VIRTUAL TRAINING & SUPERVISION AVAILABLE Training & Curriculum DEVELOPMENT
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When we feel seen, valued and respected, what changes?
About Talking changes
Experience
Talking Changes was founded on the premise that we are at our best when we feel safe, seen, and respected. Every product created and facilitated is grounded in this core tenet, encouraging the ease and authenticity that promotes insight, awareness and growth. Since 1999, Talking Changes has offered tailored, dynamic, interactive and solution-focused trainings, seminars, coaching and curricula to a wide range of groups including social service providers, teachers, law enforcement, and both small and large businesses in the non-profit and for-profit sectors. Subjects span from general cultural humility/awareness and inclusion to specific anti-racism, sexual identity, weight stigma/body size, and gender identity programs. Participants leave empowered and inspired, having gained greater knowledge, skills and solutions.
Talking Changes' founder, Dr. Mara Gottlieb, holds a PhD and a Masters in Social Work, both from New York University. In addition to teaching and guest lecturing at several universities, she has worked with esteemed clients such as the Anti-Defamation League, Good Shepherd Services, ACS, DCF, DMHAS, The Child Center of NY, the Connecticut Women's Consortium, Hartford District Court, Mercy Learning Center, and many more. Her workshops have been featured at the CT NASW annual conference, and she has served as keynote speaker at several others.
In 2017, Dr. Gottlieb was the recipient of the CT-NASW Distinguished Achievement Award for her "contributions as a social justice activist, encouraging communication, insight and growth, and for [her] skill and passion in addressing diversity and ideological divisions to affect positive change during contentious times."
What We Offer
Trainings/Seminars
Trainings and seminars are tailored to your specific needs and the time you have: from 90 minutes to a full day. All trainings and seminars have interactive and experiential components and involve visual aides such as PowerPoint, video, and additional media. Most training topics qualify for diversity and inclusion credits through the National Association of Social Work. Trainings can be offered either in-person or as a live virtual presentation.
Curriculum/Syllabus Development
A co-created curriculum is yours to keep. Talking Changes can help you design your program and offer any needed guidance on content, materials and presentation style.
Consulting/Brainstorming Next Steps For You or Your Agency
It's perfectly okay if you're not sure what next steps to take - let's brainstorm together to determine the best course of action. The first consultation is free of charge, and we can discuss a fee structure if more support is desired.
Coaching/Supervision
I am also available for confidential one-on-one sessions - in person or via conference call - to serve as a sounding board, an ally, and a partner in helping you tap into your own wisdom, strength and intuition. Having a trusted, reliable source of support provides significant relief and security.
Testimonials
"Mara, I could sit and listen to you speak or be a part of your workshops weekly. Those hours just fly by. Thank you so much for the work you do. This was such an intense, powerful session. It brought tears to my eyes within the first 5 minutes, it made me feel uncomfortable, it made me smile, it made me think. You are truly a gifted speaker and presenter. Thank you."
"This was, without a doubt, the most powerful and transforming training I have ever attended. The information provided, the exercises done in class, the whole package brought an awareness I did not have before. It gave me an understanding of how profound racism is in our society, by design, and how to work against it. I am so grateful for Mara's presentation! I wish everyone had the opportunity to attend this incredibly powerful day of training. So grateful to have been there! Thank you!"
"Today's training was by far the most engaging, dynamic, and energizing experience I have had here - or at any conference over the past 15 years that I've been a social worker. Mara is a terrific presenter, and I appreciate how deeply she challenged us to think and look within ourselves. Thank you!"
"I loved this training and the transparency of the trainer. She was knowledgeable and presented the information in a way that encouraged sharing and understanding."
"[Mara] weaves in and out academics to individual...never expected this topic to be so energizing, reflective, & helpful for staff. Thank you."
Supervision and Support
Get the Support You Need to Be Your Best
It's invaluable to have a sounding board; a source of unconditional respect and regard; someone who can help you tap into your own intuitive wisdom and offer alternate perspectives. Particularly in these more-stressful and uncertain times, it's highly reassuring to know that you have a confidential space for your own concerns and questions.
Coaching and Supervision
Select Training Topics
Cultivating Cultural Humility: A Practice Training for Direct Service Providers (3-6 hours)
Cultivating Cultural Humility: A Practice Training for Direct Service Providers (3-6 hours)
Cultivating Cultural Humility: A Practice Training for Direct Service Providers (3-6 hours)
This is a kinder, gentler diversity and inclusion training, one that encourages us to be teachable, and to allow others the dignity of telling their own story.
