current failures in culturally informed work with Black woman survivors
- Addressing unique issues in Black woman survivorship
- Survivorship as multi-faceted
- The Safe Space Curriculum and its components
1) Improve services for Black women who have experienced abuse
2) Implement a support group for Black women survivors of abuse.
3) Critique the historical and current failures of victim services to address the needs of Black women survivors.
4) Describe how the legacy of slavery and cultural myths about Black women act as obstacles to high-quality care.
Audience
This training is for professionals working with people who have experienced complex trauma as well as people who have perpetrated abuse. Professionals who will benefit from this training include social workers, psychologists, clinical counselors, and interested paraprofessionals.
Content Level
Who's Presenting
Tyffani Monford, PsyD
Dr. Tyffani Monford is a licensed psychologist. She has served as a consultant and trainer under various federal and state grants. In addition, Dr. Monford has been appointed to various state and county committees focused on those within the juvenile justice system. Dr. Monford provides mental health trainings and has served as a panelist at conferences focused on culturally informed mental health services, gender-responsive treatment, the school-to-prison pipeline and black girls, educating black girls in white spaces, intersectionality and social justice work throughout the United States. She has been featured on local and national news programs addressing the importance of emotional wellness in Black communities, mental health in times of national crisis, and the school-to-prison pipeline’s impact on Black Girls.
Dr. Monford is the Owner of Monford Dent Consulting & Psychological Services, LLC through which she provides ongoing mental health consultation and assessments. In 2020, she co-founded Centering Sisters, LLC, an organization dedicated to projects that center the needs of Black Women, Girls, and Femmes.
Dr. Monford is the author of three books: Girls Got Issues: A Woman’s Guide to Self-discovery & Healing, You Got This! A Girl’s Guide to Growing Up, and Black Girl: Unapologetically and the co-author of two others: Becoming Who I Want to Be: A Good Lives Workbook for Young Women and its accompanying Counselor’s Edition. Dr. Monford’s primary area of interests are sexual violence prevention and intervention on the continuum, the role of intersectionality in the lives of Black and Brown girls/women, and culturally informed work with those within the juvenile justice and educational systems.