The OCAD Student Union and OCAD U Student Wellness Centre present a series of five Survivors Thrive workshops from Dandelion Initiative, a Toronto based, grassroots, survivor-run organization to support our members who have experienced sexual and/or gender based violence.

This workshop is for self-identified survivors and focuses on empowerment, resiliency, and healing through a trauma care lens. We will explore healing practices and resources, trauma responses and awareness, feminist approaches to resilience building, boundary setting, validations, and affirmations.

Each workshop will have up to 15 participants, and all workshops are confidential safe spaces for everyone in attendance.

The goal of this session is to provide you with a safer space to understand the journey of healing and the impacts of trauma through a survivor-centred process. Participants will have the choice to engage as little or as much as they feel comfortable. As a trauma-informed space, survivors are encouraged to use the space in a way that feels best to them with breaks scheduled throughout.

Individual, confidential counselling will be provided if you are in need of support during or after the workshop with an OCADU Indigenous Student Centre Counsellor, and Individual, confidential telephone peer support is available with Dandelion Initiative for participants afterwards through scheduled appointments.

About Dandelion Initiative:

BY SURVIVORS, FOR SURVIVORS.

Our mission is to disseminate survivor-centred gender-based violence education, training, and policy development to workplaces in Ontario. The proceeds from this work funds our front line services for survivors which include workshops, advocacy, community events, and peer counselling. We are here today because of a group of women and trans people who continue to work together to achieve shared dreams of justice and equity.

We prioritize the voices and needs of women, 2SLGBTQ+ survivors, racialized, and otherwise marginalized survivors through our work and services. We aim to amplify the voices of survivors and work through and an intersectional, evidence based, trauma-informed framework. We are governed and staffed by a diverse group of women and trans folks.

For more information please visit https://www.dandelioninitiative.ca/about-us