 All right, welcome. Welcome to the first brain club of 2024. I am Mel Hauser I use she they pronounce I'm executive director here at all brains belong. Welcome to bring club. Make sure screen get us oriented. So today we'll be revisiting the theme of vision for inclusive community. And we will have the opportunity to replay the perspectives of six community leaders here in Vermont about their vision for community inclusion. But first to orient you to to bring clubs and I know for some of you to your first time. So bring club is our weekly community conversation about everyday brain life. It's an educational program for purposes of providing education about neurodiversity to the broader collective ABB community. Just just naming this is not for medical or mental health advice. It's not a support group ABB does have those types of programs all of those types of programs but that's not a brain club is brain club is for education purposes only. The forms of community of participation and communication are welcome here at brain club. You can have your video on or off and even if it's on we don't expect anything of you. We certainly don't need you to like sit still or look at the camera or any other neuro normative construct. So please feel free to walk or move or fidget or stem or eat and take breaks like whatever whatever needs doing. Everyone is welcome and all formats of communication are welcome so you can unmute and use mouth words you can type in the chat box. We also have private messaging or direct messaging setup so you're welcome to send, you know questions or comments direct messaging and I'll read them out but I won't read your name. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity one of the things that's really important to us here at brain club is to protect the access needs of the collective group. And so, you know, the idea of as we all learn and unlearn together and we learn about our individual access needs we also want to make sure that we are protecting the access needs of other people. The goal is to create a space where people can collectively learn and unlearn where everyone can feel safe and experience for many something that's quite different from the outside world. And so bring clubs very intentionally facilitated today today's brain club will feature most most of our time together today will be a pre recorded set set of interviews and so the chat box will be going throughout that and you know you're welcome to use the chat box while the main activity is up on the screen. You don't need to read the chat it's mostly that's a that's a side, a side, you know, side communication as opposed to the main the main act, but we'll go from there. The closed captioning is enabled you just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So depending on your version of zoom you might see the lab transcript closed captioning icon, but it's not look for the more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles, you can do the same and choose hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. And that's my visual support to actually open the chat box I've missed five chats hello everybody. Welcome weaver. Welcome everybody. Hi, that's wonderful. So. All right, before we begin, want to begin with some celebrations. We are thrilled and so grateful to everyone who supported the did you know this could be healthcare campaign. So so so grateful. And whether whether you donated whether you shared our posts on social media whether you volunteered your time to hang up, you know, New Year's Eve flyers around town. You know, thank you thank you so much for being part of this campaign to spread awareness about what we're doing here at all brains belong and to raise enough funds to keep programs like brain club free for 2024. Another celebration today is brain clubs two year anniversary, January 9 2022 the very first brain club. So coming coming full circle. And so for those of you who don't know brain club. All of the recordings of past brain clubs are available at no cost on our website. And Lizzie if you can pop in the chat the listing to the for the 2022 directory and the 2023 directory. One of our 2024 projects is to merge them and tag them by topic so you can access them, not in two separate places. But that doesn't exist yet. And like I said, I really appreciate everyone who help is helping has helped and is helping to spread the word. In fact, we're always looking for folks to join our spread the word teams sharing our posts on social media to amplify our message. And so if that's something that interests you. We'd we'd we'd love your support and Lizzie's going to put a link in the chat for a Google form to sign up for the spread the word team. Okay, so finally, January 2024 theme is the power of community. So we'll be again hearing again from six Vermont community leaders today about their vision for inclusive community. And we will be covering various aspects of community family relationships, employment relationships and we're turning to book chat. Those of you have been bringing club regulars for a while you know we've for the last couple months we've, we've, we've, we've had so much content that we've skipped book club or book chat so book chats coming back. So that our book chat for this month is the reason I jumped by Nega Negashita. All right, so vision for inclusive community. You know, inclusion is a word that gets used a lot. I think, unfortunately, sometimes it, it gets used in contexts where the prerequisites for inclusion are not met, namely, safety. And I think that the vision casting around what inclusion and belonging mean and look like is a really important thing. We at all brains belong we try very much to right spot to find examples of things that are working really well and focus on those things and move toward those things. It's very easy to talk about all the places where things don't work and inclusion does not happen belonging does not happen safety does not happen. But today vision casting toward the pursuit of inclusive community. So we are going to be having a reprise of a brain club that we held in November with a community panel featuring Alyssa Chen from the Education Justice Coalition of Vermont. And we're from the Pride Center of Vermont, Max Barrows and Hassan Co from Green Mountain Self Advocates. Indie Schörner from ACLU Vermont, and Wei Wei Wang from the Vermont Professionals of Color Network. All right, David, take it away. And again we'll have the chat going while video please. Well hello everybody, welcome, welcome to Brain Club. David I think we're going to start at 745 pronouns and I'm executive director here at all brains belong. I'm going to share screen and get us. Hey David. I think 745 was the cue mark and stopping at the one hour mark. The beginning. I'm sorry I didn't see that there was a time stamp on it what was the time frame on it. 745. Okay I'll see if I can figure it out. The zoom doesn't have a lot of control on that whole line. Okay. What was the time frame again? 