Healing Tree

Emdr therapy training: emdr (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy is a leading, evidence-based, trauma-focused treatment modality. It is highly effective in treating the widespread conditions related to trauma but often cost-prohibitive for professionals, especially those in under-resourced communities, to get trained in. Healing Tree facilitates and sponsors emdria-approved, 52-hour emdr therapy trainings (including post-training consultation) done by an internationally recognized, one-of-a-kind training team in this cutting-edge modality. As of 2023, we have sponsored and facilitated trainings for over 340 therapists serving approximately 17,000 youth per year in the foster care, child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

Silk screening + workshop: Healing Tree's short film silk, and accompanying workshop with guided discussion, illustrate, educate on and explore the most insidious forms of abuse and trauma. Silk stars mainstream talent and was an official selection at the academy award-qualifying reel sisters of the diaspora film festival. It engages high schoolers, college students and community members to have an open conversation about these important but often undiscussed topics. The workshop's pre and post engagement assessments ensure that folks walk away far better equipped to heal from the aftermath of what too many may have faced and to prevent themselves and others from being victimized by, or perpetrating, abusive situations in the future. These screenings and workshops have had incredibly positive results as evidenced by the pre and post surveys, showing a highly significant increase in understanding of the topic and a virtual equal number of survivor and perpetrator self-identification.

Production: Healing Tree produces theatre, film and television designed to empower the social change necessary to create a Healing movement. Our short film silk (used in the silk screening + workshop program) is a prime example of this. Our next project (working title: aces short) completed post-production in 2023. This short film is designed to help people recognize aces (adverse childhood experiences), educating viewers on how those who have lived through one or more of these experiences might be affected later in life. Healing Tree is currently developing a short film on trauma. We are also developing a full-length play aligned with our mission, which will be produced, in collaboration with our partner divine riot, in 2025.

Approved care network: Healing Tree provides a free, nationwide directory of trauma-focused mental health providers. This program works to connect individuals with providers who are not only brain-body based trauma experts but who also fit their unique needs, like being a therapist of color, a queer therapist or faith based, who take their insurance or offer sliding scale. The approved care network includes providers trained in various, leading, brain-body based modalities, including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (emdr) therapy, somatic experiencing (se), sensorimotor psychotherapy, brainspotting (bsp) and internal family systems (ifs), who have been personally vetted with phone interviews by our team and whose certificates in these modalities are on file. We also include treatment facilities, creative arts therapists and more. Healing Tree currently has approved providers in 40 of the united states.partnership: Healing Tree frequently collaborates with aligned organizations and companies to achieve our shared vision. We have shop partners who donate a percentage of their sales to our organization. We offer fiscal sponsorships for related projects (specializing in film and theatre productions). We provide trauma consulting for relevant scripts in development as well as organizations. We offer our organization as a theatre authority fundraising beneficiary for theatrical productions. We partner with relevant film, theatre and television productions, offering cross promotion, sharing our resources with their audiences, talk backs after theatrical productions or filmscreenings and panel participation. Healing Tree regularly seeks to combine efforts with those who have a similar vision to expand our reach and ability to fulfill our mission.social media: in today's digital age, social media is a significant avenue for Healing Tree to connect with the larger community. Platforms such as (but not limited to) facebook, instagram, and tiktok are utilized to promote our organization's other programs, share trauma-informed messages and articles, and interact with those who are interested in Healing Tree as an organization.website: in an effort to remain a green organization, in lieu of pamphlets or fliers, Healing Tree uses its website as a key source for distributing information and news. On our website, visitors will find detailed descriptions of our programming, ways to get or give help, details on upcoming events, our approved care network directory, past film projects, recommended articles, books and videos, and much more.anti-racist / bipoc programming: Healing Tree recognizes the unique setbacks and systemic trauma that members of the bipoc community, or people of the global majority, face. It is one of our core priorities as an organization to work to dismantle inequities that marginalized communities are faced with in an effort to decrease trauma. Some examples of this are: sponsoring trainings for bipoc therapists within a particular treatment modality (brainspotting) to increase equity in the mental health field, holding fundraisers for bipoc therapists to sponsor bipoc clients to increase equity among trauma survivors, actively seeking bipoc therapists for our approved care network to meet the unique needs of bipoc clients and provide culturally appropriate care, actively seeking therapists for the approved care network who provide discounts for bipoc clients to increase equity among trauma survivors, actively seeking bipoc team members, actively seeking bipoc artists to hire for our arts projects and events and facilitating board and staff participation in anti-racism and race equity trainings to continually grow in diversity, equity and inclusion internally and further inform our programming.