 And now when hello to everyone streaming us from around the country and potentially beyond our country here I would like to also welcome. We do have a theater group from Canada joining us as well So this has officially become an international summit, which is very exciting I know that they have a project may I say the name called balancing act that they are working on that is similar to ours And we're so excited that this conversation is going to continue across those borders. So, thank you for joining us Before we begin today's summit, we would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the lands of the Lenape people on their ancestral land Manahata We are guests of the land and we want to take a moment to acknowledge and honor the indigenous stewards of this place past present and future Following this acknowledgement and with the gratitude to the history of activism and preservation undertaken and led by native and indigenous Communities, we'd also like to acknowledge today's climate strike. You could be engaging with this vital movement today But you're here with us. However climate action and parent inclusion are intrinsically linked We cannot create a better world for families without actively seeking to preserve that world We urge you to take a moment to reflect on your relationship to the land today and offer Gratitude to those who are leading the movement for climate justice. So a huge. Thank you to everyone who's out there today I'd also like to say a thank you to our partner the public for providing this space where we could all gather together And share our stories as many of you noticed We also have childcare on site for all volunteers and participants and we believe that childcare is necessary for access In order to impact a gender parity in order to have Intersectional conversations of access and inclusion and our sponsor for the child care today is New 42 studios and our providers are Broadway babysitters who are going to be speaking with us later today So a huge. Thank you if you don't know them. Yes Thank you and then later on today We are going to be at art New York for our happy hour, which will also be live streamed Which is my final but last but not least thank you to howl round theater commons who is streaming this to make it accessible To those who could not access the space for a variety of reasons As an introduction many of you know, but I don't like to assume things in the space It's about being generous. We are a parent artists advocacy league for the performing arts also known as pal You know like a friend who comes alongside you and says hey we can do this And our mission is to advocate for caregivers in the performing arts and the institutions who support them through serving as a resource hub Training provider community home base and solutions generator for best practice in caregiver support and our goal today shared goal That means everyone in this space what we're joining together to do is to engage in dialogue on replicable and sustainable solutions in order to elevate the national standard of care for caregivers in the arts by Engaging with the institutions who support them so today We're gonna hear a lot of stories of success some of them may come paired with stories of lessons learned The hard way and that's also okay. So we would also like to talk about some vocabulary If you hear us mention our compassion training that is a curriculum that we have formed To its training provided by pal on site and or digitally for staff and creative teams to help guide work culture shift To a supportive mindset of compliant comprehensive and consistent family support because we can offer all the tangible resources Possible, but if we don't have dialogue within our community then people won't know why that access is necessary and sometimes that's the most important point The pal handbook is a resource and development made available in beta to all pal Institutional members starting in the new year and to some attendees in the new year So if you're here, you will have access to that document and it's the research and the notes from today's share outs Pal membership is a network of like-minded individuals who are interested in partnering with pal to have Organizational assistance in building and engaging in support for parents and their organizations So this is also just the beginning that we our goal is to never have our conversations on parent support be a flash in The pan or a wonderful inspiration that then leaves people to go out into the world with nowhere else to turn This is just the beginning of the conversation and through our membership and through our contact forms We make it available for the dialogue to continue Just a few agreements in the space because things are gonna get Deep and heavy the first like first thing out of the gate And that's okay because we are unafraid of life And that's why we have entered the space to talk about life and people who care for life One of the agreements all of our participants have agreed to this and we welcome you to agree be in agreement with us that when sharing stories of Discrimination we participants commit to refraining from naming identities of individuals and institutions in order to protect the vulnerable Individuals who are not present to engage firsthand with their own narrative So we want to focus on what we can do to improve upon any situations And not who we can point fingers at because that's not gonna lead us to a productive place When sharing personal experiences of providing or receiving parent support We validate all experiences even if they differ from our own in order to listen engage and learn So if your experience is different than someone on panel or vice versa it is okay to share and engage that way because what we've learned is that parent support is as Individual as the individuals who need it When engaging in dialogue regarding possible solutions, no single individual is expected to have all the answers And we we bring a willingness to share what we've learned and to listen