7? 745 and stopping at one hour. Okay. One hour, one minute. I'll see if I can figure it out. 745. Oh yeah I can do that. Getting super boring. Also it's everything I said already so. I'm going to do it at 743 that's close I can get. Sounds good. Okay. One hour mark. I'll keep watch. Sorry about that. No worries. Next Barrows is the outreach director of Ford Green Mountain self advocates. He is a person with a disability on the autism spectrum. And Max meets and connects with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout Vermont and the country. Speaking up for true inclusion. He also helps people with disabilities become better leaders in the self advocacy movement. Hassan would you be able to tell us about and you can do this in any order but I would love to hear anything you'd like to share about yourself as well. Hi my name is Hassan. I work for Green Mountain self advocacy. I work with Cameron Topper and Max. And together we work together with the Green Mountain self advocacy with some of the self advocacy people from our group. And we have a Green Mountain self advocacy small group. And I'm out so you might have heard that before some of you so we are doing the like the self advocacy support however we can support the self advocacy. Thank you. Well Max and Hassan we're both I'm so glad that you're both able to join us. I'm wondering if you can tell us about not tell us tell us more about Green Mountain self advocates. So Green Mountain self advocates is a statewide self advocacy organization. We support 20 plus local groups all over Vermont. The important thing to know is that we self advocates run the groups. When we get involved, we realize we are not alone while facing tough times. We feel proud of who we are and self advocates say and quote we don't care how different we are we like it that way and quote. In our groups we learn from each other. Yes we can learn from people who do not have a disability but getting information from our peers often increases the likelihood that we will understand the message. We enjoy each other's company but we are not just a social club. We are part of a we are part of the civil rights movement. Inclusion is by far the most important value of our movement but we also value peer to peer connections. Green Mountain self advocates we spend a lot of time presenting to students, doctors, government workers, business leaders, leaders of faith communities, police officers and more. We want them to know that people with disabilities have a lot to offer and we provide examples of how to interact with disabled people. In one example, we show people how to create documents in plain language. Let's see I also want to mention that GMSA has been around since 1994 so next year will be our 30th birthday and Hassan if you have any thoughts you'd like to add to that. Well, the Green Mountain self advocacy is a team in the state. We are a local group like from Green Mountain self advocacy like some of them is like from the agency, some from outside the community. And so I'd be small group for the self advocacy we try to do our own goal from what we know and also like what we want to do with our team like some of the team they have their own goal what they want to do with the community with some of the community and some of the self advocacy. That's it. Thank you for sharing that. I wonder when we speak about the word inclusion. What does inclusion mean to each of you. So the bottom line is this. The bottom line is we want what you got. We want to learn. We want to, we want to be seen as equal members of society when given opportunities and accommodations we contribute so much to our communities. Unfortunately, people with disabilities are often looked down on more than looked up to society continues to like send a strong message that we are not capable. We are too slow. It's a false idea that we as people with disabilities are not able to do a lot of things for ourselves like adults. Unfortunately, it is a pretty broadly accepted mindset, and it casts a shadow over our desires to work. Go to college, you know, date, travel, get married, raise a family and much more. An inclusive community means people presume competence, whether it is at school or work or in social settings people and systems would not be judging us and resist the urge to decide what we can and cannot do. You know, that our rights are respected. We have the same opportunities as everyone else. This includes real work for real pay going to college getting married and raising a family. That society respects all of our identities. People understand the connection between the different isms, like to see how ableism and racism intersect. This understanding can open the door toward achieving justice. And when we need services, we should be able to get services that respect all the parts of us. People should not say we are too complicated. Well, for us, for me, I will say this. Everybody had their own pace. We have our own pace. And when it comes to our own way of doing them, when it comes to how we live for ourselves and also how to bring our own. And so that is what I like to say because everybody have a different way of doing them when it comes to how they live their own life. And about how to free from everybody from anybody else. They say about making your own freedom. And also, like, when it comes to self advocacy, not