Alternative to Violence Program: Training Opportunities for Alumni
Would you like to learn how to co-facilitate a program on nonviolent living at a prison, juvenile hall, local jail, school, or community group?
In 2012, the Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni Association launched its first service learning project in partnership with the Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, and Ecopsychology (CLE) specialization of the Depth Psychology Program. The Association and CLE invited alumni, students, faculty, and staff to take an Alternatives to Violence Basic Workshop, with the hope that some of those who did so would be interested in becoming co-facilitators in prisons, schools, and community groups. Twenty-seven continued on with the Advanced Workshop. Many are now working in several prisons in California, with youth on probation and in locked facilities, in schools, and with a wide variety of community groups. In addition, current CLE students are now facilitators for AVP and for Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC), a program that grew out of AVP and that is now used in conflict and post-conflict situations in many parts of the world.
AVP workshops empower people to lead nonviolent lives through learning conflict resolution skills, affirmation, respect for all, community building, cooperation, and trust. They help participants “manage strong feelings such as anger and fear, deal more effectively with risk and danger, build good relationships with other people, communicate well in difficult situations, help people recognize the skills they already have and learn new ones, be true to oneself while respecting other people, understand why conflict happens.” There is a wonderful radio show about the AVP Program: http://www.goodradioshows.org/peaceTalksL98.htm AVP is an international association of volunteer groups offering experiential workshops in conflict resolution, responses to violence, and personal growth in prisons, community groups, and schools.[1]
To become a facilitator, an individual needs to participate in three 18 hour trainings and then apprentice as a facilitator in three more. Once trained “outside” community facilitators can partner with “inside” (inmate) prison facilitators to make these trainings available to inmates. Creating a space to learn how to resolve conflict nonviolently is essential for creating cultures of peace, as well as improving inmates’ own time in prison, to help them gain their release, and to help them to successfully rejoin their families and communities. AVP is in many prisons throughout the United
States, but could be enjoyed in many more if there were more facilitators. It is also used in many community and school settings.
If you would like to join with us to support and develop this project, please email Lizzie Rodriguez at LRodriguez@cscsb.org to alert us to your interest. Our society needs to increase our understanding of violence and its root causes, and to facilitate the learning of skills that contribute to nonviolence. YOU–Pacifica’s depth psychologists, mythologists, and counselor–can play an important role in addressing these needs. We will help you find a Basic workshop where you can begin your journey. It is also possible to take the workshops in a prison setting so that you can see how effective AVP is in the prison or jail environment.
Mary Watkins, Chair, M.A./Ph.D. Depth Psychology Program
Faculty, Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Ecopsychology Specialization
P.S. I highly recommend Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Color Blindness. If you have doubts about this project, read this book first!
[1] Workshops have been held for businesses, churches, community associations, street gangs, halfway houses, women’s shelters, and many others. The AVP program has been growing at the rate of 25 to 30 percent each year. There are currently almost 2000 volunteer AVP facilitators in the USA (23% in California). In 2010, 1018 workshops with 14,373 participants were conducted in the U.S. in 32 states (see AVPusa.org for details), and the program has spread to Canada & Mexico; England & Ireland; Eastern & Western Europe; New Zealand & Australia; Central & South America and the Caribbean; Israel, Palestine & Jordan; Iraq; Russia; Africa (12 countries); India & Indonesia; Hong Kong, Singapore & Japan; and Nepal (for details, see www.avpinternational.org).
