How can we move from a society that normalizes injustice and harm into a culture of consent, healing, and accountability?
Deadline to Register: September 19th 2024
The course begins on October 1st with access to a full year of live discussion spaces! Now with unlimited access to the content (the content never expires).
bluelight academy's flagship Community Care + Accountability course is an overview of core Transformative Justice practices, references, and skills. This multimedia course now with live discussion spaces provides videos, readings with audio recordings, coaching, and grounding practices to support you in integrating everyday Transformative Justice into your life.
This course is for you if:
- You see conflict and violence in your communities, families, workplaces, and relationships and want the skills and strategies to intervene without escalating
- You believe that violence can be addressed in community without depending on the police or prisons, but are not quite sure of how to get there
- You can be self critical and/or perfectionistic and want to abolish your “inner cop”
- People open up to you about their traumas or interpersonal issues and you want more skills to be meaningfully supportive
- You have been struggling with burnout, or feeling overextended in your life - particularly because of the emotional labor you provide at home, at work, and/or in your family and friend groups
- You tend to be drawn into everyone’s conflicts and dramas and want clearer strategies to provide support while maintaining boundaries
- You sometimes (or often) feel overwhelmed by the violence in the world, and want strategies to rebuild a sense of hope in humanity and our collective futures
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You want to support survivors and/or those who have committed harm but are worried about compounding the harm instead of helping
This course is designed as a space to practice choice and freedom.
This means that each week's content includes a variety of modes of engagement, and enough content to return to for the entire year you have access. We encourage you to commit to checking out one resource each week during the initial 6 week course arc. You will have 5 live discussion spaces this fall, and then be invited to join optional live discussions on these topics through July of 2025. Fall live discussions take place from 9-10:30 AM PT / 12-1:30 PM ET
October 1st: Live Course Kick Off!
October 8th: Live Discussion on the roots of these practices (5-6 PM PT / 8-9 PM ET)
October 22nd: Live Discussion on practicing care and consent
October 29th: Live Discussion on conflict
November 19th: Live Discussion on shame and accountability
Window to complete closing 1:1 coaching session on integration and next steps ends on 12/1
12/1: optional reflection project is due
If you cannot attend a live discussion space - that it totally ok! We will share discussion / reflection prompts that you can do independently if you miss the live space or you can join the next time that discussion is held in the following term. This course will also be offered again beginning in the spring.
We provide a variety of supports for folks with different learning styles to engage in the content the way that aligns with their needs and interests, this includes providing 1:1 coaching, reflection and discussion questions to bring to your community, alongside the live discussion spaces, platform of multi-media content and the option to add a print workbook to bring the digital content into your physical space.
This course is taught by Spring Up
Spring Up is a collective of 11 Transformative Justice practitioners, liberatory educators, and care coaches; after over a decade of practicing Transformative Justice in our lives we decided to create a platform and connection space for people exploring and living into collective liberation. This course has been developed in community and collaboration with organizers, students, educators, care workers, and advocates, including the 700 alumni who provided feedback and dozens who have contributed reflections which are incorporated into the platform content.
“Transformative Justice (TJ) is a framework and approach for responding to violence, harm and abuse. At its most basic, it seeks to respond to violence without creating more violence and/or engaging in harm reduction to lessen the violence. TJ can be thought of as a way of “making things right,” getting in “right relation,” or creating justice together.
Transformative Justice responses and interventions
1) do not rely on the state (e.g. police, prisons, the criminal legal system, I.C.E., foster care system;
2) do not reinforce or perpetuate violence such as oppressive norms or vigilantism;
and most importantly, 3) actively cultivate the things we know prevent violence such as healing, accountability, resilience, and safety for all involved.”
- Mia Mingus (with editing support from Ejeris Dixon, Mariame Kaba, Andi Gentile and Javiera Torres), via Leaving Evidence
Once you sign up for the course, you will get access to the course platform - this will be your hub for information and dialogue. As soon as you log in, you will see an orientation module that includes:
- a detailed overview of what to expect from the whole course
- space to introduce yourself to the rest of the cohort in the written comments (you can even post a photo if you'd like!)
