Foster Care Training

Like many systems of oppression, sexism affects everything we do and everywhere we go in the United States, regardless of our individual sex(s). We are all performing sex-based gender roles dictated by how the world perceives us. What does this mean for each of us and what we’ve experienced? How is the harm and pain created by sexism impacting us, our clients, and the work we do in the child welfare system? The statistics around domestic violence, gun violence, abuse, isolation, and more, show us that socialization around sexism and gender roles, and the way masculinity and femininity are being taught are leading to pain, damage, and fractured communities. We are all impacted by sexism. How can we imagine our world beyond what seems to be such a formative concept, so that we can thrive as our most full and brilliant selves? In this day-long workshop, participants will investigate their own socialization into a system of oppression based on sex-based gender roles. We will cocreate a supported space to explore what we’ve learned and how we have been impacted by sexism. Through lecture, group process, experiential activity, and reflection, attendees will learn language and the historical construction and function of sexism and will consider how sexism fits into the larger system of oppression. Participants will have space to explore their early learnings and notice where they have learned to accept and collude with systems of masculinity or femininity, in order to imagine diverse possibilities for sex, gender, and our communities outside of a sexist model.