In this newsletter: Community Program Updates, Clinical Updates, Pacific Center Events, and Outside Events
Community Program Updates
Hey youth!
Join us for our Youth Drop in hours from 2-4PM on the 1st & 3rd Wednesdays of the month starting March 6th. Come hang out in the youth space and check out our computer, free closet, and mini queer library. Youth and Adult mentors are available during this time to share resources and converse. Snacks are provided.
Email for questions: youthprogram@pacificcenter.org
Older and Out Calendar of events.
Email mae@pacificcenter.org for more info.
The center will be offering peer groups in a hybrid/in-person model.
Clinical Program Updates
Applications for the 24-25 clinical training cohort are live HERE.
Questions? Contact clinic@pacificcenter.org
Graduate level psychology trainees, master's level trainees and associates as well as newly licensed clinicians receive valuable training working with our diverse LGBTQIA+ and QTBIPOC clients. Our year long program meets all Board of Behavioral Sciences & Board of Psychology licensing laws. Clinicians in the training program are supervised by licensed clinicians.
Pacific Center Events
Pacific Center has partnered with the West Berkeley Family Wellness Center for a series of workshops on mindfulness, wellness, and healing through art that will run throughout the spring. Our current series Mindfulness and the Science of the Mind runs through March 8th. Click the link to join (space is limited). And look out for the next session, Designing a Medicine Bag, starting March 25th!
Design a Medicine Bag: Join us at the West Berkeley Family Wellness Center for a free, fun, and creative workshop! Discover the art of making your very own medicine bag - a unique accessory for holistic self-care and support.
Artist bio: Keena Azania Romano exercises her creative mind through the exploration of diverse artistic mediums as a way to engage and understand individual and collective purpose. Romano received her BFA from Pomona College then returned to her native Bay Area to pursue a career in the Arts. Her Murals can be spotted from Sacramento, California, to Richmond, Virginia to Oaxaca, Mexico. Inspired by cultural practices, Romano combines spirituality with urban experience to produce work that draws upon the quest for a greater understanding of intersectional beauty in this world. She fuses traditional native arts with contemporary inner-city techniques to reflect a new language that encourages the healing and empowerment process between community members and their environments. Her style is described as “vibrant and insightful”. She aspires to travel and create a colorful trail of art by exploring the modern Diaspora based on her multi-ethnic experience. To learn more and sign up please visit: https://bit.ly/PCmedicinebag
Meditative Arts Workshop: Join us at the West Berkeley Family Wellness Center for two part immersive workshop blending art and mindfulness. Unleash your creativity and find inner peace through beadwork.
Instructor bio: Malika Rubin-Davis is a mixed race black woman who grew up in Sonoma County, Ca. She has always had an affinity for arts and crafts. This was supported by artistic parents, Waldorf education and a BA in Visual Art. She worked as an educator in East Bay Public Schools for seven years and is now finding her way as an artist and educator. She teaches Yoga, has shown her paintings in individual and group shows in the East Bay and finds joy in teaching the things that she loves. For Malika, the artistic process is incredibly grounding and helpful, especially with mediums that require repetition. As a child, she could spend hours making friendship bracelets or playing with a bead-loom. As an adult she is self-taught in some beading techniques. She finds the process of making beadwork a beautiful mixture of creative expressions, and meditative repetition. To learn more and sign up please visit: https://bit.ly/PCmeditativearts
EARTH~WATER~AIR~FIRE: A 4-week medicine making series connecting humans with each of the healing elements of nature.
**For QTBIPOC and BIPOC with Batul True Heart of Maaso Medicina
In this 4-week series we will make time to presence and connect with one element of nature per week. We will be curious about our emotional well-being as it relates to our relationship with nature. Made of the elements ourselves, we are each an integral part of nature. We will remember our humanness, and our own unique essence, as we transmit it through our medicines.
Instructor bio: Batul True Heart (they/them/theirs), is a 2Spirit, Yaqui~Chicanx~Panamanian traditional healer, community & clinical herbalist, and death companion living on Lisjan Ohlone Land in Huchiun, also known as Oakland, CA.
To learn more and sign up please visit: https://bit.ly/PCewaf
Mental Health at the Intersections (MHTI) is a FREE day-long conference for mental health providers and community workers that centers care & support for those who sit at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. This year we are focusing on the mental health and wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ BIPOC youth. There will be workshops for youth ages 11+ and workshops for adults who work with youth.
Registration has opened, click here!
Please reach out to our Training Program Manager, Glo Rodriguez at glo@pacificcenter.org with any questions. We hope you are able to join us.
Outside Events
Attention all gay men seeking to become fathers!
Men Having Babies conference is coming to San Francisco to provide you with unbiased and objective information about becoming fathers and your surrogacy options: menhavingbabies.org/sf
This non-profit organization is dedicated to serving the gay community and helping you to understand this complex journey and navigate through the medical, legal, and financial aspects of surrogacy.
At the conference we discuss surrogacy costs, budgeting, insurance considerations, and MHB's member resources, discounts, and financial assistance.
Don't miss out on this comprehensive guidance relevant to West Coast intended parents pursuing surrogacy and connecting with the community of dads and prospective dads.
Register at menhavingbabies.org/sf
Donate!
Your donations help community members gain access to peer support groups and low-cost counseling and mental health support.
Please click below to give what you can.