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Efforts towards creating just, multi-racial, multi-cultural communities or organizations often focus on increasing the number of previously under-represented people, increasing awareness of racial bias and repressive histories, or educating people around systemic oppression and social supremacies.
But it’s not at all clear that those approaches have moved the needle fast or sustainably enough in terms of actual lived experience in schools and organizations, or in daily life. Arguably, some well-intended approaches to systems change have resulted in unintended consequences – leaving systems more vulnerable to inequity.
What if we reframe our approaches?
What if there are no safe spaces? What if we consider mistakes, ignorance, bias, and even harm as expectable human traits? What if we leverage personal practice instead of changing beliefs to drive systemic change?
Those questions drive the work of the Institute for Liberatory Innovation to reframe equity in terms of liberatory change, which shows when more people thrive, and behave in ways that make it possible for others to thrive. It’s measurable change, without an end.
This webinar explored this reframing, and the possibilities it presents for systems change that supports thriving, at the interpersonal, organizational level and beyond.
During this engaging session we
Reconsidered approaches to systems change and equity
Questioned the notion that changing beliefs is the most effective path to changing experiences of inequity and injustice.
Familiarized ourselves with five personal practices that drive liberatory systems change.
Speaker: Lucinda J Garthwaite
Co-Hosts: Marta Ceroni, Russ Gaskin, Melissa Darnell
We invite you to download the slide deck we used in this session. We also invite you to explore these links to learn more:
Enjoy essays from Intersections, the Institute for Liberatory Innovation's newsletter.
Reframing Equity In Organizations: Accelerating and Sustaining Change drives change on relational and systemic levels, and builds the capacity to sustain it.
Learn more about the work ROCA, Inc. to whom webinar participants generously donated more than $400. Roca’s mission is to be a relentless force in disrupting incarceration, poverty, and racism by engaging the young people, police, and systems at the center of urban violence to address trauma, find hope, and drive change. As an organization, and in their work with young people, ROCA’s behavior is defined by restorative practice. No young person is too tough for Roca, even if they have lost all trust and hope for the future. The ROCA model has changed thousands of lives, with award-winning outcomes.
Lucinda is the founder and Director of the nonprofit Institute for Liberatory Innovation. The ILI generates innovative solutions to create liberatory environments - where compassion leads to action, curiosity inspires connection, and accountability ensures sustained progress. Their work invites people to think and behave differently, and to align their day-to-day lives more closely with an increasingly thriving, just, and peaceful future.
Prior to founding the ILI in 2019, Lucinda worked in youth-serving organizations; and taught writing and social change at the University of New Hampshire and Goddard College, where she also co-directed the undergraduate program, and served as Academic Dean.
Lucinda holds a Doctorate in Leadership for Change from Fielding University, and is a Fellow of the Fielding Institute for Social Innovation. She also has Masters in Education from the University of New Hampshire, and an MFA in Creative writing from Goddard College. She’s the author of Bumbling Humans: Reflections on Liberatory Change (2023). She posts regularly in the ILI newsletter.
The Well-Being for All Webinar Series: A Shared Inquiry into Well-Being in Systems and Ourselves. Co-hosted by the Academy for Systems Change and CoCreative
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