just about what we need. Also, we need to know about that different barrier, like also from the different cultures and different religions too. And because like everything what we do is also have a different type of barrier when it comes to helping other people. That's it. I'm nodding and taking all that in because, you know, everything that you both said is so important. And we don't see that everywhere. We don't see that happening. So what what. What would you like the community to know about your work how to get connected with your work to be part of something that is so important. You know, I, we have relationships with organizations such as, you know, legal aid, Vermont family network, the Vermont worker center and government offices. You know, we work together to address disability issues. We like to work with organizations within the disability field. But we have found that working with organizations outside of the disability field like 350 Vermont, just one of more than one organizations. Our issues become everyone's issues. Anything you want to add us on. Yes. And also, when we do ask it to some of the problem when we saw a problem, also make other problem too. Like every time, when you have it's asking in the group, what we connect with other community and also with our own connection with other people. Everything what we do is like connecting to other. Then, and so we are like connecting to other organization and also for ourselves too. And also, every time when we are connection with other organization. It's also making us like give up like giving us a little bit about it's bringing and also about the opportunity, what we want to do with our own community and with other people. Absolutely. Is there anything else that either of you would like to share. Well, I think that you I think that you asked also about involvement. Am I correct I think you, I think there are two questions and one and I wanted to point out the involvement part like, I think that, you know, to get how to get people involved with, you know, our organization there are many ways for self advocates and allies to get involved with and say, you know, attend some of our webinars, you know, join one of our, you know, you can join one of our 20 plus local groups throughout the state. Come to our annual conference that happens, you know, voices and choices. You can visit our website, you know, Facebook and YouTube pages. And finally, we take the lead on a national project called SARTAC. And that stands for self the self advocacy resource and technical assistance center. And we have weekly meetings with 50 plus self advocates from at least 35 states. And we get to hear what other advocates are working on all across the country. And we've been doing this for about four years and have developed great friendships with other leaders who have disabilities. Anything else you want to add to that Hassan if I missed anything. I think you get all about the same time. I was shared a little bit like for the Green Mountain self advocacy for us like we tried to make sure everybody understand for the self advocacy to for other way like for for us we also making sure like people understand what we are trying to do and also making sure they know and so we try to do like a little bit a plain language to other things to making sure they understand. We can like some the work, what we do, and also what the other coordination to without understand so we need to make it so people understand so we try to make it so we understand so we try to make a plain language to making sure easy for everybody and for us to. Thank you and what you know when we when we think about plain language, plain language benefits everyone. And I think that it's, it's a skill that I'm going to put a link in the chat to one of GMSE is webinars from earlier this year about plain language because it's a skill that I think everybody needs. Yep. Agreed. Well, thank you both so much. No problem. And if you're, if you're able to stick around for for questions after, after we hear from other panels that would be amazing. We'll do. Awesome. So I'm going to shine a spotlight on Indie. Here we go. Okay. So, I'm going to be showing her is a black gender queer, you're a divergent advocate social activist and somatic practitioner. They are the policy advocate at the ACLU for months and have focused primarily on criminal legal reform and police accountability reform at the State House. She believes that visioning and dreaming of a better life for all is necessary and advocacy and has committed themselves to creating space for community members and policymakers to dream beyond the status quo. And outside of birth they love playing with their three cats spending quality time with their partner and moving your body. Welcome Indie. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. And when I was writing that bio, it's kind of like an, I want to say an out of body experience trying to like put into words how the work that I do and what I'm engaged in. But just to start off, I'm the policy advocate at the ACLU of Vermont. It means that I do legislative advocacy in the State House. Most of my job deals with legislators so the people who are enacting our laws. That impact our very lives. And as the policy advocate at the ACLU I'm also able to engage in community and doing coalition work which I love to do I love being around people and just learning more about. What are you doing to just like create more inclusive, beautiful community spaces. So, I wanted to share a little bit about the ACLU and then maybe diverge a little. So the ACLU of Vermont is one of 53 nationwide or affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union. It's better known as the ACLU. I feel like that's what is usually out there. I've been working to defend the rights and liberties of people for over 100 years and has been doing has been doing this through legislative advocacy litigation and various other community organizing to ensure that we are protecting people, people's rights and protecting people's abilities to like move through community safely and as they are wanting to. Some of these cases that we've been involved in regard racial