Community Care
“If you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too — the terms with which they are connected to other people.” ~James Baldwin
We live in a culture of overwhelming individualism - where people have been told for generations to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and take care of their own business. Individualism is harmful and leaves many people feeling more lonely, more depressed, and more isolated than ever before. It negatively impacts our sense of well-being and has become a major health concern across the planet. Community Care is the remembrance that we are all connected and that nothing happens in a vacuum. My approach to community care begins with healing justice - collectively (this may be a group of 2 or 2,000) we examine painful histories, confront how those histories continue to play out in our current lives and communities, and imagine then create the futures we want to build together. We learn from Black, Queer, Trans, Disabled, POC, and Indigenous communities what it means return to wholistic ways of healing. I first learned the term “healing justice” from the work of Cara Page and the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective. When I read their description of healing justice I realized it was a concept I already knew from the traditional teachings of my own Indigenous aunties and mentors. My work in community care happens at the intersections of Indigenous identity, spirituality, creative practice, and social justice. I have served communities at these intersections in forensic mental health, higher education, religious and spiritual organizations, and creative spaces and continue to serve through wellness support, presentations and workshops, and through consultation and collaboration efforts. At the heart of community care and healing justice are the sharing of stories. Without them we cannot, as James Baldwin says, examine and face our lives so we can discover how we are connected to the lives of others.
Services
Inquiry / 30 minutes / No cost
Curious about working together but unsure where to start? Interested in speaking more about one of the options listed here? Schedule a quick chat to discuss your organization’s needs and ways I may be able to offer support.
Wellness Support / $150 per hour
I offer 1:1 and group wellness support for your employees &/or clients. This includes spiritual care (assisting people as they explore meaning, purpose, & identity in their lives), self-care techniques and resources, & community care strategies.
Public Speaking / $500+
I am available for remote public speaking gigs (webinars, presentations, guest sermons) that include discussion on spiritual, self, & community care & the ways storytelling & artistic practice support trauma healing.
Workshops / $500+
I provide workshop facilitation on a variety of topics including the intersections of spiritual and emotional health, community care, creating ceremony & ritual, ancestral connection, & the role of artistic practice in healing work.
Consultation / $150/per hour
Sometimes it helps to consult with a third party who has a strong background in spiritual and community care. This option is for organizations that could use a little hourly support in how to best care for their community.
Collaboration / cost varies based on project
When your organization’s needs move beyond hourly support and you are looking for help navigating a larger project that will serve the total wellbeing of the communities you serve.
Selection of Workshops & Presentations
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Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church
Offered sermons that integrated story and spiritual care to the Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church community in Portland, Oregon. In Summer of 2022 I discussed the cross-cultural connections between story and prophecy in a talk titled “Prophecies, the 8th Fire” and in fall of 2022 I delivered a talk about using story to open portals of understanding into different points in history - as a tool for justice work.
Recordings no longer available / Summer and Fall 2022
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Love Your Body Week, Portland State University
Presented “Self Care and Chronic Illness: 10 Self Love Lessons I Learned After (Over) Two Years of Covid Isolation” as part of Portland State University Campus Recreation’s Love Your Body Week campaign.
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Indian Country ECHO
Facilitated conversation with elders, culture keepers, knowledge holders, and students regarding the intersections of self care, spiritual care, and community care for current and future behavioral health aide care providers.
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What We Know: Stories of Significance
A group of students at The Evergreen State College, Tacoma Campus participated in a project that brought their voices together with the voices of over 40 guest speakers to share stories of significance in their lives. I was one of the guest speakers for this project and my presentation was later published in a local online social justice journal.
Everything I Know I Learned From Onions & Huckleberries / Fall 2021
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Disability Resource Center / Portland State University
Presented “BIPOC & Chronically Ill: A Conversation with Indigenous Chaplain Melissa Bennett” to the Disability Resource Center community at Portland State University.
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Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation
“Allowing Grief: The Medicine of Birchbark Baskets” was a talk I gave at the Olympia UUC where I used to traditional Anishinaabe storytelling to provide support to a community that was grieving.
Recording no longer available / January 2019
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Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (Women Active in Letters and Social Change)
Co-facilitated a workshop titled “La Llorona Meets Windigo: Horror Stories as Lessons of Hope” at the MALCS summer institute at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA. The talk was centered on how we use the teachings found in traditional Indigenous horror stories to cope with social injustices in today’s world.
