GUIDE/CONFLICT WORK
As a conflict worker, I support groups and individuals to:
build solidarity across difference, heal from high-control, coercive, rigid and dehumanizing environments, navigate social incarceration or attempted cancelation, learn about true vs. coerced accountability, observe habitual patterns of personality, engage in shadow work, conduct power/hierarchy audits, work through inner/outer conflicts outside of carceral systems (when possible), stay in their learning zone, and grow their capacity to stay in connection despite everyday ruptures.
I can hold space by offering one on one emotional support. I can also offer mediation services where I help create a container for two or more people to dialogue while lightly guiding/facilitating the space. I also offer coaching, where I'm more engaged with sharing what I see and calling people in as a more active change agent. All these approaches are possible, including a mix of them.
MY SKILLS/GIFTS Social Ecology B.A., healing centered, anti-oppressive and transformative facilitation, mediation, conflict work and coaching, care team designer and consultant, transformative justice consultant, outdoor adventure social and emotional awareness facilitator, cultural worker, legal worker, organizer.
MY RATES I offer a sliding scale rate of $25, $45 or $65 per hour — or $15, $25 or $35 per half hour for conflict, facilitation, mediation, guide work or consultation.
SLIDING SCALE I have 3 sliding scale rates for my services. Please consider which payment option best suits you, honor system style. This helps me maximize accessibility while meeting my financial needs. Please refer to the Green bottle illustration in this article if you'd like guidance: The Sliding Scale: A Tool Of Economic Justice.
VENMO: @Samantha_Cooper
PAYPAL: samanthacoopermusic@gmail.com
SELF PUBLISHED, OPEN SOURCE FACILITATION GUIDES
All About Transformative Justice (TJ)
A TJ Guide For Those Who Have Caused Harm
Sexual Assault FAQs & Resources
Transformative Justice: Books And Resources
Trauma-Informed Facilitator Guide
Creating A Gender Inclusive Workplace
CUSTOM WORKSHOPS
Let The Wave: The Rights Of Manoomin (Video Screening & Discussion)
Expressive Arts Workshops With Samantha Cooper
Books I Reference
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Good People Will Destroy Us: Social Incarceration, Trauma, and Moral Hierarchy by Juno Aventurine
Beyond Survival: Strategies And Stories From The Transformative Justice Movement by Ejeris Dixon (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor
Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty Of Repair by Sarah Schulman
We Will Not Cancel Us by Adrienne Marie Brown
Podcasts I Reference
Big Hormone Enneagram by John Luckovich,
Emeka Okorafor, David Gray, Alexandra Arroyo-Acevedo
Fucking Cancelled by Clementine Morrigan and Jay Lesoleil
ONGOING EDUCATION
4 years of conflict facilitation, mediation, and care based safety work within multiracial, leftist movement spaces; primarily within the Water Is Life Movement.
Learn In: Mancamps and MMIW In Michigan (2022/2023 - 6 hour trainings)
ZEGG Forum Facilitator Training With Sarah Taub. The Zegg Forum is a communal, preventative conflict and connection practice often utilized in intentional communities. (2022 - weekend training)
Transforming Conflict Series with The Stoke Collective “STOKE is about slowing down and tending to the foundations of our justice work: relationships. We believe that strong relational practices are the fuel for building power, creative strategy, and resilience.” (2022)
Energetic Justice white caucus space. Co-founded by Kelly Germaine. Focus areas: Disability Justice, practicing decolonization & anti-racism in white wellness spaces. (April 2020 - to Jan 2022 when it disbanded.)
Trauma-Informed Schools: Starr Global Training Certificate For Educators - Kirk Lowis, ( 2018 - 6 hour training)
I have over 200 hours of Enneagram training. The Enneagram is a contemplative tool for observing and differentiating from our habitual patterns of personality. I give typing sessions and use it as both a direct, and an indirect conflict worker tool. Enneagram qualifications:
-I’m a certified Enneagram Teacher with the Conscious Living Center.
-I completed Part 1 of the Enneagram Prison Project 6 week guide program.
-I completed the Part One, week long Teacher Training with the Riso/Hudson Enneagram Institute, along with their Inner Critic and Enneagram & Recovery workshops.
-I completed Mike Cohen's year long Life 2.0/Enneagram program
Transformative Justice Workshop, Allied Media Conference (2017 - 4 hours)
AORTA (Anti Oppression Resource & Training Alliance) Facilitator workshop: Part 1 & 2, Allied Media Conference (2017 - 8 hours)
Trauma Recovery Program, I took this course to help me recover from losing a partner to Cystic Fibrosis in 2013, and heal from dysfunctional family system dynamics. This program is secular, though it is sponsored by the Diocese of Kalamazoo. (2015 - 10 week program, 10 months of weekly support groups.)
-Understanding and Analyzing Systemic Racism workshop & monthly caucuses by ERAACE Eliminating Racism & Claiming/Celebrating Equality (2014 - 2.5 day training, 6 caucuses)
WORK EXPERIENCE & EDUCATION
2020 - Current: Co-leading Four Care Teams
Co-designing and co-leading four Community Care Teams at Water Protector resistance camps, and two music festivals. This work involves emotional support, deescalation, mediation and conflict skills.
2020 - Current: Grassroots organizing to Shut Down Line 3 and Line 5
Organizing webinars, art builds, teach-ins and NVDA actions for the movement to shut down line 3 and 5 pipelines in Minnesota and Michigan. Creating media content and organizing events and teach-ins with the Great Lakes Water Protector Network (WPN).
2022 - Current: Co-booking, Co-organizing and Co-producing Michigan’s 2023 Water Is Life Festival, the Art Build to Shut Down Line 5, and the Bridge Walk to Shut Down Line 5.
2012 - Current: Healing Centered Facilitator and Teaching Artist via Youth Arts Alliance, Gift Of Music, Earthwork Music, SEEDS and Lost Voices. Working part time as a musician, a songwriting guide and an expressive arts practitioner for young people who are incarcerated.
‘2009 - Current: Freelance and Session Musician. Regularly performing as a supporting musician with violin & voice, co-producing the project Hearth & Hymn, working as a session musician on over 75 albums, maintaining membership in the Earthwork Music Collective, gigging as a solo songwriter, offering private lessons.
2018 - 2022: Facilitator at the Pretty Lake Adventure Centre. Guiding 1 to 5 day Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and trauma-informed outdoor adventure programs for all ages.
2011 - 2018: Co-founder, Co-producer and talent booker for Square Dance Kalamazoo (SDK). SDK is a monthly music & dance series which had over 100 regular dancers at it’s peak.
February '09 – August '10: Assistant to the President’s Universitywide Sustainability Committee (PUSC) at WMU: Spoke publicly and networked as an ambassador, researched and co-authored best practice studies with Dr. Harold Glasser, mobilized administrators, students and student-government leaders during a successful Student Green Fund Campaign that allocates $500,000.00 annually for student projects, and the Office For Sustainability.
May ’07 - August ‘08: Program Coordinator, WMU’s Gibbs House for Environmental Research and Education: Cultivated organizational sustainability, managed research fellow projects, edited grant proposals, facilitated meetings, organized events, facilitated workshops, assisted with the community garden.
Lee Honors College of Western Michigan University, B.A. degree Student Planned Major: Social Ecology Honors Thesis “Becoming Native To Place.” Focus: The Kamana Naturalist Training Program, cultural sustainability, social learning, human development, the art of mentorship, ecopsychology, outdoor education.
