Point Park University, BFA in Musical Theater. 4 years.

Meditation Certification. Sarvaguna Yoga Institute. Yoga Alliance Registered. 100 hrs.

• Dr. Keshava, M.Sc.,PhD(Psy), M.Sc.(Yoga), M.A (Sanskrit), M.A (Advaita Philosophy), Reiki Master Teacher & Healer.

• -Pranayama and re-establishing abdominal breathing

• -Traditional & Modern Yogic meditation techniques (breath and body awareness, chakra, loving-kindness, gratitude, purification, third eye, nature, creative visualization, walking, and full moon meditations)

• -Meditation application for all age groups

• -Meditation application for different mental imbalances

• -Mantra Chanting

• -Preparatory Asanas

• -Mudra and their applications

• -Energy Anatomy and Physiology- Chakras

• -Philosophy of Meditation

• -Creative expression through dialogue and movement

Social Emotional Arts Certification with UCLA’s Arts and Healing School. 12 weeks.

Instructors: Ping Ho MA, MPH, Erica Curtis LMFT, ATR-BC,  Camille Ameen, Asia Moore MSW, MA, PhD (c), Jennie Linthorst MA, CAPF , Mimi Savage PhD, RDT-BCT , Stephanie Nash MFA, Staci Aamon Yeldell MA, MTBC, AVPT, Jessica Bianchi EdD, ATR-BC, LMFT.

Introduction to Theory & Practice: Participants will learn about the science behind the innate benefits of the arts and strategies for maximizing them. They will also experientially learn the structure of a social emotional arts sessions and guidelines for creating an environment that encourages engagement and learning.

Communications from Trauma-Informed & Cultural Perspectives: Participants will learn culturally-responsive skills from trauma-informed communication while gaining intercultural awareness, empathy, and critical self-consciousness. They will learn and practice engaged listening and verbal communication skills for interpersonal connection and problem-solving.

Needs Assessment & Evaluation: Participants will learn ways to identify the needs of a population to be served and ways to measure program outcomes. Needs assessment and evaluation are not rocket science; this session will articulate their value in producing effective and measurable program outcomes. The goal of this session is to demystify the field and empower participants in these practices.

Best Practices in Dance/Movement: Participants will experience how to engage youth and other populations in dance/movement-based activities for expanding movement vocabulary, self-awareness, other awareness, and sense of community. This session will demonstrate ways to make movement an accessible process.

Self-Care Tools for Managing Stress: Traumatic stress responses can be triggered by sensory experiences, which can in turn trigger vicarious or secondary trauma in those bearing witness—including facilitators. In this session, participants will learn simple ways to manage their own unproductive habitual responses to stress as well as learn how to de-escalate stressful interactions through boundary setting.

BTO Drumming: This session will demonstrate activities from the UCLA research-based program,Beat the Odds®, which integrates activities from group drumming and group counseling for social emotional skill building. Participants will also experience strategies for working with different age groups and abilities.Beat the Odds®is scripted for clinical and rhythmic integrity and has been successfully delivered in many school and community settings.

Best Practices in Poetry/Writing: Participants will experience poetry-based activities designed to enhance creativity, tap into personal life experience, encourage self-expression, and facilitate meaningful dialogue with youth and adults.

Best Practices in Art (Parts 1 & 2): Participants will create art to communicate their thinking and will experience art activities designed to facilitate meaningful social interaction. Participants will also learn the social emotional nuances of media selection and how to engage in inquiry and dialogue about art without judgment. In addition, the strategic use of art to facilitate positive behavior at different developmental stages will be explored.

Best Practices in Theater (Parts 1 & 2): Participants will experience theater-based activities for youth and adults that build self-esteem, spontaneous self-expression, and positive social connection. This session integrates learning from other art forms and enables each participant to stay in the present moment and stretch their personal creativity in a supportive environment.

Best Practices in Music: Participants will learn how to engage in mindful listening as a process for deepening understanding of self and others. They will also learn what elements can enable a song or piece of music to be perceived as relaxing, soothing, or calming. In addition, they will experience how a group music making activity can create community and reduce stress.

Presenting Yourself: A facilitator’s presence can have an impact on the comfort level of group members. Participants will learn physical and mental techniques for strengthening confidence and presence in front of an audience. They will each have an opportunity to work on and demonstrate their stronger voice.