equity, reproductive rights, policing reform, which is a big one educational access voting rights and just about every other constitutional right you can imagine. And the ACLU of Vermont is small there's 13 of us. We have a comms communications department so they do public educating social media. We have development which they do everything with money and raising money for this org and continuing our mission and value. And then the legislative advocacy team. As I said does everything legislatively and lots of lobbying as well. And then our litigation team there are three staff attorneys and they do really kick ass work to really protect the rights of people in this state. Yeah, so that's pretty much it about the ACLU of Vermont. Thank you thank you for sharing and from your point of view. What does inclusion mean what does it look like. Oh my goodness this is such a good question. I kind of want to answer it through to two ways. I would say for the ACLU of Vermont. I would say inclusion means supporting the fight for freedom and unity, meaning that we are ensuring that everyone in the state can equally and equitably enjoy the common benefits of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Guaranteed to us by our state and our federal constitution, but that's a little heady and not in in the body as much. And for me, I would say inclusion is the active consideration for people's experiences in the active commitment to make space for different identities to celebrate and uplift these identity identities in ways that continue to like center our needs and creating ease and abundance and joy and rest all of the things that we all deserve so just a lot of creating space and being very committed to creating that space for people. Absolutely. What would you like the community to know about your work. Oh my. Another great question. I'm sorry I'm also trying to like, see what the chat is. I'll bring this. Like it's no this is like, this is a brain thing like when you're the presenter and then the chat's going. Just popping off, but um, oh my goodness what do I want. I really want to say that we are committed to pushing the boundaries of the status quo through various policy initiatives and strategies. We not only do advocacy in the state house, but we are really trying to engage in community more and to understand what people who are living here in Vermont really are wanting and needing to ensure that our civil rights and liberties are not being infringed on. So, we focus on criminal legal reform as a very broad space of engagement and we also do creating, we're trying to move into this space of like creating policy that really encourages legislators and policymakers to center our needs. And so, I just, I think I want to maybe focus more on the less traditional work of the ACLU of Vermont, which is economic justice so we do a lot of like criminal legal reform. And within that there's like smart just like, oh my gosh I'm trying to find better words. We're just wanting to create a smarter criminal legal system. And within that we are seeing that what drives people to interact with our criminal legal system, often is because of unmet needs and resources in community and we are really interested in getting to the root, I would say, and trying to build up better structures and foundations to meet the needs of people so I just want to put out there that we are part of the Fund Vermont Future Coalition, and I'm really excited about this. On Thursday, there's a press conference where they'll be calling on the state to raise revenue so like taxing the rich which is something I feel like we've heard. It's been like talked about but to know that there's actual momentum in Vermont to move in this direction and to raise revenue to help address some of our social service needs is incredible. And so I just, I think that's what I want to highlight and to share about the work that we're doing. It's a new area that we're getting involved in. But we see it as so crucial to the rest of everything that we are doing and really hope to just continue in this space and and to advocate for meeting people's needs. That's really amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that I didn't know about that. That's a big deal. Yes, yeah, it's, it's been like, oh my gosh, I want to say like a four year conversation. There wasn't really. We weren't really sure if there was going to be like an actual campaign, but yeah, again, it's just really exciting that we're coming together. I think the campaign is called fair share for Vermont. Again, it's just to center raising revenue so that we can have the social services that we're told so many times that we don't have the money for, but we know it's there and just very exciting, very exciting work. Thank you. Thank you so much. And there's some questions in the chat. I think what we're going to do is we're going to save questions so we can hear from everyone. But first, Andy, I would like to ask how people can learn more about the ACLU of Vermont and get involved. Yeah, oh my goodness, there are so many ways. We have our website ACLUVT.org, if I'm saying that correctly, where you can learn about the wide range of issues that we work on a little more in depth. And also, we have, I can link, I believe, if I have it here, we have a volunteer interest form that people can fill out if they want to get engaged that way. I do just want to put a plug in for those of us who are in central Vermont, Montpelier, East Montpelier, we'll be having a letter writing party next Wednesday. And this is just an opportunity to gather in community and to put pen, paper to pen, pen to paper, oh my goodness, on the issues that matter most to us. So we'll be providing materials and talking points and helping people identify who their representatives are and offer guidance on how to write an impactful advocacy letter, because that's so important and part of the work that we're doing. So we have, yeah, that coming up. And if that's not of interest, the volunteer intake sheet is another way. Awesome. Thank you so much, Andy. All right, Alyssa, are you ready? Swap out the spotlight. Hey everyone. I mean, I'm going to throw this little slide deck