well when others do the same So we're gonna solve all the problems today No, absolutely not we're going to engage with each other We're gonna have a conversation and people will share what they know and listen when they don't and what it's gonna Do is it's gonna grow us? collaboratively Impulse three tenants just so you know This is the framework the questions that we ask when developing support is the first question Is it legal the second question? Is it ethical and the third question? Is it compassionate? So we'll be mentioning those framework that framework throughout the day as we talk about solutions Because legal is the bare minimum, but it's the first thing we need to check Ethical is a place where we can go to say I think this is the right decision And then where we want to take this standard is to know that we are creating parents support that comes from a place of Compassion because that's when we start to take care of the human elements of support Vocabulary for these circumstances and solutions. It is okay to ask questions in these terms What was the low-cost is this a low-cost low-benefit solution low-cost high-benefit high-cost low-benefit high-cost high-benefit? And our participants are ready to engage that way and so with our with our sessions We're gonna start with compliance and that's a conversation about legal human resource and reproductive nature of our shared goal Creativity is the next session, which is diverse solutions opportunity when creative problem solving is evident to meet our shared goal And then compensation a big question on everyone's mind right Budget and the financial implication and opportunity of pursuing our shared goal And then we'll share in community which is the impact of engagement when collaborating on our shared goal And then end with conversation which is first-hand testimony of motherhood and leadership in action to create a legacy of support With our keynote speaker Emily Mann, and so without further ado I would like to welcome our panelists for our first session on compliance. You can applaud. It's the theater Thank you so much And before we get began I also want to say that coffee and bagels will be served throughout the day So this is gonna go and from now and we'll have small transitions But take care of yourself if you need to stand up if you need to get a sip of that caffeine No one understands that need better than parents So just feel free to move about this space because this is about feeding you and supporting you as well So quick introduction. We have if you could just raise a hand when I say your name We have Kate O'Faylon who is an MPA candidate for reproductive justice at the City College of New York City She is also an Actors Equity Council member And then we have Iris McQuillan-Grace who's a senior manager of talent in HR at a global NGO And then we have Nicole Brewer who is the founder of conscientious theater training Theater through an anti-racist lens, and I'm Rachel Spencer Hewitt. I will be moderating these sessions, and I'm the founder of PAL Welcome. Thank you so much Yes, go Interact I will enjoy the stage so much better if we are making noise at each other That's what we make right Wonderful, so we're gonna start with you Kate because I would love to just set some context to why we're starting with compliance Ignore my pages. Why compliance is is where we should start in terms of what were your experiences as a pregnant actor So we can start with your personal circumstance Okay, so I Come to all this work from firsthand experience with navigating this industry as a person with two small children currently I ran for office at equity when I was pregnant with my first and re-ran when I was pregnant with my second so I feel like Those experiences and the growth of my children have kind of been inextricably linked so the first time I was pregnant I Had waited a long time because I was very scared of how it would affect my career And finally got brave enough to take the plunge We were very lucky To get pregnant and then I went to go tell my representation I was really nervous to approach that conversation and I went in Kind of framing it is like a what should I do now for the next almost year, right? So I was one of those how I would describe working class actors who was lucky enough to have representation But still got a lot of work booked for myself from going to EPAs all the time In fact, that's how I got my card a thing that I was really proud of so I did actually book work from going to these things most of my work on my own came from Bringing myself out into open calls and and meeting people that way so I went into my representation and said So I'm pregnant What do you think I should do about going to EPA is an open calls and and the answer that I got was you should stop you should stop and I don't want to make it sound like I'm blaming them because honestly the advice Wasn't necessarily wrong in the in the circumstances that we find ourselves in right now I Don't know if there's anyone in this room myself included who hasn't heard that someone in this industry was pregnant and Thought about that person a little bit differently I don't know there's anyone here who can say that that never affected how they thought about that person because I for sure can't Thought like wow I wonder what they're gonna do or like I wonder if they still want to do that job They booked six months from now or like if that thought hasn't ever crossed someone's mind so I Don't want to sound like I'm blaming them because I'm totally not But the result of that was that not only did I not work that whole year But I didn't work the next year right because we don't Book work for and sometimes we do but a lot of times we're booking work for next year when we're doing that hustle this year So what you end up with is people who every time they give birth are Not working for a year or two years on the best in the best case scenario if you're if that's the advice that you're giving people so my perspective as an as a Leader at equity