The Williams Lake Community Council for Restorative Justice (WLCCRJ) is hosting a special training session on the “Box and Circle Experiential Exercise” on Saturday, May 3.
Open to anyone, the training will run from 9.30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Women’s Contact Society, located at 202 – 350 Barnard Street across from the Legion. The registration fee is $50 per person with lunch provided and can be e-transferred to the Williams Lake Community Policing account at saferidehomewl@gmail.com.
Jann Derrick of Four Winds Wellness created this experiential exercise in 1988 to give participants information to use in their daily interactions and work.
The workshop presents two worldviews: Indigenous and Euro-Canadian/mainstream. Participants are invited to learn about cultural knowledge, the impacts of colonization on the daily lives of Indigenous peoples and ways to support anti-oppressive, inclusive practice. The workshop explores the effects of Residential Schools and Canada’s policy of assimilation and how we can work together to impact meaningful change.
Roles, responsibilities, relationships and gender of the Indigenous circle worldview will be reviewed and communication, protocols and politics of the traditional circle will be presented. This spiritually centred day includes the story of how the exercise was created, tools for facilitating the exercise, suggestions for creatively using it and insightful information that can be included when delivering it. The day closes in ceremony.
Jann did pioneering therapy work with residential school survivors in Lytton, B.C. in the 1980s. She has worked at Round Lake Treatment Centre as a clinical supervisor, a trainer of Drug and Alcohol counsellors, and as therapist in the centre’s innovative Trauma Recovery Program for Native Trauma. She facilitated a National Aboriginal Focus Group that created a Code of Ethics for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and has has worked with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Commission as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She provides consultation to governments and clinical supervision for Indigenous agencies.
Contact Peggy Christianson at rjpegchr@gmail.com if you have further questions, or visit theboxandthecircle.ca or 4windswellness.ca for more information.
