Institute for the Development of Human Arts

09/15/2026

Our 2026 live training series, Archeologies of Grief, continues on Sunday, October 11 with “Grief Literacy 202: Alternatives to Suppression”

Facilitated by Camille Barton and Mal Rose, this course explores alternatives to grief suppression by examining how personal, collective, and systemic experiences of loss shape the ways we relate to ourselves and one another. Participants will consider how dominant Western cultural and mental health frameworks may reinforce patterns of grief suppression, and how engaging grief can support more sustainable relationships, care practices, and approaches to social change.

🔗 To register for this course, visit bit.ly/griefarcheology

📚 2.25 Continuing Education Credits are available for psychologists, social workers, counselors, and therapists. Live attendance is required to receive CEs.

ASL interpretation and live captioning will be provided. Tiered pricing and scholarships are available.

Swipe through for more information. Image descriptions in the comments.

Slide 1 ID: ID: A rectangle graphic with a red header at the top reading ARCHEOLOGIES OF GRIEF. The main background is a red rock canyon landscape beneath a cloudy blue sky. Large white text across the upper center reads: GRIEF LITERACY. Below, large white text reads: Alternatives to Supression. Text beneath reads: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 • 1–3:30 PM ET. The lower center has headshots of faculty, Camille Barton on the left and Mal Rose on the right on the right, with their names in white text beneath their respective photos. A red footer spans the bottom of the graphic, with the IDHA logo on the left and reads: Virtual, Recorded, CE credits available.

Slide 2 ID: Header reads: CLASS DESCRIPTION. Text below: This course explores alternatives to grief suppression by examining how personal, collective, and systemic experiences of loss shape the ways we relate to ourselves and one another. Participants will consider how dominant Western cultural and mental health frameworks may reinforce patterns of grief suppression, and how engaging grief can support more sustainable relationships, care practices, and approaches to social change.

Participants will explore reflective questions, relational approaches, and foundational facilitation skills for recognizing and responding to complex experiences of grief. Through reflection and practice, participants will develop skills for building trust-centered spaces in community and professional settings that can support the expression and complexity of individual, interpersonal, and collective grief.

Slide 3 ID: Header reads: LEARNING OBJECTIVES. Text below: Identify ways grief suppression and avoidance may appear in individual, community and professional relationships. Apply reflective questions and relational approaches for recognizing and responding to complex experiences of individual and collective grief for social change. Develop foundational facilitation skills for supporting grief while creating relationships and spaces with sufficient trust to support the expression of grief in others. Practice skills for inviting and holding multiple dimensions of individual, interpersonal, and collective grief within individual and group settings

Slide 4 ID: Header reads: FACULTY with a photo of Camille Barton. Text below: Camille Sapara Barton is a writer, embodiment social designer, advisor and educator who creates resources or collective experiences that prototype embodied decolonisation and reconnection to the web of life. Camille’s work is grounded in Black Feminism, ecology, somatics and harm reduction. They are the author of Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community (2024).

Slide 5 ID: Header reads: FACULTY with a photo of Mal Rose. Text below: Mal Rose (they/she), Grief Educator, has spent the last decade coaching, speaking, writing, and consulting on the topic of grief care and is thoroughly convinced of its ability it change the world for the better. Rooted in their lived experiences as a multi-violence and near-death experience survivor, they invite individuals, groups, and whole organizations to harness grief care as a force of radical cultural, social, and political systems reshaping. A warm, thoughtful, playfully dramatic lamp in the fog, they guide listeners through curious and creative explorations of the role of grief, and the consequences of its suppression, in conflict repair, community sustaining, and world building.

09/04/2026

Jacks McNamara will be stepping down as IDHA’s Executive Director on September 18. We thank Jacks for their many contributions, and are busy planning for IDHA’s next chapter. For the full letter from IDHA’s board, and a message from Jacks, please visit bit.ly/transition_2026.

Image description: Large white letters on a smoky blue background read “Upcoming Leadership Transition at IDHA. Read more at linkinbio or bit.ly/transition_2026

08/04/2026

Grief is everywhere, yet so many of us are never taught how to be with it. What has been taken from us? What wisdom still remains beneath the surface? And what becomes possible when we grieve together instead of alone?

