Allyship in Action Professional Development Program
formerly Safe Space Ally Development Training
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About
The Allyship in Action Professional Development Program (formerly Safe Space Ally Development Training) dares to transform the campus environment for LGBTQA+ students, staff, and faculty. Through skills-based education that focuses on social justice allyship and active bystander intervention skills, individuals and offices are identified that provide a network of support for the emotional, psychological, social, and physical well-being of our LGBTQA+ community.
History
In 2005, the Rainbow Alliance launched an initial Safe Space campaign by creating a manual and ally sticker to encourage our allies in Wright State University’s faculty and staff to identify themselves on campus by putting visible Safe Space symbols on their office doors. By displaying the symbol, they would let LGBTQA+ students know that those faculty and staff were people they could turn to who believed in equality, would be supportive of their needs, could give advice, or just be someone with whom they could talk to and feel safe and comfortable.
As of the 2008–09 academic year, we revitalized the Safe Space program by updating the manual, instituting a comprehensive ally training program for faculty, staff, and students, creating a website, and renewing the Safe Space sticker campaign.
As of September 2015–16 academic year, the LGBTQA Center is now coordinating and facilitating the Safe Space ally development network. We are working to update the manual and are providing a new skills-based curriculum for the 3-hour training.
Training
The Allyship in Action Professional Development Program is a comprehensive educational program that teaches potential new allies skills on how to serve and support the LGBTQA+ community. Allyship in Action has 4 base sessions: Ally 101, Ally 102, Trans Topics, and Queer Topics. Each session takes about 60-90 minutes to complete depending on the number of participants and engagement. It is recommended that participants engage in Ally 101 & 102 as a series in order to complete the introduction to allyship skills and then develop an Allyship in Action Plan to close in 102. Any of these base sessions can be adapted for specific audiences/topics/etc.
To make Allyship in Action as accessible as possible, the videos used are closed captioned and the LGBTQA Center will provide ASL interpreters when requested. We also provide the PowerPoint slides that we use in the training. If you have additional suggestions on how we can improve the accessibility of the program please, please contact us at the LGBTQA Center.
If you are interested in registering for Allyship in Action, please complete the registration form below:
Register for Training
