What Folks Are Saying

Angela Weixel, LISW-S

Cohort 3: January 2021

Brittany Talley, LPC, LCPC, RPT-S

Cohort 1: July 2020

CeShaun Hankins, LCSW

Cohort 3: January 2021

Christina Perkins, LCSW

Cohort 1: July 2020

Gena Golden, LCSW

Cohort 1: July 2020

JaVon Townsend, LCSW-C

Cohort 3: January 2021

Shawna is DA BOMB!!! Coming from an HBCU this was a great refresher that went deeper and further with the instruction I received. I now have a toolbox for my mind, personal use and folx I hold space for to use in our therapeutic relationship. You NEED this training for yourself, your practice and community agency or organization.

Desiree Israel, LCSW-C (Cohort 1)

I am a yoga instructor with an emphasis on resilience-informed yoga ranging from yin-yoga to perinatal yoga. I would say that I am globally minded, educated, a social justice warrior so to speak. I thought I knew quite a lot about systematic racism, oppression, and so on. However, there is always room to grow. I came into this training thinking that it would be a 'fresher course' or that I would attain confirmation of my current work. Boy, was I wrong! This course went 'above and beyond' from historical events that contribute to modern day oppression to therapeutic frameworks and models that heal and impact the individual and collective. An all-in-one experience showing me that there is so much work to be done! I am so glad I didn't adopt a complacent mindset that wanted to tell me that 'I knew enough, and I was doing enough." I am so glad I am now a part of this ever evolving tribe that will help shape minds and hearts.

Megan Rodriguez AKA Mexicanameg (Cohort 2)

This training was the best professional and personal development training I've ever attended so far in my career. Being a black woman, navigating the clinical space can be both challenging and frustrating when you recognize the drawbacks of what you learned in school and how it perpetuates colonial and oppressive ideals. This training not only acknowledged that challenge, it also provided a creative and innovative framework for how to change the stuck and frustrating feelings and therefore changing how you service the folks you work with. It was dope! And if you are not afraid to question everything you know about yourself and your perspective-then you are coming to the right place!

Grace Moore (Cohort 1)

This training is a must for all White-identified clinicians. If you are looking for guidance in how to work with Black folx and Non-Black folx of color in a way that uplifts their experience and limits harm, this is it. This is not a one and done sort of deal. This is lifelong work, work you will be committed to continuing by the end of this training. Shawna excites you, inspires you, and begins to forge a new way forward, one where White clinicians will understand what it means to be Liberation-focused and what our role in this critically necessary work is. Shawna is a revolutionary leader in her field. Do not miss this opportunity!

Matthew Spector (Cohort 2)

Jenna Cacciola

Cohort 3: January 2021

Jennifer Glacel, LCSW, RPT-S

Cohort 3: January 2021

Jess Wynn-Grant, ASW

Cohort 3: January 2021

Jessica R. Rothstein, Psy.D.

Cohort 3: January 2021

Judith Sadora, LMFT

Cohort 3: January 2021

Kennetra Irby, LCSW

Cohort 3: January 2021

DTBF was right on time for me! I am at a crossroads in my career where I am involved in working outside of the system (mental health industrial complex) and within it and am feeling for where my place is at this moment. This training gave me what I expected, needed, and then some, enriched my critical consciousness but also be affirmed in where I am and in the work that I can do. I feel more solid in what I have been doing but have more tools, resources, and community with which to continue reduction of harm and decolonization. If you're a human services professional, therapist, helper or healer who is already walking the path of decolonization and working outside of the system or someone who knows that something is off about this field but doesn't quite know where to start - this is the place for you. Oh, and we centered the Black experience for sure (hence the title)! So if that doesn't appeal to you please don't apply. Just know that when we center the Black experience everyone benefits.

CéShaun Hankins (Cohort 3)

I knew this training would be life-changing before it started, but I wasn't prepared for all this! Shawna has created a compelling educational and emotional experience unlike any other training I've taken. The online platform is intuitive to navigate, and the learning modules succinct yet detailed. Access to my growth partners and the Mighty Network was crucial to the learning and healing experience. While communing with the material, I unpacked painful truths about my clinical practice, my ancestry, and my worldview. Connection to the DTBF community ensured that this led to positive action, as opposed to defeated inaction and passivity.