- a survey to let us know about your access needs, goals for the course, and if you need to be paired with a buddy
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a worksheet to plan out your term with guidance on how to coordinate with your buddy and block out time to go through the content during the 6 weeks of the course
Beginning on September 27th, you will receive a weekly email every Friday that informs you of upcoming opportunities to learn alongside relevant links to access content and zoom rooms as well as some guidance on what we recommend you review that week based on what you are most interested in learning about and your time availability that week (15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, or 2+ hours).
The week before the course begins you will also receive a safety and care plan that we encourage you to fill out in order to identify your support system and plan for how to care for yourself throughout the course.
Asynchronous online content includes:
- a core quote that introduces the topic of the week
- an overview detailing the core components that week and any content warnings to keep in mind
- a ~5 minute optional grounding or somatic practice (like a meditation, visualization, or song and journaling prompt)
- 1-2 core resources: this can be a video or two, or a video and an original essay, or an essay and a scenario / case study
- a set of reflection or discussion questions
- a variety of optional resources to choose from to dig deeper into the content, including essays (with accompanying audio recordings of our team reading them aloud), podcasts, webinars, even comic strips
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multi-media alumni reflections related to that week's content - these could be collages, videos, original songs, zines, or written reflections
Live Discussion Spaces for a Year
In addition to the asynchronous discussion space under the content on the platform, we also offer live facilitated spaces to discuss this content for a full year. These are spaces to connect with other participants and alumni, discuss the content, practice the tools live, and ask any relevant questions to practitioners and peers.
Registration for this course includes one 1:1 coaching session with one of our coaches. Spring Up coaching is a peer-based, flexible, non-therapy offering to help you clarify your goals and build your self-care and communication skills.
Our collaborative approach to coaching is based in a non-hierarchical relationship that is solution focused — coaches recognize that clients are experts in their own lived experience. Coaching is strengths-based and culturally specific in that coaches help the client enhance their inherent strengths, skills, and resources accessible to them. Spring Up coaching has an expectation that the client is ready to engage in further learning and implementation of that learning outside of the session.
During Welcome Week, you will be introduced to the coaches for this term as well as receive their calendars to sign up.
Buddies
Because we believe in dialogue based learning, self reflection, peer support, and integrating what you are learning into your life, we ask that everyone who participate do so with a buddy or group. Each individual within your group will register individually, however we will ask you to share who your buddy or group is with us during orientation before the course kicks off.
If you do not have a buddy or group to sign up with, there will be space in an intake survey to indicate that you would like to be paired with 2-3 other solo learners to support one another.
Groups of 5+
Groups of five (5) or more signing up together get a facilitated opening and closing live session with Spring Up facilitators; if your group has 5 or more participants please email [email protected] letting us know your group size and which course you want to sign up for so we can coordinate. You can also request an invoice if your organization is paying for you as a group.
This course is meant to meet you where you are, whether you have very little previous knowledge, or have been practicing for years.
- If you have never heard of transformative justice, but know that the way the criminal legal system is currently operating does not rehabilitate most people, and does not support most survivors of violence in healing → this course can work for you
- If you have heard of restorative and transformative justice, but are not quite sure where to start or how to incorporate them into your life without appropriating practices developed by women of color, queer folks, and indigenous folks → this course can work for you
- If you have heard of transformative justice and community accountability processes happening in your community, but are not sure the way folks are practicing it is in alignment with its core values → this course can work for you
- If you have experienced community accountability processes either as healing, or as sites of harm or coercion and want to learn more about the possibility models for how it can be done differently → this course can work for you
- If you are trained in restorative justice, and want to learn more about how you can incorporate transformative justice practices and tools into your work → this course can work for you
- If you have been practicing Transformative Justice in your life and community, and want to skill up and identify more tools and practices that can strengthen your approach and your sustainability in this work → this course can work for you
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If you have been practicing community accountability and community safety work, and want to find a network of practitioners to connect with and get support from around your projects → this course can work for you
Can my organization or workplace pay for me to register for the course?