into that I just added a bunch of links to stuff too that I'm going to highlight and you're welcome to follow on but you don't need to feel like a visual you can. Amazing. And Alyssa, I'd love to introduce you. So, before becoming an organizer at the educational justice coalition Alyssa worked in alternative high schools in Vermont and California. Alyssa is excited to be in Vermont growing an education justice movement at the education justice coalition. Alyssa leads an internal work and coordinates the education organizing committee as well as the educators color group. Welcome, Alyssa. Hey everyone, nice to be here. Do you want me to share a little bit about our order to get started. Please do. We'd love that. Yeah, so we got started like, I guess seven years ago with the ethnic studies bill that created Act one. And so this was an effort to try to change our standards at the state level. And since then we've grown into a broader coalition with a bunch of volunteers and grassroots projects which all share more about kind of all with the mission of trying to ensure that schools are equitable inclusive welcoming places for marginalized people of all different backgrounds. And so we are like an intersectional organization, which means people in our leadership and our volunteers represent different identities including BIPOC folks, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA plus, and more. Thank you. For you. What does inclusion mean? Um, that's a good question. I think it's when when I get when I get questions and grants that will say like how do you know your work's having an impact. I feel like it's all about like the stories we tell and so tonight we were debriefing our educator of color retreat and someone was like I didn't get to go but I wanted to share the story for my friend like they're very introverted and they're very nervous to go and they just felt so welcomed, and they were just so happy to be there and they really brought a lot back to our program. So I don't know that story just stands out to me and it kind of like, when people ask us how do we know our work's having an impact it's the stories we tell. And so I think it's like, if the stories that youths and schools are telling about how they feel like, they're so welcomed and included and excited to go to school like it sounds very simple. But if those are all the stories we start hearing out of schools like kind of our work is done. And I know we're really far from that. But I think it's about like, I can't I can't define what inclusion is for all of you because everyone has different needs. But if the stories you're telling me is like I love school and it's a place I want to be. It's a place I feel welcomed and seen and heard, then I can say with some certainty that your school is inclusive. And so just recognizing that it means different things for different people and it's more of kind of a feeling and an experience that a that a list of checking things on a box. Not agree more. Thank you for that. What would you like the community to most know about your work that you haven't shared already. I guess two things stand out that are unique about our work. I think one is building a particular culture is very important to us. And we really believe in like, I've worked in different schools and organizations that have nice missions, but then it can be very painful or toxic or hard to work there. It's always very urgent. And so I think one thing I want people to know about us is we really see that the way we are with each other and the way that I interact with volunteers or staff or the spaces we build is the work itself. And so I think that is an important thing about our organization that we care a lot about the culture and how we do the work and how we be with each other in relationship. And not just what the impacts are, because sometimes you can think you're having good impacts, but it doesn't feel good. So it's not worth it. And then, yeah, on slide four, if anyone wants to check that out, I have a overview of our programs. We have worked for educators of color and schools once for educators of color. We were really exciting education for social justice conference that I think some folks from all brains belong were there or joined us online. And so definitely would love to welcome and see anyone there. And we hope to continue to work with you all to think about access and how we can continue to make it more accessible. We have an emerging youth organizing program that I'm excited to share with people. And there's a BIPOC statewide camp, social justice summer camp in Chittenden County and a youth organizing leadership program and I left my colleague Kayla's email and so if there's any youth on here, and you want to join our Instagram chat or there's like step into opportunities for example for you to help plan our conference and so if you're a youth on the call and you want to get involved in helping lead workshops or plan conferences or just talk with my colleague Kayla and see I get involved. I like that and then I'll also highlight we have a class for educators. We also welcome parents and students to join because we think that it takes like a whole village and community to transform our schools to make them more inclusive. And that's like a sliding scale class, there's remote options, there's in person options. We have an amazing team of facilitators and I'm piloting the curriculum with Burlington educators and so far, people are really enjoying it they like how self directed it is how interactive how it really values people's knowledge in the room and so we welcome anyone to join us in that. And then we also have a project, because there's a lot of stories, talking about the stories we hear that are not about inclusion. We hear a lot of stories about bullying harassment and so that's kind of in partnership with Indy and Mel joined that work recently and so we want to let folks know about that project and if you'd like to share a story. We are hoping to use those stories to make changes in policies. Thank you and Alyssa I just put the link in the chat for that project so that's the narratives for change it's where community members have the opportunity