DEI Training Series

Introduction

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Standing Group (DEISG) identifies and coordinates training opportunities with a goal for inclusive and intersectional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training. The DEISG proposes different types of training to engage Alliance members wherever they are with their DEI practices. Training opportunities will address different learning styles and topic familiarity while incorporating community elements.

  • Training types: speaker/presentation, panel discussion, workshop, multiple session series
  • Learning styles: active learning, group discussion, think + write, interactive response, Q&A
  • Topics: diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, identity (personal, community, and systems), LGBTQ+ topics, anti-bias, anti-harassment, community and collective care, policies and practices

FY26 Opportunities: Community & Collective Care

Zoom’s automated captions will be available for all trainings. Trainings that include recording will use human-provided and edited captions for the recordings.

Visit DEI Training, Previous Years to review information for past training opportunities.

Strategizing for Collective Care and Protection While Honoring Our Limits

Trainer: Yejin Lee, Founder, Equity & Justice Practitioner, Jeong Coaching & Consulting LLC

Dates: October 21, 2025 at 2-3pm for Part 1: Facilitated Processing Space
October 23, 2025 at 1-3pm for Part 2: Workshop with Framework & Tools

Recording and Materials: Yejin is preparing a workbook, and we’re processing the session recordings. We hope to post all materials by mid November.

Portions of this workshop connect with Recognizing, Utilizing, & Disrupting Our Individual Defaults in Service of Equity & Justice, a workshop we had with Yejin in April 2025. Participants may want to review the recording and materials from that workshop.

Description: We are living through a particularly oppressive period of degenerative chaos and conflict. For those of us seeking to translate our principles of equity and justice into our everyday lives, we must tenderly but courageously confront an important tension that exists between: (1) doing what we can to materially care for and protect marginalized peoples; and (2) existing within the bounds of our own bodyminds and capacities so that we can sustain our commitments. In order to make space for our own care in a way that is not rooted in hyperindividualism and selfishness, we must organize this work as a part of an interdependent community of practice.

In October, anti-oppression facilitator and coach Yejin Lee (she/they) of Jeong Coaching & Consulting LLC will be offering members of the Orbis Cascade Alliance community a two-part workshop to support participants in finding responsive and strategic ways to show up in “the work”™ without disposing of their own needs.

Session 1: Facilitated Processing Space. Tuesday, October 21st from 2-3pm PDT

The first part of this workshop series will be a facilitated processing space for the group to collectively ground ourselves in the political realities of the moment, and in the possibilities and limits of our minds, hearts, bodies, and efforts. In order to redefine care from a relational and trauma-informed lens, Yejin will help us to:

  • Free ourselves from the hyperindividualistic treatment of “self-care” in order to make space for interdependent organizing;
  • Discuss what it means to center the needs of marginalized peoples while honoring our own bounds and limits;
  • Identify ways each of us can offer care and protection in these times.

Session 2: Workshop with Framework & Tools to Strategize for Collective Care. Thursday, October 23rd from 1-3pm PDT

The second part of this series will focus on offering practical frameworks, tools and processes to build an interdependent web of care and protection that honors both our expansive abilities and our limits. During this session, Yejin’s objectives for us are:

  • To increase our capacity to center consent and utilize trauma-informed practices when developing strategies of care and protection;
  • To learn how to surface necessary data & information about external organizational & human factors and internal/personal considerations to set responsive strategies; 
  • To build capacity in translating data & information into strategies that center the needs of multiply-marginalized people without treating our own labor in extractive and violent ways; 
  • To support participants in understanding what type of exhaustion they are experiencing, and what kind of rest they need;
  • To unveil additional considerations when identifying and honoring our limits as individuals (e.g. neurodivergence, chronic illness, other compounding marginalizations, accumulated fatigue/burnout, making room for joy); 
  • To explore how to build an interdependent web of care and protection in practical ways (culminating in the development of a menu of collective care actions/activities).

Participants will receive robust follow-up materials from Yejin following the workshop series, including a comprehensive and tailored workbook to help this community translate their learnings into concrete practices.

Trainer Bio: Yejin Lee (she/they) is a queer, genderfluid, neurodivergent, and second generation Corean anti-oppression facilitator and coach who supports individuals and institutions in proactively choosing and materially committing to long-term transformation towards liberatory praxis.