- Yes, email us if you need an invoice for your group
- You can also register yourself and you will receive a receipt for reimbursement
- Email [email protected] with any other questions
Am I able to access the content off of the platform or offline?
- You can order a print copy of the workbook from our website or receive it as a patron (all content is included in PDF on the platform)
- PDF Readings can be downloaded to be printed or annotated
- Audio recordings can also be downloaded to listen on the go
- You can access the content on the teachable app, and download to watch even with no wifi
What if I don’t end up having as much time as I thought during these 6 weeks?
- You can continue going through the content for the rest of the year you have access
- You will get monthly reminders to go through content as access gets close to expiring
- You can let us know you’d like to be moved to a future cohort
What if I want more live time or hands on support?
- You can sign up for a bundle with a daylong facilitated retreat
- You can book more coaching on our website or through patreon
- You can bring us to your community to offer a webinar or retreat
How can I learn more about your approach to TJ before I sign up?
- Check out the free resources on our website
- Get copies of the workbook or workbook pack
- Sign up for the TJ mini-class
What accessibility strategies do you take to make this course work for folks with disabilities and different learning styles?
Our virtual learning experience is designed to align with a diversity of learning styles. We offer readings as well as videos, somatic exercises, podcasts and journal prompts. There are spaces for reflection, for discussion and for connecting, be it through our buddy system, our virtual discussion board, or coaching. A worksheet to support in executive functioning and planning is shared during welcome week that details all of the options for engagement with spaces to map out your plan for what to do and on what timeframe, this worksheet can also be done in partnership with a Spring Up coach to get additional support in executive functioning.
In terms of platform content, videos are all captioned and can be listened to. For videos that we make, we read off any text that shows up in that video. All of the readings and articles on our platform have audio recordings of the text. Most of them are accessible to screen readers but some of them, like embedded pdf workbooks, might be less accessible. If you need a different version of a reading, email [email protected] or leave a comment requesting the information you need and we will do our best to meet that need.
All live spaces are on zoom and include closed captioning. Live spaces tend to be scheduled in US timezone evenings during the week. 1:1 Coaching is more flexible with times available on coaches calendars at various times and days of the week for you to select from
Does this course work for folks outside of the US?
Yes, since each participant chooses what time of day to explore the content, this course is very flexible for people in different time zones. International students may be less able to attend the live mixers, but can still take advantage of 1:1 coaching and set up time to chat with course buddies closer to their time zone.
Is this course only in English?
At this time our content and resources are all in English - we are working on a translation of our workbooks to Spanish this year. You can request translation to other languages by emailing [email protected], with the subject "translation."
If you would prefer to receive coaching in Spanish, email [email protected] requesting coaching for the TJ course in Spanish.
Can you tell me more about the folks who made this course?
Spring Up is a collective of care workers, transformative justice practitioners, liberatory educators, and coaches practicing and teaching the liberatory arts here at bluelight academy. We cultivate a culture of consent and liberty for all through storytelling and popular education.
Curriculum Designers: The lead designers for this course are Spring Up co-founders and co-directors Stas (they/them) aka the imaginatrix, and Leander "Lea" (they/he) aka the mythematician. Stas is a nonbinary BlaQ Italian storyteller, and Leander is a transmasculine European American facilitator and lifelong learner.
We are a couple that has been in relationship, collaborating and healing together for the past 10 years. You will see us in videos, get to read essays we wrote on this topic, and get access to worksheets and tools that we developed in community over the past 10 years. This course comes out of our personal and professional experiences trying to practice accountability in our relationships, families, communities, and organizations. It is rooted in our formal and informal study and lived experience of race, gender, and structural/ historical systems of oppression as well as liberatory practices. As organizers and consultants the two of us have worked with(in) dozens of organizations and communities around North America and Europe.
The wisdom and tools we share throughout this course came out of long conversations filled with tears, anger, and laughter, long nights reflecting on hard truths, mistakes and harm we have faced in ourselves and our loved ones, and spaces to imagine, create, and play with abolitionist and anti-violence comrades. These are practices that have worked for us and the people we have trained and coached, and we are so excited to hear about practices that have surfaced in your life.