Learn how cultivating cultural humility enhances authenticity, creativity and confidence. Create a workplace where diversity and inclusion are celebrated: where everyone is welcomed and respected, and people's individual strengths are recognized.
Approaching any relationship through a lens of cultural humility asks us to strive for a deeper level of openness to others’ experiences and the way they see the world: it integrates collaborative and strengths-based practice with an ongoing commitment to compassionate self-awareness, encouraging us to see without judgment how our own experience and identities impact the work we do and the values we hold.
Racism, White Privilege, and the Myth of Colorblindness (2-6 hours, virtual and in-person)
Cultivating Cultural Humility: A Practice Training for Direct Service Providers (3-6 hours)
Cultivating Cultural Humility: A Practice Training for Direct Service Providers (3-6 hours)
We cannot dismantle what we don't know how to discuss, and a productive discussion must be grounded in accurate information. This honest, informative training provides participants with the knowledge, language, and tools to boldly and productively address issues of race, racism, and skin color privilege, inside and outside the workplace. In a respectful, intentional environment, we will have brave conversations about the socially-constructed meanings of skin color and race, and the resulting impact of racism in society, with a particular focus on how race has been coupled with class to create further division. We will discuss both historical and present-day racism in the United States to provide context for our current circumstances. Finally and most importantly, we will work together toward solutions regarding what we can do to debunk, dismantle and defeat structural and individual racism.
Diversity in the Workplace: One Agency, Many Cultures (3-6 hours)
Cultivating Cultural Humility: A Practice Training for Direct Service Providers (3-6 hours)
LGBTQIA...SOS! Sexuality and Gender, Differentiated and Demystified (3.5 or 6 hours)
This diversity and inclusion training helps participants foster a workplace or classroom environment that is welcoming and supportive of individuals from a vast array of cultures, including but not limited to cultures of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, religion, body size, citizenship, ability and age. Our identities and experiences impact the lens through which we see the world, and this workshop seeks to assist participants in becoming more clear regarding those identities, how they impact our own behaviors, values and biases, and how to create a workplace that allows everyone to feel valued and welcome. The consistent feedback from this course is that it is uplifting and fun, as well as informative and insight-bearing, and that it can bring a greater sense of community and trust to the work environment.
LGBTQIA...SOS! Sexuality and Gender, Differentiated and Demystified (3.5 or 6 hours)
"Did You Really Just Say That?": Addressing Biased Language from Our Clients (2-3.5 hours)
LGBTQIA...SOS! Sexuality and Gender, Differentiated and Demystified (3.5 or 6 hours)
The question is no longer whether we will have LGBTQIA co-workers, students or clients, but why we might not know that we do, and whether we are adequately prepared to serve these individuals knowledgeably and respectfully. So let's talk openly about sexuality and gender, and what - if anything - the two have to do with one another. This highly-experiential and interactive training will explain in plain language - through case examples, group discussion and video - exactly what it means to identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, cisgender, intersex, non-binary, asexual and gender queer.
"Did You Really Just Say That?": Addressing Biased Language from Our Clients (2-3.5 hours)
"Did You Really Just Say That?": Addressing Biased Language from Our Clients (2-3.5 hours)
"Did You Really Just Say That?": Addressing Biased Language from Our Clients (2-3.5 hours)
A great way to start a conversation around diversity and inclusion! There is language our clients, co-workers or students use that can provoke a - shall we say - potent response. This brief, solution-focused training seeks to help participants better understand the ways we respond when someone uses language we perceive as offensive; to evaluate the impact of the setting and the speaker’s emotional state when deciding how we respond; to increase our awareness of our own verbal triggers and how to determine whether and how to respond, and to provide solutions for engaging in "confrontation without humiliation:" responding in ways that honor our own boundaries without shaming the speaker.
GenderSense: Demystifying Gender Identity (1.5-3 hours)
"Did You Really Just Say That?": Addressing Biased Language from Our Clients (2-3.5 hours)
"Did You Really Just Say That?": Addressing Biased Language from Our Clients (2-3.5 hours)
One of the reasons gender identity can be confusing is our lack of understanding regarding the ways that we "perform" gender every single day. We'll clarify the differences between sex and gender, bring cultural binary-gender expectations out into the open, discuss the social impact of ideas regarding masculinity and femininity, and arrive at a level of ease and fluency with regard to understanding and talking about gender expression and identity.
For more training topics, please click on "More Trainings" at the top of the page.