Group Cohesion: Participants will experience community-building activities for supporting engagement and learning. They will also learn practical strategies for managing group energy, focus, and accountability in schools and other settings.

Neurodiversity & Learning Differences: Participants will experience activities to help them appreciate neurodiversity, and they will learn multisensory tools to support neurodiverse individuals in the delivery of arts experiences. Participants will also explore ways in which behavior communicates needs.

Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certification through The Embody Lab. 12 weeks.

-Somatic Psychology and Trauma Recovery for the Individual Body with ARIELLE SCHWARTZ PhD

-From the Individual to the Systemic: Sites of Trauma and Healing with STACI K. HAINES

- Towards an Alchemical Resilience: Foundations and Inspirations with NKEM NDEFO MSN

-Polyvagal Theory and Pathways to Connection Part 1 &2 with DEB DANA LCSW

-Evolution of Trauma Therapy with KAI CHENG THOM, ARIELLE SCHWARTZ, NKEM NDEFO, and RICHARD SCHWARTZ 

-Foundations of Trauma and Healing in Children with LISA DION LPC

-Embodiment with MANUELA MISCHKE-REEd S LMFT

-Nurturing the Ecologies of Trauma and Resilience with KARINE BELL

- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma - Part 2 with PAT OGDEN PhD

- Trauma & Embodied Movement with MANUELA MISCHKE-REEDS LMFT & SCOTT LYONS PhD

-Closing Your Eyes to See: Focusing, Active Imagination, and Inner Dialogue with ALBERT WONG PhD

-Balancing Individual and Collective Transformation with STACI K. HAINES

-Trauma and the Internal Body Mind Family - Part 1 with RICHARD SCHWARTZ PhD

-Addiction, Trauma & Healing with NIKKI MYERS SEP

-The Legacy of Early Attachment Relationships: A Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Perspective with PAT OGDEN PhD

-Mending the Bodily Roots of Developmental Trauma with RUELLA FRANK PhD

-Treating Shock Trauma and Repeated Complex Trauma: Integrating Somatic Psychology and EMDR Therapy with ARIELLE SCHWARTZ PhD

-Embodying Ancestral Wisdom with RUBY GIBSON PhD

-Structural Embodiment: Somatics for the Collective Body with FARZANA KHAN

-Healing Intergenerational Trauma with Dr. Peter Levine & Efu Nyaki. 

Integrative Community Therapy with Visible Hands Collective. 12 weeks.

Sylvia London and Irma 'Neca' Rodriguez

Integrative Community Therapy (ICT, based on the Brazilian method of Terapia Comunitária Integrativa) is a unique large group dialogic therapeutic modality that requires only short-term training, can accommodate groups from 15-200 people, and can be performed successfully in an online format. Terapia Comunitária Integrativa was created by psychiatrist/anthropologist Dr. Adalberto Barreto in response to an increased need for meaningful community-based mental health services in the extremely low-income neighborhoods (also known as favelas) of Fortaleza, Brazil. 

This modality is based on a five-step participatory structure that elicits therapeutic community conversation and knowledge-sharing in groups of 15 or more. The primary benefits are community building, promoting a sense of “shared suffering,” providing a space of inclusion and diversity, sharing experiences to promote healthy coping strategies, and creating and reinforcing social/support networks. By emphasizing community-building in a shared environment, ICT creates a forum for solidarity, collective healing and proliferation of resiliency.

Trauma-Sensitive Practices with Awaken Pittsburgh. tender tierney. 9 weeks.

• How does trauma intersect with marginalized identities?

• Meditation and trauma: Healing or harming?

• How to provide meditation instruction in a trauma-sensitive way

• What is a trauma response (body and brain)?

• What techniques engage the parasympathetic nervous system?

• How to nourish safer spaces?

• How to notice if someone is dysregulated during meditation, and what to do?

• What are the relationships between social oppression, social contexts, and trauma?

• How can you set our own good, healthy physical and emotional boundaries?

  
  
  The Embody Lab. 7 hours.

Embodying Leadership: Exploring the critical value that embodied leadership offers the individual and the whole and exploring methods and expressions of leading from and with the body toward a better future and world.

