Institute for Black Liberation

Participants are required to attend three in-person immersive sessions at the Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being. There will be three, one-week (weekdays) immersive sessions listed below:

• Immersion 1: Monday, September 18, 2023 through Friday, September 22, 2023 from 9 am to 4 pm daily, with optional community building time from 4 pm to 5 pm.
• Immersion 2: Monday, January 29, 2024 through Friday, February 2, 2024 from 9 am to 4 pm daily, with optional community building time from 4 pm to 5 pm.
• Immersion 3: Monday, May 20, 2024 through Friday, May 24, 2024 from 9 am to 4 pm daily, with optional community building time from 4 pm to 5 pm.

In addition, there will be monthly two-hour group sessions during the months where there is not an immersive session and individual coaching (this spans over the course of six months). Additional components include weekly check-ins and office hour visits between participants and Institute leaders. Immersive sessions will be in-person and the others will be virtual.

In total, the time commitment for participants includes:

• Required Hours
  • 105 hours of in-person immersive sessions
  • 10 hours of virtual group sessions
• Optional Hours
  • 15 hours of in-person community building time during immersive weeks
  • 5 hours of optional assignments

The Institute’s framework is inspired by the work of Dr. Barbara J. Love. She has written extensively about liberatory consciousness being a crucial means of ensuring liberation workers, who are “committed to changing systems and institutions characterized by oppression to create greater equity and social justice,” operate effectively (“Developing a Liberatory Consciousness”).

Participants in the Institute will take part in a process of self-discovery, reflection, intensive training and learning focused, in part, on healing racial trauma and promoting well-being, identifying and dismantling internalized oppression, examining and exploring strategies for celebrating racial identity, building power through collective development of leadership skills and kinship with others, and developing tools to sustain change through generations.

The Institute for Black Liberation (the “Institute”) emphasizes developing a liberatory consciousness to give Black leaders in the Eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois region the opportunity to name, reckon with and heal from racial trauma and the pervasive effects of internalized and structural racism. Developing a liberatory consciousness is the process of re-imagining one’s assumptions and beliefs about self and others and interrupting internal beliefs that undermine productive actions and relationships with others, which thereby increases their presence, productivity and effectiveness personally, professionally and in community.

Like other professional development opportunities, the Institute enables participants to gain new skills and bring them into the workplace for the betterment of the enterprise and advancement of the mission. Participation in the Institute will be instrumental to growing a stronger team, increasing productivity and performance, and increasing job satisfaction and morale, which will in turn increase team member retention rates. These outcomes are the same as those to be achieved with professional development generally. In addition, participation in the Institute will expose participants to new ideas, expand their networks, provide them with additional expertise for analyzing and governing themselves, and improving their well-being, which will translate into enhanced performance in their positions, and better relationships with other team members and managers to bring about increased quality of performance to the enterprise.