Beth A. (Cohort 3)

I heard about Shawna’s training a while ago and had been waiting for the right time to fully engage in it. The pandemic provided such an opportunity and I could not think of a better training to further my journey as a white social worker and therapist than Decolonizing Therapy for Black Folks. I have learned so much more about how to help my Black clients heal than I ever did in grad school and have gained so much from the community that Shawna cultivates through the training as well. I would encourage all my colleagues to take this training so we can continue to move towards the healing and liberation of Black people. I want you to know that it is worth every penny, and more. And that the various ways to connect with the material provide an immersive learning experience. This course was more valuable than any course I took in my MSW program.

Zoë Carter-Woodbridge (Cohort 3)

Laura Goldstein, LCMFT

Cohort 3: January 2021

Liz Co, LCSW

Cohort 3: January 2021

Michele Bograd

Cohort 2: September 2020

Randall Leonard, LCSW-C

Cohort 1: July 2020

Robert Marvin “Bobby” Holmes, LMSW

Cohort 1: July 2020

Sarah Grace Morrison

Cohort 3: January 2021

I honestly can't say enough about Shawna Murray-Browne and the Decolonizing Therapy for Black Folk course that she has created! There is something here for EVERYONE to learn, no matter your background. This course was a training but in a way it was also a path of healing for me; I learned so much about myself as well as how to use "both/and" in regards to my personal and professional practices. I felt supported, challenged, and engaged during the course. Shawna provides extensive resources and insights that are just invaluable not only to a clinical practice, but just a way of being in the world. I think it should be a required course in general, but even at the graduate level (or maybe before that!). This course was like the Matrix-- so powerful, stimulating, challenging, and rewarding; once you open your eyes to this way of being there honestly isn't any going back!

It helps to be present-- to actually participate. I noticed a difference from when I was able to make the live calls vs. when I had to watch the recording. I think this training is going to make you uncomfortable, and that's A GOOD THING. Embrace it, Shawna will help guide you! I think this training was a source of healing in and of itself, specifically because of that aspect and the work of the facilitators.

Alana McCraw (Cohort 2)

Don't debate with yourself about how, why or if you should do it. Just sign up. You will come out on the other side with a radically new yet radically inspiring perspective on working with those who descend from Africans enslaved in the U.S. Shawna is patient, brilliant and worthy of all praise.

Tania Araya (Cohort 3)

This course is an homage to Black healing traditions and provides the framework every healer needs to 1) confront oppressive ideologies injected into today's "wellness" practices and 2) remember and reimagine what healing looks like for our liberation. After taking Decolonizing Therapy for Black Folks, I have a deeper understanding of how to re-connect to my full self, build a healing practice that is accountable to the community, and hold space for people to remember how to heal themselves. Shawna expertly curates the resources in this curriculum, provides brilliant analysis/reflections, and balances holding many truths at one time while never straying from the clarity she has around why this space exists -- for the liberation of Black people. This course grounds in an analysis that is anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and pro-Black. After you take this course, you have the opportunity to be part of a community of healers who are committed to therapy that liberates. Thank you, Shawna, and all those who have influenced your scholarship and praxis. This course is a gift.

Get ready for truth-telling. This course is an invitation to take an honest look at the ideologies underlying therapy, counseling, social work, etc that focus on trying to get Black folks to adjust themselves into oppressive systems, rather than shattering those systems, remembering healing wisdoms of ancestors and creating liberatory ways of being. Shawna lifts these words by Franz Fanon: "to overcome the binary system where black is bad and white is good, an entirely new world must come into being. This utopian desire, to be absolutely free of the past, requires total revolution..." And this training is a space to begin to do that revolutionary work. As always, drink water and listen to your body as you take this course. Generational healing and grounding in ancestral wisdom needs your presence.

Joyce Bartlett (Cohort 3)

Sean Smith-Moore, LCSW, CADC

Cohort 3: January 2021

Sonal Vyas, LICSW

Cohort 3: January 2021

Stephanie Barbee, LCSW

Cohort 2: September 2020

Tessa Hayes LMHC, ATR

Cohort 3: January 2021

Veronica Clanton-Higgins, ACSW

Cohort 2: September 2020

Zakeeyah Khan, LMHC

Cohort 2: September 2020