This training series explores grief through disability justice, decolonial, relational, and embodied frameworks. Across three participatory classes, we will examine topics including neurodivergent and disabled grief, epistemicide and the suppression of indigenous and lived wisdom, and alternatives to dominant Western grief paradigms rooted in collective care and embodied practice.

🔗 Visit bit.ly/griefarcheology or the link in bio to register.

📚 2.25 Continuing Education Credits per class are available for Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, and Therapists. ASL + captioning provided. Tiered pricing and scholarships are available.

Image IDs in comments.

08/03/2026

📢 Registration is OPEN for IDHA's 2026 live training series, ARCHEOLOGIES OF GRIEF: Unearthing Our Wisdom!

Grief is everywhere, yet so many of us are never taught how to be with it. What has been taken from us? What wisdom still remains beneath the surface? And what becomes possible when we grieve together instead of alone?

This training series explores grief through disability justice, decolonial, relational, and embodied frameworks. Across three participatory classes, we will examine topics including neurodivergent and disabled grief, epistemicide and the suppression of indigenous and lived wisdom, and alternatives to dominant Western grief paradigms rooted in collective care and embodied practice.

🔗 Visit bit.ly/griefarcheology or the link in bio to register.

📚 2.25 Continuing Education Credits per class are available for Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, and Therapists. ASL + captioning provided. Tiered pricing and scholarships are available.
-Image IDs in comments

05/12/2026

Join IDHA on Wednesday, June 11 from 6–8pm ET for a virtual, creative workshop with Jessica Hirst & Angie Peacock examining the harms that can arise from psychiatric care through centering the lived experiences often left out of mainstream mental health conversations in favor of clinical authority.

Drawing from personal narrative, activism, and artistic practice, the session will explore psychiatric medication, withdrawal-related distress, misdiagnosis, and the systemic misunderstanding of states linked to psychiatric treatment. Participants will be invited to engage in creative expression alongside group reflection, with an emphasis on consent, pacing, and self-care throughout. The event is open to mental health workers and clinicians, researchers, educators, activists, survivors, peers, current and prior service users, writers, artists, and other advocates – anyone who is interested in exploring the link between personal and societal transformation.

🔗 Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/when-help-hurts-registration-1989244495836?aff=oddtdtcreator

✔️ Access: ASL interpretation + automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please submit any additional access needs to [email protected]. There will be videos in Spanish with English subtitles, if you have access to a larger screen than a phone, it will be easier to read them.

🎁 Donations: IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Image ID in comments.

03/02/2026

Join us on Thursday, March 19 from 6-8pm ET for a virtual workshop with Sascha Altman DuBrul exploring hands-on, peer-led ways to strengthen our capacity for connection, reflection, and collective care. Drawing from Internal Family Systems (IFS), systemic family therapy, and the long lineage of peer movement-created tools such as Transformative Mutual Aid Practices (T-MAPs), participants will learn how to create personal and relational “maps” that help make sense of inner experience in context.

Rather than treating distress, reactivity, or extreme states as signs of something “wrong” inside individuals, the facilitator will invite a systemic lens: our inner conflicts often mirror the dynamics of the families, communities, media environments, and political systems we are living inside. The workshop will blend teaching, gentle parts work oriented exercises, and group reflection, offering a tool that can be adapted for support groups, clinical settings, and community-based work.

🔗 Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transformative-mutual-aid-practices-mapping-our-inner-shared-worlds-registration-1984165406142

✔️ Access: ASL interpretation + automated captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants, alongside an edited caption transcript. Please email us at [email protected] with any further access needs or questions.

🎁 Donations: Registration is free, with a suggested donation of $10. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

A virtual workshop exploring hands-on, peer-led ways to strengthen our capacity for connection, reflection, and care-centered possibilities

02/24/2026

We are thrilled to share that Jacks McNamara has joined IDHA as our new Executive Director!

Jacks brings more than two decades of experience as a facilitator, educator, writer, and activist at the forefront of transformative mental health. As co-founder of The Icarus Project (now the Fireweed Collective) and a longtime trauma healing practitioner, their work has helped shape peer support and community-based alternatives to pathologizing and coercive mental health systems.

Jacks joins IDHA at a meaningful moment in our evolution, bringing a rare combination of lived experience, movement lineage, and leadership that aligns closely with our mission.

