Attuning to the fire’s wisdom: Exploring Our Relationship with Power

This Program has been approved for 6 CEUs for Licensed Social Workers, Mental Health Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists by the Washington State Society for Clinical Social Work.

Using storytelling as a tool to access collective wisdom, this interactive workshop invites participants to engage in the exploration of their own stories. Through guided reflection, activities, and dialogue, participants will explore their social identities, values, and experiences with power, privilege, and belonging. Participants will be invited to consider how these experiences influence the ways they show up in relationships with babies, young children, families, colleagues, and communities.

Inspired by fire as a central metaphor, the facilitator will engage participants in recognition of their own power while discussing importance of intentionality and care for the responsible use of power. Fire can provide warmth, transform, unite community, support celebration and ritual. Power can also burn, destroy and hurt. Participants will explore how self-awareness can support more intentional, equitable, and healing-centered use of power.

Through storytelling, reflection, and shared learning, participants will identify ways to use their professional roles to foster emotionally responsive relationships, promote family and community uniqueness from a cultural humility approach, and create environments where children and the adults who care for them can thrive.

Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of their own relationship with power, an appreciation for storytelling as a tool for reflection and connection, and practical insights for using their influence to support relational health, promote equity, and contribute to collective healing within the families, organizations, and communities they serve.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify at least three aspects of their social identity and describe how these influence how they navigate relationships with the families and communities they serve.
• Recognize at least two emotional or relational responses that emerge during reflective dialogue related to power.
• Examine one personal assumption or bias that may influence interactions with families or colleagues they work with.
• Develop one actionable commitment to strengthen relationship-based practice with the families they serve.
• Commit to implementing one reflective activity (such as journaling, reflective consultation, reflective thinking, storytelling, or peer dialogue) within the next four weeks to strengthen intentional use of power and support healing-centered relationships in their professional role.