to share stories of bullying and harassment so that we can shine light on that because it's it's people don't get it people don't know how common these the trauma is. And how else so you just listed a ton of things and I'm going to link again your website for folks to get involved is there anything any any other ways that you'd like folks to know about getting connected with the Education Justice Coalition. Yeah, I put this in this, you can look on the website but I put everything in the slide deck so it's all laid out. If you go to a website, you can go to the bottom and there's a listserv you can join. And that's great because you'll hear about like our conference or if you're a youth and you want to join one more summer camps. You'll like hearing those pop up. If you'd like to help plan the conference that's like a committee that's just getting started we're having our meeting tomorrow actually so you can even come tomorrow so you can chat me or you can email me. We meet once a month and it's a really fun group of people trying to plan a really amazing conference. And if you're educator color that would be me for your youth you can connect with Kayla. And then these two other opportunities I mentioned like if you want to sign up for that class. We have that open for 10 more days to share that around or if you have a story or you're a parent who has a kid that has a story about bullying and harassment you want to share that to help make changes. I left that info there as well. Thank you, Alyssa. Okay way way you're ready. Yes. Hi Alyssa just want to say hi. I haven't seen Alyssa in a while. Hi, my name is way way long she her pronouns. I am with the Vermont professionals of color network. Am I supposed to introduce myself or Mel are you going to I was as you could have talking I was like oh I'm completely slacking because of my executive functioning was supposed to introduce you. So, way way is the co executive director of the professionals of color network. I'm from Vermont professionals color network founded in 2019 is dedicated to advancing the prosperity of all professionals of color throughout Vermont by building from within. And in both her personal professional life way way brings a passion for community connection and development and refining accessibility for historically excluded communities through changing systems of oppression way way welcome. Hi. I'm back. Yeah, so I'm one of the co founders of the Vermont professionals color network we're a relatively young organization. Like Mel said, we started unofficially in 2019 and we started officially in 2021 as a 501 C3 organization. We started in here and I are the co founders and also the co executive directors at this point. We have amazing staff of folks and our mission is to advance the prosperity of folks by pop folks across the state. And that could mean economic prosperity if that's what prosperity means to you or can mean social prosperity if that's what that means to you. Our focused on supporting folks to get access to existing resources and to build resources where they're not so something that we know is by park or global majority folks across the state are the last to know about a lot of different resources that are available. And last to be able to access that those resources so something that we're trying to do is to make sure that people are aware of those things that are available through social media through a website through speaking with folks across the state. And our focus is really on three different groups so professionals and we define professionals as actually we just created the statement so I'm going to read it out to you. We define it as an individual dedicated to developing expertise or skill or craft that contributes to personal growth and or social improvement. And trying to kind of move away from what professional means from that traditional sense that is really might not fit who we are as individuals in today's working society and we support professionals we support people who are building up businesses and nonprofits. So, making sure that they have access to grants and supporting them in writing the grants and our third group that we haven't yet touched but as part of our mission is to support and empower youth of color across the state, making sure that they know and actually everyone that we support knowing, making sure that they know that they are assets to the community that we can also create a safe space for them, whether it's in their homes in their place of work, so that they can really thrive and they want to stay here. And we realize that not everybody wants to stay here and that's okay but we really want to make sure that folks are connected so one of the biggest things that we do is to create networking or community connections, because there's that Vermont saying of, you can't get there from here. So, wanting to make sure that people feel connected, because sometimes you're the only person in the workplace, or the only person in the community, who looks like you have that sense of connection is really helpful both for personal development for mental health for a lot of different reasons. So, that's one of the biggest things that we do right now. And also just to make sure that people are aware. I think Max had talked about. I think it was Max or I apologize. Thank you so much. One of you had said, making sure that there's things are at a, like a particular, the written word is comprehensible to everyone and that's also really important to us. Because we do also support on some level folks who are immigrated to this country who are refugees making sure that they have access to that information or folks who, yeah, from all different walks of life so I think that's it right now. Thank you. So, from your perspective, what does inclusion feel like and look like. So, from my personal standpoint, inclusion for me is really important because that's the reason that there are five of us who started vt poc. For me personally that looks like not having to wonder if I belong in a room, not having to wonder where the grocery store is because I don't know the name of it. It's important to wonder like, you know, what a snow tire is