We are deeply grateful to outgoing Executive Director Jessie Roth, whose leadership over the past seven years helped guide IDHA from a grassroots project into a thriving training institute and vibrant learning community. Jessie is supporting an intentional leadership handover, and we remain profoundly appreciative of her vision and care.

Please join us in welcoming Jacks to IDHA!

Read the full letter from our Board of Directors: https://www.idha-nyc.org/2026-ed-announcement

02/04/2026

Join us next Wednesday, February 11 for an interactive event focused on putting transformative mental health into practice in real-world contexts, across diverse roles and settings. Featuring Mayowa Obasaju, PhD, Sasha Warren, Mal Rose, and Dr. Heliana Ramirez, LISW.

In a time of acute and prolonged state violence, many of us are being called to rethink what care actually requires. Struggles for justice are unfolding within and beyond institutions, and the need for adaptive, everyday forms of support — grounded in practice, not just theory — is becoming increasingly urgent.

What does meaningful support look like when the stakes are so high? How can support skills be mobilized in service of liberation, without reproducing harm? These questions are not abstract. They are shaping how care is being practiced and contested right now.

The event will open with a panel on practicing care in a time of expanding carcerality, mass grief, and deepening social and political fracture. From there, participants will move into facilitated breakout discussions anchored around key practice tensions. This discussion-oriented gathering invites collective reflection, honest grappling, and shared learning. We’ll close with a collective harvest, honoring what becomes possible when these questions are held together rather than in isolation.

This is the sixth installment of IDHA’s “Transformative Mental Health Talks” series, which features curriculum faculty and collaborators and dives into timely topics that intersect with transformative mental health.

Registration is free, with a suggested donation of $10. ASL interpretation + captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants, alongside an edited caption transcript.

REGISTER:

An interactive event focused on putting transformative mental health into practice in real-world contexts, across diverse roles and settings

01/21/2026

Enrollment is now open for the Spring 2026 cycle of the Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum!

At IDHA, we hold that care and healing can’t be separated from the conditions we’re living in. Mental health practice doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it’s shaped by the social, political, and relational contexts we move through every day. Ongoing state violence and the expansion of punitive systems are not abstract forces; they influence how we show up in care roles, how we relate to one another, and how we sustain ourselves over time.

This understanding is why we created the Core Curriculum. Our communities carry deep wisdom about how to offer support and push back in moments like these — wisdom shaped over generations of struggle, survival, and imagination. The curriculum is a home for that knowledge.

We just launched 4 new cohorts for the Learning Experience format, which offers facilitated virtual discussions in addition to the pre-recorded content. If you’re looking for a meaningful learning commitment to make in 2026, we’d love to have you join us.

✨ Continuing Education Available:
20.75 CE credits for Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, Therapists, Medical Doctors, and Nurses
20 CE credits for New York Peer Specialists and Connecticut Recovery Support Specialists

These cohorts will run between March and June of 2026. This immersive, community-oriented experience only happens twice a year, and spots are limited. Enrollment closes February 26, so don’t wait to secure your seat!

LEARN MORE AND ENROLL: https://www.idha-nyc.org/core-curriculum

12/19/2025

As we close out 2025 and our team prepares for some time off to rest and recharge, we’re reflecting on what it takes to care for ourselves and one another in complex times. We remain committed to sharing knowledges and strategies that help us all understand and practice mental health in more liberatory ways.

Our annual transformative mental health gift guide is an invitation to align your giving with your values — while helping sustain IDHA’s work and expand access to transformative mental health education.

This year’s guide centers three kinds of gifts:

1️⃣ Gifts of Learning

-Mad Studies Symposium (now available as a self-paced course, free through 12/31)
-Self-paced course bundles (all 50% off through 12/31)
-Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum (10% off with code SAVE10)

2️⃣ Gifts of Community

-Becoming an IDHA member (or gifting a membership) to stay connected beyond individual programs

3️⃣ Gifts of Access

-Joining the Equalizing Access Giving Circle or making a one-time donation to support scholarships, subsidized memberships, and accessible programming

Find all access links in our 2025 gift guide newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/idha-nyc/give-the-gift-of-tmh-2025

We hope these offerings support our ongoing efforts to learn, unlearn, and remake systems of care together.