Practices to Build, Sustain and Teach Resilient Hope in the Midst of a Long-Term Struggle for Social Change

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Yosemite B

Floor: Ballroom Level

As clinical teachers, we spend our lives and careers advocating for deep change in society, and we teach our students to do the same. Hope is central to this endeavor – hope for change, for transformation of the current state of the world. Bryan Stevenson reminds us that we need to protect our hope dynamic, and proximity (to clients, our students and fellow justice seekers) is one way to do this. Building and maintaining resilient hope in the face of the deep intransigence of indifference and injustice in the world is a core competency for advocates in any long-term social justice struggle. Without resilient hope, we are likely to burnout over the long haul in confronting systemic racism and injustice.
This session will invite participants to unpack practices and perspectives that help us to nurture resilience and hope in our students and ourselves. Presenters – who are a diverse group in terms of the practice areas represented in our clinics and the places we practice, as well as in terms of race, sexual orientation and other identities – will discuss practices that can reframe our work with clients and our representation to foster resilient hope. Participants will take away suggestions for themselves and for building up resilient hope in their students.
Goals and learning objectives of the session:
● To articulate resilient hope as a core competency for advocates in any long-term struggle for social change
● To discuss and share concrete practices that participants use or would like to use to develop their students’ and their own capacity for resilient hope
● To give participants the opportunity to develop a plan to add at least one exercise about hope and long-term resilience to their syllabus.