has also come to include the fact that this is incredibly problematic for our health insurance coverage so because of the way that our Insurance is structured through the union which I just want to caveat that the union and the health fund are very separate I have no decision-making power over how that's structured whatsoever, but the way that that's structured means that if you're not working this year You lose your health insurance when it's most important for you to have it. I don't know about any of you But I'm generally supremely privileged to be generally healthy But when I needed my health insurance the most was when I was getting hospital bills for $80,000 for delivering children, right? so when you're not working for two years at a time you Lose your health insurance coverage here. You might lose your you know dependent coverage if you're paying for that So it's extremely problematic in that way. So yeah, absolutely Thank you so much for sharing that I also want to draw attention to the language that you use because it's language that I hear all the time I used it myself when people in our field specifically the arts choose to become pregnant they use words like brave and doubtful and Questioning and if that's the language we use to talk about a woman's choice to become pregnant how pro-choice are we? So in that note, let's expand to reproductive justice So let's let's take the scope outward now that now that we've made that content connection And so now you're studying reproductive justice Talk to me about how because I have full faith in the the performing arts field Having the potential to be a leader in terms of liberal and progressive understanding of how we treat people So in this understanding of like what happens to how we treat pregnancy rights Why is that important that you in terms that you've learned on a global scale? right, so I Decided to switch gears and change careers for a variety of reasons one of which was this experience that I had and how really difficult it was The other was that I had a birth experience that was Really kind of horrific and left me with PTSD and I felt like I needed to make some sense out of that so I decided to go back to school to get my master's in public administration with a focus on reproductive justice and one of the things that I learned Pretty quickly off the bat is that is the difference between when we talk about pregnancy rights we're like reproductive rights and reproductive justice and so First I want to say that the concept of reproductive justice is not new but that it was Sort of coalesced and named as such by black women in the 90s. So I want to give credit where that's due But the concept of justice versus choice, right? So we're talking about how we don't even necessarily have choice But but that's a very limited framework, right? So when we talk about choice we talk about whether one can Carry a pregnancy to term whether one wants to whether one can decide not to all those things But that's not really enough So justice is the idea that we need to have access to the things that make that those choices possible So like the access is really key choice is It's such a small part of the framework because we don't actually really have choice If we don't have access to the support that makes those choices possible So reproductive justice comes from a human rights framework. It's based on the United Nations Like human rights That they have enumerated that include the the societal support for people who decide to have families and they actually Outline that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the UN that like everyone deserves to have societal Support when creating family and that's really key. I think when we think about any industry that Choice is not enough. We need justice, which means that we need to be able to choose whether to have children We need to be able to choose whether we don't have children and we need to be able to choose Whether we raise those children in a safe society and and Everyone else around us needs to be providing the support for us to do so So I think that's really key when thinking about these things. Absolutely and I also want to Connect language again the societal support. We use the word community a lot in our field Just in the last few weeks you'd be amazed what I hear in the last few weeks I did hear a story of Someone resisting this idea because the theater is not a daycare center But I have news for you. No one wants you to watch their child. You're not their first choice You are not qualified Broadway babysitters is But what we're asking for is the societal support I also know that the part of the problem this word choice is that in our field And you need to be aware of this so that if you see it happen to a co-worker or you see it happen to someone You know you can offer this language that sometimes choices used to throw back at someone why they don't deserve that support So will you chose to have this child and that language is rooted in class? It's rooted in discrimination by race. It is so gendered That what you're saying is you had every single option and you made an option that nobody asked you to when it wasn't really anyone else's business and So the conversation we want to have is if the UN thinks it's worthwhile to have a conversation about societal Support for families. What is the theater going to do to translate that to communal support for families? Thank you so much. Okay. I know that we're gonna transition right to iris But what is one line that you have for us in like how can we help pregnant women? especially those who have health insurance based on their union higher us Thank you Awesome, so we're gonna transition to iris here What are the I want to talk to you about now brought drawing it inside our theater community And what are the dangers that you've seen in terms of lacking HR education human resource in terms of employee vulnerability? Okay How much time do we all have? This is I think maybe where to start so just a little context on my background