Reaching for Diversity, Belonging, Equity & Inclusion at the AEDP Institute

DBEI Accountability Report, November 2022

DBEI Accountability Letter & Report, June 2021

DBEI Committee

The AEDP Vision Collective & The Healing Racialized Trauma Initiative

Our Mission

  • To uplift and invite values of diversity, belonging, equity and inclusion and to strive through every element of AEDP to promote diversity in all of its many forms including race/ethnicity, sexuality, gender, age, size, ability, socioeconomic status, relationship status, nationality, culture and religion. 
  • To foster ways for the AEDP institute to continue to evolve in these areas, including having more diversity in leadership (faculty, supervisors and course assistants); increasing inclusion and belonging among those in the world wide AEDP community who self-identify as belonging with a marginalized social group
  • Develop theory and practices to include treating racial trauma and trauma of oppression in our curriculum.
  • To recognize the emergent DBE&I needs within the AEDP community by attending to present cultural moments. 
  • To help equip therapists to provide an open and engaged intervention to all clients, especially those from marginalized communities across the world.
  • To be a learning community and theoretical home for all people in a way that is consistent with our core values of undoing aloneness and creating and maintaining safety and connection, and seeking to create conditions that are conducive to flourishing.

Committee for Diversity, Belonging, Equity and Inclusion

As a committee, we are developing programs and initiatives that involve and draw from the many resources and voices in our community. Already, we work together with the Diversity Scholarship Committee (see below) and plan to create other subcommittees.

We will keep the AEDP community informed of these changes and developments as we evolve, in addition to updating the resources on this page.

This committee currently consists of 1 DBE&I consultant, 4 AEDP community members, 2 faculty and 1 Institute staff member: Joshua DeSilva, Kate Halliday, Lynne Hartwell, Jacqueline Lynch, Karen Pando-Mars, Connie Rhodes, James Santos and Jacquie Ye-Perman.

To contact the committee, please email  dbei.committee@aedpinstitute.org

Pay-What-You-Wish Program for Self-Identified Black Mental Health Professionals

On July 1, 2020 the Institute launched a ‘pay-what-you-wish’ pilot program for self-identified Black mental health professionals. Learn about this program here.

Diversity Scholarship Program

In 2017-18 the Institute started a Diversity Scholarship Program for Immersion, Essential Skills courses and Institute sponsored seminars. Thus far, this program has awarded many scholarships and has helped our courses become more diverse and inclusive. The Diversity Scholarship Committee (formerly known as the Diversity Committee) works in tandem with the Committee for Diversity, Belonging, Equity & Inclusion and is composed of community and faculty members.

To apply for a scholarship for a particular course, please visit the course page and look for Diversity Scholarships just below the registration button.

Focus on Anti-Racism

We recognize the importance of ongoing work with anti-racism training, practices and processes. Members of AEDP Institute faculty and admin participated in “Groundwater” antiracism training with the Racial Equity Institute (REI).

AEDP Institute also partnered with Dr. Della V. Mosley, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Florida & Co-Founder of Academics for Black Survival and Wellness, to make available a meaningful, 14 week online training for non-Black therapists in anti-Black racism. This In-Depth training with live, AEDP Colleague Accountability Groups was originally developed by Dr. Mosley and a group of clinical psychologists working in academia to help people better understand anti-Black racism and help support Black professionals in the fields of psychology and academics.

Community members were invited to participate and the Institute sponsored the cost of the training for faculty, supervisors, experiential assistants and admin team members, with roughly 150 community members participating.

We plan to continue training in antiracism and engage with various organizations, leaders and teachers in the years ahead.

Developments in the application of AEDP in the treatment of marginalized populations

AEDP recognizes the necessity of understanding how institutional, inter-relational and intra-relational oppression affects patients, and therapists, from marginalized communities (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, latinx, immigrants, etc.) As a result, we have begun incorporating a multicultural orientation into all Institute endeavours, including writing, teaching, and supervising.

Several articles and books have been written about working with multicultural populations. Please see our resources and publications page for more information or click here.

Microaggressions: Spotting them and repairing them

DBE&I Resources / Racism and Trauma