-Pete Hamill- Leadership as Embodying the Future You Long For

-Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler- Embodying the Mystery: The Soma as a Doorway to Spirit for Leaders

-Staci Haines- Leading with the We: Embodied Leadership for Equity, Justice and Sustainability

-Dr. Angel Acosta-Meditations on Embodied Leadership

-Rusia Mohiuddin-Embodied Organizing

Sonya Renee Taylor & Adrienne Marie Brown. Radical Love & Pleasure. 2 hrs.

How we heal, love and reclaim our right to be liberated from the inside out. How do we speak the truth to ourselves until we cannot speak anything else, to ourselves, to others, to power?

Center for Anti-Violence Education. 4 hrs.

Until We’re Free: The history of Black resistance and voting/legislation, such as the Breathe Act. Discuss the ways in which Black women were left out of suffrage, the ways that the civil rights movement impacted the Voting Rights Act, and how we can use our power to make a change.

Anthony Wash-Rosado. 2 hrs.

Ethical Anthropology: Ethics in Caribbean Anthropology and the future of African American Historiography.

Disability and Accessibility in Music Mentorship with Juliana Beekmans with Daniel’s Music Foundation. 4 years.

Kristen Link. Best Practices in Accessibility and Disability in Arts Education through City Theatre. 3 hrs.

Maryam Hasnaa. 10 hrs.

Waking up from Being Woke: Waking Up From Being Woke will explore what it means to wake up to the roles that we are choosing to play, in particular the social role of being “woke,” and the cult of righteousness. When we lose our ability to think critically and act from our own heart's discernment, we are unable to recognize the nuances of truth present in something we may superficially reject as “wrong.” This can perpetuate the drama of polarity and dominance in creating a new status quo game of hierarchy.

Divine Neutrality: In this class we will look at the energetic mechanics behind what happens when we resist and push against things, how control dramas develop and perpetuate, and the covert and overt energetic games we find ourselves participating in.

Equanimity: Embodying qualities of equanimity is about being responsible for who you are, where you are in life, and how you are treating and being with others. Despite much of our cultural programming, equanimity is a marker of strength, grace and resilience.

Energetic Boundaries: Setting subtle energetic boundaries helps you to choose to attune to your clarity, truth, and well being so you can be authentic to who you are. It is about not enmeshing, merging with others, allowing other people’s thoughts, emotions, judgements or projections into your field . It is also not about blocking connection or not caring. It’s simply honoring your sovereignty and the right to have your own unique experience.

Charles Eisenstein 10 weeks.

Living in the Gift: Personal and collective transition from an age of scarcity and separation, to an age of abundance, community, and gift.

Unlearning for Change Agents: Our perceptions shape our stories, our solutions, and our world. When our narratives and assumptions are unquestioned, we end up weaving threads of the problem into the changes we want to make. To exit the well-worn ruts of the usual solution-templates, we must somehow see and question assumptions that we may not even be aware of. How you form ideas about the world (e.g. the news). How you form ideas about others (e.g. judgements). How you form ideas about yourself (construction of identity). Interpretations of the above that lead to despair, burnout, or self-importance.

Awe & Gratitude for Healing, Renewal, and Social Action with Bonnie Harnden, MA, RDT. 4 hours.

• Associative Learning and Contextual Cues

• Awe

• Gratitude

• The Nervous System

• The Vagus Nerve

• The Upward Spiral Affect

• True and false Self

• Rupture/repair

• Nature

• Presence

• Building our observer

• Self-Attunement & Self-Regulation

• Self-Compassion & Self-Kindness

• Self-Distance

• Internal Locus of Control and Growth Mindset

• Social Action

• Interoception

• Exteroception

• Building our observer

• Noticing our nervous systems and healing our nervous systems

• Building vagal tone

training

gratitude

Thank you so much to the many people, teachers, and mentors that have ushered me to this moment. I have had the privilege of studying a vast field of practice and philosophy that draw from the wisdom of different lineages. These philosophies and practices have helped me stretch, grow, and heal in profound ways. It has unfortunately become common practice to strip these wisdom traditions of their depth. I am committed to continuous learning around honoring and upholding the integrity of these traditions. I vow to share these practices from a place of reverence, encouraging the reunification to self, others, and the Earth.