I was a theater educator for seven years and then a performer before that and my husband is still a performer and I transitioned to HR and It was like a light went off. I was like walking in a dark room with everybody else Thinking I had very little advocacy for myself Because these were the rules of engagement. These were the rules of the road and you just followed along and When I transitioned to and I still work at a nonprofit, right? So it's not that different It's not like I work at a bank It's not like I work in corporate finance or a startup or anything like that I'm still very similarly in the same kinds of conversation in terms of budgets in terms of working with boards donor support, etc the light that turned on for me was the total lack of And we talk about education and how vulnerable that makes institutions because not always are they legally Following the best practice and standard But then we're certainly not following is it ethical and is it compassionate and that would not fly, right? Certainly not what I've seen now that I now that I work in this other space And one of the things that I think leaves you vulnerable is this lack of understanding, right? So as an individual, I would encourage everyone to either through pal and I should also say I am the managing director of pal and so I have some skin in this game, but If that's not something that for whatever reason is an option for you to join either as an individual or as an institution We are not the creators of these federal and state laws, right? So you can find this information out through your own research and either You know Google is your best friend, right? But Figure out the bare bones what your rights are when you're interviewing When you are talking to your representation and the other thing that I would say is after you start or in in parallel with this individual research Document everything. I know that's gonna sound like such a really cheesy HR phrase, but Track everything, right? Because if you do find yourselves on the other side of workplace discrimination Audition discrimination any anything where you feel like you have a viable complaint to bring to the EEOC to an attorney Whatever the first thing you're gonna ask you is what is your evidence? And so you want to make sure If that means that you have to go so far as to create a separate Google account for yourself and a Gmail account where you're Just sending everything to if that means that you find a way to just scan and save everything Email everything right even if it's well We had this conversation my my supervisor in my office and then it became a he said she said situation Write an email and say I just want to reprise this conversation that we had to make sure that you and I are both on the Same page about it track everything. I appreciate that sounds a little paranoid, but worst case scenario you've got a Gmail account full of stuff you're never gonna use so that's from an individual standpoint from an institutional standpoint I think it does become a risk because Not every organization has the luxury of a dedicated HR person typically Or more often than not and I will not speak for every organization. I mean there are ones that do but it's often an office manager a general manager a company manager and while they are doing I'm sure they're level best. They are not subject matter experts neither. They often employment lawyers or they sherm certified Are they have they taken an HR course period let alone worked as a dedicated HR professional? No oftentimes they're serving is like mini coos and so they're dealing with budgets and they're dealing with a Litany of other things that in the moment feel much more important, but do leave you for risk and if you have and are encouraging a staff To become aware of what their their rights and their agency can can look like then You even more so open yourselves up, right? And I do also want to say that Once you start this conversation in this dialogue it can become very attractive to donors It can become very attractive to getting grants us ad AID funding becomes available in a way that it wasn't before I mean this can be something you can raise to your board to say this is money on the table and It's ethical and it's compassionate and raises the national standard, right? That's how we're getting like The Ford Foundation to come and play with us and they were not interested in us before right? So you can turn that Actually into a positive that risk then becomes a strength or an opportunity Fantastic, that's a great so Also for those listening at home if you want to engage with this conversation We're on Twitter at PA AL theater with an RE And there are hashtags summit 19 I just wanted to make sure that those of you watching feel like you can dialogue with us as well because this is so important in terms of Creating solutions just so you all know Iris has come on as managing director for PAL because our goal is to create digital resources for this training For institutions who cannot afford an HR representative or who do not have an opportunity to apply for grants So that what you can do is you can log into the the PAL database And have HR videos training videos that you can watch with your staff. This is important Because that means that you're gonna help impact gender parity simply by your education and that's wonderful And so with that I would love to engage with our friend Nicole Who recently wrote a piece for howl round which I think it's groundbreaking And so Nicole I would love for you to start us off with talking about where you see the intersection between Parenting access and developing anti-racist theater practice Well, I think like I said in the article I was published earlier this week that the theatrical industrial complex is overwhelmingly racist And so if that's the standard and that's the norm then the lens in which Decisions are being made need to be funneled through an anti-racist lens, right? And that's a small action within oneself. So you begin to look at the bias and the