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MALCS Summer Institute
Facilitated a discussion on the ways poetry and story serve the role of trauma healing in Indigenous communities for the 2016 MALCS Summer Institute at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. The discussion/presentation was titled “Healing Through Indigenous Poetics.”
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Interfaith Muse
Interfaith Muse works to engage spiritual questions through civic dialogue and creative arts. They host pop-up events and workshops, publish a newsletter, and seek to connect with artists and writers who are exploring spiritual questions in their work. I was a panelist at their first pop-up event alongside author/musician Alicia Jo Rabins.
Community Resources
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The Hearth
The Hearth trusts in the power of personal stories to heal, connect, enrich, and mobilize communities for good. They believe sharing stories can be a radical and deeply human practice for strengthening common values, combating loneliness, cultivating compassion, and uncovering the ties that bind us to one another.
Melissa was a member of the 2023 online community storytelling certificate cohort.
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Oregon Humanities
Oregon Humanities connects people and communities through conversation, storytelling, and participatory programs to inspire understanding and collaborative change. They invite diverse perspectives, explore challenging questions, and strive for just communities.
Melissa was a 2023 Community Storytelling Fellow.
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The Nearness
The Nearness is a space to explore life’s big questions with like-hearted people. It was started to connect people who were not traditionally religious, but still longed for community, meaning, and spirituality.
Melissa has been a participant in their workshops and has served as a 2023 spiritual care provider for workshop participants.
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Chaplaincy Innovation Lab
The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab bring chaplains, theological educators, clinical educators and social scientists into conversation about the work of chaplaincy and spiritual care. As religious and spiritual life continues to change, they spark practical innovations that enable chaplains to nurture the spirits of those they serve and reduce human suffering.
Melissa is a member of their Spiritual Care By and For the Unaffiliated Advisory Group.
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Faith Matters Network
Faith Matters Network is a Womanist led organization focused on personal and social transformation. They catalyze personal and social change by equipping community organizers, faith leaders, and activists with resources for connection, spiritual sustainability, and accompaniment. FMN envisions a world of people living in just communities rooted in wisdom, spiritual practices, healing, and courage.
Melissa served as a community care chaplain with FMN at the start of the covid pandemic - providing care to front line health care workers. She was also a member of their first Movement Chaplaincy cohort.
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Macondo Writers Workshop
The Macondo Writers Workshop is an association of socially-engaged writers working to advance creativity, foster generosity, and serve community. Founded in 1995 by writer Sandra Cisneros and named after the town in Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, the workshop gathers writers from all genres who work on geographic, cultural, economic, gender, and spiritual borders and who are committed to activism in their writing and work.
Melissa has been a member of Macondo since 2016, has served as a poetry workshop reader and organized a Macondo community event as part of AWP Portland.
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Association of Writers and Writing Programs
AWP provides support, advocacy, resources, and community to writers, college and university creative writing programs, and writers’ conferences and centers. Their mission is to amplify the voices of writers and the academic programs and organizations that serve them while championing diversity and excellence in creative writing. They host the largest annual writer’s conference in North America.
Melissa has presented as an AWP panelist and has organized an off-site AWP event for The Macondo Writers Workshop.
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Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social
MALCS is a professional organization for self-identified Chicana, Latina, Native American/ Indígena women and gender non-conforming academics, students, and activists. MALCS actively works to create, promote, and support an inclusive education pipeline; and recognizes that scholarly and activist endeavors are not separate but rather part of a holistic approach for Chicana, Latina, and Native American / Indígena women and gender non-conforming peoples.
Melissa has presented at the MALCS Summer Institute twice and has served on the Women’s Indigenous Native Caucus (WINC).
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PlayWrite, Inc.
PlayWrite is a performance arts-based program that builds resilience, creativity and success. With one-to-one coaching, PlayWrite creates a safe space for participants to explore themselves in a new way—to build a story that’s never been written before. Over the course of the workshop, participants write a one-act play using unique, non-human characters that represent authentic emotions from their own life experiences. The workshop culminates in a performance with professional actors.
Melissa organized a PlayWrite, Inc. workshop at Portland State University and previously served on the PlayWrite,Inc. Board of Directors.