or what yak tracks are. So, for me, it's being safe in a community and in a workplace. For me, it's being that folks can under are understood by others when they understand others, meaning like, there's a culture in Vermont that is incredibly inaccessible and people don't take the time to explain. As an example, there was a visitor who came to speak at a conference and somebody had used the word foliage, and the dude is from Chicago he's never heard the word foliage in his life. And in my mind I was like, I don't ever say the word foliage, you know I just say like the leaves are changing and you know and so he spent the better part of like three days not knowing what the f they were talking about right It's that kind of like accessible information accessible resources that I'm talking about and it can be something that is so seemingly simple but it's incredibly exclusionary. So, for me it's that and I also personally ascribe to this framework of access where we're really thinking about access from a lot of different standpoints, meaning is whatever resource we're talking about. Is it available to the person that is trying to use it. Is it physically accessible to the person who is trying to use it. Is it affordable to the person who's trying to use it. Is it accommodating the individual who's trying to use it. Is it trusted like, is it acceptable to the person who is trying to use it, and are they aware of it even. So those are the six components like the six pieces of access that I like to think about. And that's not always available and so when you know there's not like any one of those components is missing, then I personally don't think that somebody is missing out somebody is not able to to use that resource. So in terms of safety, it's access it's being part of the community and being able to like eat really good food. And being able to share and laughter in a way that you know you're not trying to hide who you are so those are some of the things that I think about just taking all of that in. And then the community get connected with your work. Yeah, so where we have a website, it's www.btpoc.net. Right now we're trying to think of ways to engage to like get people more involved. How can they volunteer with us how can they be a greater part of what we're doing. What we're coming upon is the fact that we're, we have different ideas and the community has so many amazing ideas, and we would love to engage folks more in that in the development of it because like we are really realistic that we're not going to be able to do what everybody's needs. We simply aren't because we're just one organization. We talk a lot about relief collective. We talk about the NAACP is we talk a lot about community resilience organizations we talk about the Education Justice Coalition we talk about all of these different amazing BIPOC led groups and other organizations that are available across the state because we need to all work together so but in answering your question, go to our website check out our Instagram. Our Instagram handle is at vtpoc underscore network. We have an event coming up on November 14 where you can learn more about our organization and what we've been doing and what we plan on doing over the next year. So, please come to that event if you can we'll have really great food I think we're having harmonies kitchen cater as well as to you know, you know, I'm so sorry. So it's going to be some really great food and it's at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington from five to seven and I'll drop some more information in in the chat. Awesome. Thank you so much for you. Thanks. All right, Cal, I'm gonna shine the spotlight on you. Welcome so Cal Arbor is the director of the health and wellness programs at the pride center of Vermont. Cal and the team provide joy filled wellness events and connect people to health services. Pride center has a physical location in Burlington and serves the state with with services throughout Cal welcome. Hi everybody thanks so much for having me if folks need to pop off at seven I'll totally understand, you can find more info about our work at pride center vt.org. We serve the state of Vermont for two st lgbq plus folks in both direct service outreach programs where we connect with folks through affinity groups and center wide everybody under the rainbow fun things like the large pride fest in Burlington we organize that event. We have a safe space team that's part of the Vermont network, serving to ST lgbq plus folks that are experiencing violence and harm. We also train healthcare providers in how to work with our populations, there's a lot of inclusive low hanging fruit at healthcare facilities folks have already named some of these strategies around language when we see a bathroom and it has a man and a woman sign on it that's transphobic it doesn't need to be reiterated that the single soul is just for men and women. It's a restroom for everybody. What does the word restroom even mean that's not a very clear word so we coach people to use pictures. Is there a toilet is there a urinal a baby changing station and active wheelchair there's an in motion wheelchair image, having ASL so some of those access pieces around language that folks noted are. Like I said low hanging fruit we're really behind the times in Vermont, so we can make some adjustments that will change access for all people. We talk about intake forms with both pronouns. It's not preferred. My identity is my identity it's not a preference or a choice. So not saying preferred pronouns, not using the word other for a fill in the blank category that literally is other ring folks. The name people want to be called that resonates with them that intersects a lot of different communities around the name that I want to hear for my service so it might not be the name on my quote unquote legal documents. When we're asking for sex and gender markers asking ourselves why we need those things. If it's going to help us serve people better. If it's not then it might not be relevant to ask. But there's times when we need to know one of those times is for insurance and to be able to match it up. So be clear that it's for insurance