discrimination That's being held in the policy and I think I Don't know listen. I'm not gonna lean on my own understanding because I'm tired so I Have a little bit here and I just want to like share that right so the anti-racist theater work and Practice that I do as a facilitator As a director as an educator All stems from the the racism that I have experienced In every aspect of my life, right and did not get left at the door when I decided to push two children into the world and Then get a bonus one Ah Mother of three, okay So anti-racist theater is defined as practices and policies that actively acknowledge and interrogate racism generating dynamic Anti-racist ideas values and policies that counter the oppression of any people in any aspect of education and production, right? So that part becomes really really important. So what is your organization's anti-racist? Theater ethos and if you're not doing theater, what is your anti-racist ethos and what is your personal anti-racist ethos? And then how does that stem into your bigger understanding around the support that I mean? I just feel like this is a yes both and some oh from what You two have shared right so then when you're looking at those different Systemic inequities and inequalities and how they affect marginalized communities I Think it would help create more deeply rooted systems and policies and practices that around those three Core values of anti-racist theater, which is harm reduction harm prevention and relationship repair So when you're looking at your policies in that way too like how that ties back in Absolutely, so this is you know a lot of times in theater conferences I hear us talking about where are we centering our need like who is centered in that conversation? And if you are centering only the employees who have been able to reach your organization and gain employment and reach the upper levels And then at a management level suddenly have children and that's your standard of where care should be then the default is privilege Right, and so this this request like this training is so necessary What you're what you're doing because I read an earlier piece from Nicole and it just gave such Such structure to how we should be centering need and we should be centering need on the people who need it most who have not reached us yet Right because if we take care of them then the people in our organization will also be taking care of but it cannot work in the reverse I also want to Just just say like the connection between these three women is also that we don't make theater in a vacuum people come to us Engaging with socio-economical realities that make work for our organizations possible or not If you are not actively advocating if you can't afford it or actively engaging with if you can't afford it maternity leave if not family leave then how are you addressing the fact that the In the mortality rate for black women giving birth is astronomically high for our country But you're not investing in Creating a system of care for if if a mother of color or if a black woman gives birth in your organization So she's not cared for in society and she's not cared for in in between your walls This is this is like Deep conversation, but if we're talking about support, let's not get pretty Let's talk about how are we really creating change? Please something in that too that in terms of like the pregnancy itself and addressing the environment That that worker is asked to be in while they are building spines and lungs and you know as and things That racism has an impact on the development of that child Because you are asking people to be in these inhospitable places and these surface and superficial Policies that get put into place that are actually not centering people of color or black people at all Just add to that burden and that emotional stress of being in that space every day, which is also why I'll speak for myself I don't want to bring my children into many spaces that have these quote-unquote child friendly policies because I'm in these spaces dealing with racism all the time and Then people were like oh was that your experience? We're so sorry right but the sorry does not Mitigate that actual health issue that I have to then hold in Constriction and so you know there's also that dealing with that anti-racist theater practice comes into play around your Organizational culture you can't just be thinking about the kids once they're there But you can't be thinking about those needs once they're like present for you Those microaggressions they add up on a daily basis and who knows in terms of documentation How many miscarriages that may have provided within this community or harder pregnancies that that may have Provided as because of racism as a factor, right? I'm awake now And we're all better for it. Thank you I also let me let's let's help make that connection now like this This is what we need to carry in our bellies with us into our organizations and into our walls Sometimes there's a translation that needs to happen like let's say let's take what she's saying so she's saying I do not feel comfortable Let's hear her story. I do not feel comfortable entering these spaces Why would I bring my children and let's connect that it sounds eerily similar to the question? All of our audience engagement professionals are asking which is how do we get more diverse audiences into our spaces? Maybe it has to do with the fact that we're not centering our inclusive structures internally on the right people. I Would just offer that into the room as maybe Community engagement improves and that's the translation you can use to the rest of your organization When we start to take care of the people internally in a way that's recentered We are doing this in every session now We are going to close off the live feed for a closed Q&A We are coming back everyone for the next session to live stream We want to give everyone in the space a room a safe place to engage with these conversations So thank you so much. Jose. Let me know when we're