At the Core: Poetry as Resistance to Domestic and Family Violence
Tracks
Room 2: In-Person Only
| Monday, November 25, 2024 |
| 4:10 PM - 5:10 PM |
| Room 2 |
Overview
Julia Ellis & Salwa Al Baz, Cumberland Women's Health Centre
Speaker
Salwa Al Baz
Executive Officer
Cumberland Women's Health Centre
At the Core: Poetry as Resistance to Domestic and Family Violence
4:10 PM - 5:10 PMAbstract
This workshop offers a platform to critically reflect on DFV service provision, mental health considerations, and pathways to recovery. Participants will explore the transformative potential of poetry as a medium for vicarious resistance, meaning-making and promoting wellbeing.
The workshop draws from insights gleaned from the Writing Your Voice program and the subsequent anthology, "Apples: An Unapologetic Anthology From The Core," which emerged from a collaborative effort between Cumberland Women’s Health Centre and WestWords, supported by the Parramatta Leagues Club/Parramatta ClubGRANTS scheme. By re-imagining traditional, medicalised and pathologising approaches to ‘mental health’ and ‘trauma recovery', the program used the transformational power of poetry to make visible the storytelling, skills, knowledge and acts of resistance of women in Western Sydney. This act of re-imagining mainstream approaches was a creative experiment to bridge silos, expand beyond traditional DFV services and deliver culturally-responsive, non-medicalised support.
By framing DFV, racialized trauma and emotional distress as social issues that can be explored, reflected upon, and transfigured into poetic expression, the program countered a prevailing narrative in our field that trauma is something "done to" individuals. Instead, the program made visible the myriad "small acts of resistance" undertaken by people to reclaim dignity, safety, and humanity in the face of oppression and degradation. Dominant approaches and discourse often fail to hold complexity and nuance of experience - but art does. Poetry does.
Key Learnings:
1. Build understanding of ways to provide holistic services and bridge silos through collaboration with community organisations and services.
2. Creating culturally-responsive programs that think differently about mental health and recovery.
3. Opportunity for workers to engage in critical reflection, vicarious resistance and meaning-making.
The workshop draws from insights gleaned from the Writing Your Voice program and the subsequent anthology, "Apples: An Unapologetic Anthology From The Core," which emerged from a collaborative effort between Cumberland Women’s Health Centre and WestWords, supported by the Parramatta Leagues Club/Parramatta ClubGRANTS scheme. By re-imagining traditional, medicalised and pathologising approaches to ‘mental health’ and ‘trauma recovery', the program used the transformational power of poetry to make visible the storytelling, skills, knowledge and acts of resistance of women in Western Sydney. This act of re-imagining mainstream approaches was a creative experiment to bridge silos, expand beyond traditional DFV services and deliver culturally-responsive, non-medicalised support.
By framing DFV, racialized trauma and emotional distress as social issues that can be explored, reflected upon, and transfigured into poetic expression, the program countered a prevailing narrative in our field that trauma is something "done to" individuals. Instead, the program made visible the myriad "small acts of resistance" undertaken by people to reclaim dignity, safety, and humanity in the face of oppression and degradation. Dominant approaches and discourse often fail to hold complexity and nuance of experience - but art does. Poetry does.
Key Learnings:
1. Build understanding of ways to provide holistic services and bridge silos through collaboration with community organisations and services.
2. Creating culturally-responsive programs that think differently about mental health and recovery.
3. Opportunity for workers to engage in critical reflection, vicarious resistance and meaning-making.
Biography
Bio coming soon...
Julia Ellis
Counsellor
Cumberland Women's Health Centre
At the Core: Poetry as Resistance to Domestic and Family Violence
Abstract
This workshop offers a platform to critically reflect on DFV service provision, mental health considerations, and pathways to recovery. Participants will explore the transformative potential of poetry as a medium for vicarious resistance, meaning-making and promoting wellbeing.
The workshop draws from insights gleaned from the Writing Your Voice program and the subsequent anthology, "Apples: An Unapologetic Anthology From The Core," which emerged from a collaborative effort between Cumberland Women’s Health Centre and WestWords, supported by the Parramatta Leagues Club/Parramatta ClubGRANTS scheme. By re-imagining traditional, medicalised and pathologising approaches to ‘mental health’ and ‘trauma recovery', the program used the transformational power of poetry to make visible the storytelling, skills, knowledge and acts of resistance of women in Western Sydney. This act of re-imagining mainstream approaches was a creative experiment to bridge silos, expand beyond traditional DFV services and deliver culturally-responsive, non-medicalised support.
By framing DFV, racialized trauma and emotional distress as social issues that can be explored, reflected upon, and transfigured into poetic expression, the program countered a prevailing narrative in our field that trauma is something "done to" individuals. Instead, the program made visible the myriad "small acts of resistance" undertaken by people to reclaim dignity, safety, and humanity in the face of oppression and degradation. Dominant approaches and discourse often fail to hold complexity and nuance of experience - but art does. Poetry does.
Key Learnings:
1. Build understanding of ways to provide holistic services and bridge silos through collaboration with community organisations and services.
2. Creating culturally-responsive programs that think differently about mental health and recovery.
3. Opportunity for workers to engage in critical reflection, vicarious resistance and meaning-making.
The workshop draws from insights gleaned from the Writing Your Voice program and the subsequent anthology, "Apples: An Unapologetic Anthology From The Core," which emerged from a collaborative effort between Cumberland Women’s Health Centre and WestWords, supported by the Parramatta Leagues Club/Parramatta ClubGRANTS scheme. By re-imagining traditional, medicalised and pathologising approaches to ‘mental health’ and ‘trauma recovery', the program used the transformational power of poetry to make visible the storytelling, skills, knowledge and acts of resistance of women in Western Sydney. This act of re-imagining mainstream approaches was a creative experiment to bridge silos, expand beyond traditional DFV services and deliver culturally-responsive, non-medicalised support.
By framing DFV, racialized trauma and emotional distress as social issues that can be explored, reflected upon, and transfigured into poetic expression, the program countered a prevailing narrative in our field that trauma is something "done to" individuals. Instead, the program made visible the myriad "small acts of resistance" undertaken by people to reclaim dignity, safety, and humanity in the face of oppression and degradation. Dominant approaches and discourse often fail to hold complexity and nuance of experience - but art does. Poetry does.
Key Learnings:
1. Build understanding of ways to provide holistic services and bridge silos through collaboration with community organisations and services.
2. Creating culturally-responsive programs that think differently about mental health and recovery.
3. Opportunity for workers to engage in critical reflection, vicarious resistance and meaning-making.
Biography
Julia Ellis (she/her) is a counsellor who has worked with Cumberland Women’s Health Centre since 2021. Julia is deeply passionate about intersectional and abolitionist feminism, creative and anti-oppressive approaches to DFV support and what gets termed ‘mental health’.
Cumberland Women’s Health Centre (CWHC) is a non-profit community based organisation on the unceded lands of the Barramattagal people, NSW. Using feminist frameworks, CWHC has been supporting the wellbeing of women for over 30 years. CWHC provides women’s health, domestic and family violence specialist response services to women and non-binary people in some of the most diverse areas of Western Sydney.
