Our Statement of
Community Care

Healing Justice

We do not see our communities or our identities as problems that need to be fixed. In fact, our communities strengthen society through who we are and what we bring. We recognize that systemic oppression and degradation (colonization, white supremacy, ableism, patriarchy, queerphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, capitalism, etc.) lead to our experiences of suffering, trauma, and mental health issues. We believe in our ability to heal and transform through our practices and traditions, and that these are integral to our survival.

We recognize the ways the mental health system has been used to pathologize and criminalize our communities; this system often does not have the tools for us to expand our notions of mental wellbeing outside of a white, able-bodied, straight, Christian, Western, medicalized lens.

We honor the traditions, creativity, and cultural practices QTPoC have used to build resilience and survive. We see these as gifts to be strengthened alongside the work held by healing practitioners.

We commit to building balance and longevity in this work. We practice self-love and self-care to be present with our spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical needs.
We commit to engaging in our own healing as we know this directly impacts our skills and capacities as practitioners. Our self-care is an essential part of collective care for our communities.
We move interdependently with the knowledge and wisdom of other traditions and practices for mental, emotional, spiritual and psychic well being. If we are not able to offer a practice/service based on our capacity or knowledge, we will share strategies with other healers, or provide recommendations and/or referrals.

We commit to cultivating healing resources rooted in social justice and liberation. We recognize that the mental health field continues to be largely inaccessible, neglectful, and harmful to those who live at the intersections of multiple systems of oppression. We understand our work as healing practitioners as essential to all movements and efforts to build power for queer and trans people of color.
We commit to continue exploring liberatory practices integral to our survival that may have been hidden, stolen, or co-opted as a result of colonization and displacement from our traditions and practices.

We acknowledge that caring for ourselves and our community is a radical act of resistance. In homage to our ancestor Audre Lorde, we remember that preservation of ourselves and each other as QTPoC is “an act of political warfare”.
We will provide radical care for our community by making every effort to connect QTPoC seeking services with appropriate resources. We agree to provide referrals to those seeking services in the event that we are unable to work with them. We commit to returning calls and emails from those reaching out to us for support within 24-48 hours on weekdays. We are responsive in this way because we know how difficult it can be to reach out for help given our histories of trauma, pain, and violence.
We will prioritize our own growth and development personally, collectively, and as practitioners.

We believe that as QTPoC, we have a right to heal. We believe in our infinite capacity to transform the trauma and suffering we have experienced. We honor each person’s lived experience, unique healing journey, resilience, and joy. We see ourselves as an important piece of a larger collective, emotional, spiritual, psychological and physical unfolding happening in a person’s life.
As survivors of historical, intergenerational, state, community, familial and interpersonal violence, we believe we have the power to transform the trauma and harm that has impacted our individual and collective well being; and so we honor our ability to hold self-determined processes that heal and intervene on trauma and harm in our lives.