because I am somebody who was assigned female at birth. I have three different gender markers in the systems. I use X on my license. I'm still coded as female to get some health services, because you're denied care if why would a man need testosterone or a pap smear. So there's things on the inside that a client might not know so like what Max and Hassan do we do a lot of patient advocacy around navigating systems were left out and harmed so much. I rarely see intersects or X gender markers X is unknown and unspecified. Those are legal gender markers in Vermont, Australia pulled them out from the holocaust actually. And we have X for unknown unspecified people are moving here in droves to raise their babies and to have all their gender neutral kids, but they leave because our systems are not gender inclusive. So we have a lot of work to do in our schools and in all of our healthcare settings and a lot of that technical support and access we have tips and tricks on our website and also offer dialogues and lived experience panel sometimes folks need to hear stories from folks that have lived experience so that they can really understand the impact. I constantly hear folks say well we don't have enough Latina people living in Vermont to look at the numbers. It's a great time to use qualitative data. When we uplift the needs of the communities that were most not serving. Everybody's care is going to get better through that. So all the intersections that we have have some commonality about some of these places with access and I just want to uplift what everybody else has already said, and we have a lot of neurodivergency specifically in our two ST LGBTQ plus populations, a third of Vermont youth identify within rainbow communities that's a large demographic, and we're going to keep seeing more and more people move here. So we have a lot of work to do to be that safer space. And inclusion goes hand in hand with belonging that it's both that I show up and see myself on the intake forms in the images for outreach. I see myself in the people giving service that doesn't mean they're going to serve me better but I might be more comfortable and open with somebody that has an identity and alignment with me. So we see more and more people want queer providers or trans providers, people of color, people with disabilities. I think that it's like Alyssa was saying that feeling and that sensation, and it makes me want to come back for more. When I hear people moving to Vermont and pretty immediately leave, I know we're not an inclusive state yet. So I know we have a lot of work to do in that and just connecting people to each other is a lot of our work here at the center networking people. We have more than ever pride fest from the tip to tail of Vermont this past year across June, and it's incredible to have more community brewing up spaces to meet and greet, and do what way way saying connects people to resources that they are just left out of knowing about So with our work, there's lots of different things going on at the center. We have a web calendar. We do a lot of support groups for the community. And that's a great way to warm hand off people into events. We have a pride hike event happening this weekend at Shelburne farms. A great way to access mental wellness beyond one on one talk therapy is to go out and do a fun activity that you like to do with like minded people. We have a lot of those hikes. We're also showing United in anger, one of the act up documentaries on December 1 on World AIDS Day at the Savoy Theater in Montpelier. The AIDS epidemic had intersected all communities and we see a lot of their work, still needing to be done around housing, health care, health care, inclusivity, as somebody who was dying with an AIDS diagnosis and told that women don't get STIs. And we see that we're really behind the scene with serving gender diverse folks with sexual health care. Medicaid just released their prior authorization for hysterectomies this past year, unless it was for gender affirming care. That's absolute discrimination. We are everywhere giving access to hormones to people who are cisgender who are men and women, but we're making it very difficult for trans and gender non conforming folks to get access to hormones. So there's a lot of downright discrimination happening. And a great way to plug in is get some training and resources. We are serving to ST, LGBTQ plus folks all over the state. And we intersect every identity that's out there. A third of our survey respondents in 2019 identified as living with a disability. So we have a lot of intersection. Somebody's access to care might not be their gender identity is the biggest barrier to care. The BMI for surgery, the body mass index for surgery is 35. That's an incredible discrimination point for folks that want top surgery or other gender affirming care. So we don't always think about body size as being a major barrier to care, but it is for surgery. So there's a lot of layers to the intersectionality and lots of different ways to plug in. Great. Um, I agree with Sierra that, you know, that that is that is hands down one of my favorite brain clubs. You know, I think that all of these incredible community members incredible organizations doing such important work. And I think that, you know, if we wanted to kick off 2024 in this way, because I think part of reimagining community and creating spaces where people can show up as their true selves. And experience genuine belonging. You know, it has to, it has to begin with a belief in what's possible and that vision casting something to work toward so. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for being part of our community. And we'll look forward to continuing the conversation next week. Moving from the collective to the individual talking about the power of community within the context of relationships. We're going to be joined by Anna house who is. I forget exactly when Anna house was a guest at brain club last, but I think it was 2022 should maybe one of our one of our first guest presenters so I'm I'm excited that she's returning next week. So thank you. Thank you all of you and we look forward to seeing you next week.