Liberatory Design for Equity | March 12 - 26, 2025

We are all living in challenging times that our past experiences and training may not have sufficiently prepared us for. As adrienne maree brown said, “Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other tight and continue to pull back the veil.”

What inequities are more visible now? What inequities are emerging? How can we start designing the equitable future we want to live in now?

Liberatory Design is an approach grounded in our Leading for Equity Framework that knits together human-centered design thinking with an equity lens and a complexity stance. Many leaders approach their system’s challenges and change initiatives as complicated problems to solve, but equity challenges are more than complicated – they are complex with unknown problems and unknown solutions. For complex challenges like developing a distance learning plan, addressing disproportionality in discipline, implementing a district-wide equity initiative, or addressing inequitable & racist hiring practices at your organization, emergent solutions must be found through dynamic interactions of diverse people and networks working together.

Liberatory Design is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Tania Anaissie, David Clifford, Susie Wise, and the National Equity Project. This Liberatory Design for Equity course integrates the Liberatory Design approach into NEP’s Leading for Equity framework and pushes participants to expand their equity consciousness and move toward dynamic approaches to problem solving and decision-making. Leaders in complex systems must be skilled at balancing approaches that are technically sound and attentive to relationships; they need to know how and when to see, engage, and act. Liberatory design can support your efforts to lead change and create more equitable teams, organizations, and systems in ways that respond to this moment and lay groundwork for longer term transformation.

Participants will

• Develop an understanding of the Liberatory Design Approach, including the non-linear “process” for weaving this approach into their work and the mindsets needed to take careful and effective action
• Develop and use equity, complexity and design lenses to clearly define their equity challenges and take quick, productive, liberatory steps within their spheres of influence
• Generate ideas and actions to take between sessions, and after the course, to apply the Liberatory Design approach in their work
• Regularly share their applications and insights with other participants in service of creating a learning community and deepening our collective understanding of the Liberatory Design approach

Wednesdays, March 12 - 26, 2025 | 9:30 am–3:30 pm Pacific
This course will be delivered in weekly live, 6-hour interactive learning sessions conducted online in Zoom. Attend live sessions with facilitators and fellow participants; learn and practice new skills both in session and in your own context between sessions. Participants receive electronic versions of all resources and tools with the option to purchase a hard copy of the resource guide.

We are intensely focused on humanizing our virtual spaces. We focus on interactivity and connection (these courses are not webinars), frequent screen and body breaks, and attending to learning, practice, and healing in community with people across the country.

We provide an advance draft of our slide deck 24 hours before the session and enable live transcription and closed captions during the live Zoom session. Our sessions are recorded (absent any technical difficulties) and can be accessed for up to 30 days after the course concludes.

$1,200 per person | course AND Liberatory Design Community of Practice (June 3, 2025)

Limitied tickets are also offered on a Sliding Scale / Pay What You Can Model. For more information about how NEP's Sliding Scale Model works and guidance on how to determine what to pay please visit bit.ly/NEPSlidingScale
You will receive a password-protected Zoom link and any other pre-reads and resources prior to the meeting via email. Please add [email protected] to your contacts to ensure you receive all course communications.

Registration by credit card on Eventbrite is our preferred method. We are a small (but mighty) organization and processing and collecting check payments for our events has a high administrative impact.

Please visit our registration page on our website for information on paying by check or purchase order and our cancellation and registration transfer policy.

Event Venue

Online