Foraging for Stories: Walking Alongside Communities

Community work in India has traditionally been driven by experts with institutional trainings believing that communities don’t know any better about their own health, rights or dreams. Our history of colonization from European oppressors, casteist control over knowledge production and industrial-medical complex subjugating lived experiences promote interventions that rob people of agency and locate problems in our rich practices of life.

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In this workshop, Raviraj will share practices of centering community knowledges in trainings and interventions informed by everyday practices of living to hold space to practice agency over their language, bodies and dreams. He will demonstrate this through stories of partnership with a group of indigenous women and youth from rural India who are developing community led mental health interventions for their own people.

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Using the metaphor of the mycelium network, the mushrooms and foragers, Raviraj will offer reflections on the symbiotic enmeshment of stories and communities and on the stance as trainers ‘walking alongside’ with communities as foragers of preferred stories of know how’s and histories of people’s movements that are always present under the oppressive stories and always pop-out in people’s everyday lives in undetermined ways like the masutake mushrooms in a human ruined forests.

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1. Learn to forage experience near languages
2. Learn to raise gentle questions for reflecting on trainer’s social location
3. Learn practices for centering community lived knowledges
4. Engage with the metaphor of mushrooms and mycelium network as a way to understand stories.

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Dr. Raviraj Shetty is the co-founder and director of Narrative Practices India Collective. He is an occupational therapist, children's book author, supervisor, library educator and a teacher who believes that all the problems of this world are rooted in the structural systems of oppression rather than in communities or peoples bodies and identities. His work is informed by Narrative practices, sensory integration, accountability practices, queer writings, children's books, his mother’s cooking practices and his communities ways of living.

He has been consulting with communities, children, families, adults and organisations to discover and reauthor their preferred ways of being since the last 15 years. He is a teacher of Narrative practices and Early childhood development; and teaches in local and international workshops and diplomas. He supports the work of therapists and community health workers through supervision and consultation.

Raviraj works alongside people and communities responding to caste-based violence, sexual violence, young disabled children and families navigating an ableist world, indigenious community led health initiatives, well-being of frontline workers and leaders in not-for-profit sector. Raviraj has been instrumental in developing curriculums for community led mental health programs and Diploma’s in Anticaste mental health practices and Diploma in Children’s picture books and Mental Health.

Raviraj has published articles and is a peer reviewer for the Indian Journal of Occupational Therapy, Journal of Occupational Science and has also co-curated Jugaad, a little book of know-hows by young people with disabilities about mental health and conceptualised Our Jugaad, a handbook of know-hows by mothers of disabled children. He has peer reviewed articles for international journals including Journal of Occupational science. He is also a TEDx speaker. He is presently working on book projects to document Mad Stories ( stories of people with mental illnesses) and Book of Aspirations ( documenting the story of aspiration for the last five decades).

When not working you will find him dreaming about Unicorns, chatting away with friends, obsessing over a children's picture book, dancing garba to the tunes of Falguni Pathak, listening to a love song on loop or sobbing through a romantic film.

Registration allows for participation online and/or access to the recording for three weeks following the workshop. The registration process and price are the same for all options.

First register here, then email [email protected] to let us know you would like access to the recording. A few days after the event, you will be emailed with the link to the recording and workshop materials/ instructions.

This program is approved for 3.5 CEs according to the licenses below. Following the workshop, live participants will email their completed evaluation to Caspersen, LLC. Participants who view the workshop as a recording will email their evaluation and the recording post-test to Caspersen Inc. CE's will then be emailed to participants.

PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS: This activity consists of 3.5 clock hours of continuing education instruction. Approved by the Minnesota Board of Behavioral Health and Therapy. Credit requirements and approvals vary per state board regulations. Please save the course outline, the certificate of completion you receive from the activity and contact your state board or organization to determine specific filing requirements.

SOCIAL WORKERS: Caspersen, LLC. Provider #:1324, is approved as a provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), www.aswb.org through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) Program. Caspersen, LLC. maintains responsibility for the program. ASWB Approval Period: 9/17/2023-9/17/2026. The Minnesota Board of Social Work approves ASWB sponsored CEs. In other states, Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval for continuing education credits. Social workers participating in this course will receive 3.5 (Clinical) continuing education clock hours in participating in this beginner/intermediate course.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS: This activity consists of 3.5 hours of continuing education instruction. Approved by the Minnesota Board of Marriage and Family Therapy. Credit requirements and approvals vary per state board regulations. Please save the course outline, this certificate of completion and contact your state board or organization to determine specific filing requirements. Some states such as California accept our ASWB CE provider status.

PSYCHOLOGISTS: Caspersen, LLC is an approved CE sponsor for the Minnesota Board of Psychology. Caspersen maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This program awards 3.5 credits to participating professionals. Full attendance is required. No partial credit will be offered for partial attendance.

OTHER PROFESSIONS: This activity qualifies for 3.5 hours of instructional content as required by many national, state and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Retain your certificate of completion and contact your board or organization for specific filing requirements.

Individuals can request accommodations by contacting John Stillman at [email protected].

Please refer to Caspersen's website: caspersentrainingcenter.com for current grievance policy. If you have questions or concerns, contact John Stillman at [email protected].

Event Venue

Online