Yejin draws from their professional experiences in nonprofit community organizing, fundraising, governance, strategy, and operations, and also from her informal roles as staff advocate and generative nuisance. Yejin is a lifelong student of abolition, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, disability justice and anti-fascism. She is passionate about integrating care, wholeness, and directness into all spaces, and invites softness, lightness, and play when needed and appropriate!

Emotional Intelligence for Culture Change: Awareness, Accountability, and Impact

Trainer: Ali Brokaw, Training & Facilitation Specialist, Right To Be

Date: November 18, 2025, 10:00am-11:30am

Online Training: Registration for Alliance Members (via Right To Be’s Zoom). This training will not be recorded.

Description: Emotional intelligence (EQ) isn’t just a personal development skill — it’s a foundational practice for building respectful, accountable, and powerful teams. At Right To Be, we see emotional intelligence as a core skill for shaping culture — not just managing communication. Rooted in our mission to end harassment and build a world where everyone feels safe and respected, this training offers practical, accessible tools to help people show up with greater self-awareness, connection, and care. We support individuals and teams in shifting from reactivity to intentional action — especially in the everyday moments that shape how trust, accountability, and belonging are built over time.

We’ll have plenty of time for personal reflection and opportunities to share thoughts – in the chat, anonymously through Slido, and perhaps in a collaborative Google Doc. There will be no breakout rooms.

Learning Objectives:

  • Explore how emotional intelligence supports both everyday connection and high-stakes communication.
  • Examine the core components of EQ — including Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, Social Skills.
  • Practice tools for staying present, navigating tension, and responding with clarity and care.
  • Build emotional habits that support trust, accountability, and long-term team wellbeing.

Trainer Bio: Ali Brokaw is a dynamic leader, strategist, and trainer committed to empowering individuals and organizations to create safer, more caring communities through anti-violence initiatives. With a Master of Management and Leadership from Webster University, Ali excels in developing transformative programs, including an award-winning series that engages men as allies in power-based violence prevention. As a Training and Facilitation Specialist at Right to Be, she gets jazzed about providing opportunities for skill development and forging a better way forward. On a personal level Ali enjoys hosting board game nights and completing escape rooms!

Applying Boundaries as a Trauma-Informed Tool

Trainer: Nisha Mody, Life coach, writer, and former librarian

Date: December 3, 2025, 1:00pm-3:00pm

Online Training: Registration for Alliance Members. This training will be recorded.

Description: This two-hour workshop will introduce boundaries as a trauma-informed tool. We’ll discuss how boundaries can be applied to practical situations in a professional context for supporting library workers, their colleagues, direct reports, supervisors, administrators, and patrons.

Nisha approaches this work from an anti-oppressive, relational, and trauma-informed lens. We’ll co-create an experience grounded in reflection, curiosity, humility, and growth. This approach isn’t to provide final solutions, but to start conversations, ask different questions, reframe what is “normal,” and navigate how this can look in organizations. It is important to mitigate any harm that marginalized and minoritized groups of people experience, recognizing that everyone has a role in moving toward equity.

As this is part of continuing equity work, we ask participants to be accountable for their learning and integrating their learnings outside of the training. This includes watching the recording, incorporating tools, and reflecting on what came up for them so they can create a sustainable foundation that supports them after the program is complete.

This workshop will include one brief break for participants. We’ll also have optional breakout rooms. Those who do not want to participate in breakout rooms can stay in the main Zoom room and will be provided with an equivalent activity.

Learning Objectives:

  • Define how boundaries are a trauma-informed tool.
  • Discern between empathy and emotional caretaking.
  • Define boundaries from a values-based perspective.
  • Create an achievable professional boundary.

Trainer Bio: Nisha Mody, MLIS, MA CCC-SLP (she/her) is a South Asian American Life coach, writer, and former librarian. She worked as a Health & Life Sciences Librarian, serving as liaison to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and as the Associate Director of the Network of the National Library of Medicine, Pacific Southwest Region. Throughout her work, Nisha has consistently valued growth, relationship, and liberation, all of which led her to becoming a healing coach with a trauma-informed approach. She teaches and talks about imagining and incorporating trauma-informed practices in libraries and in our everyday lives, centering the ways systems of oppression and intergenerational trauma affect us deeply. Nisha coaches people individually and in groups, and you can find out more about her at www.nishaland.com.