“We have to build our own power.” –Fannie Lou Hamer
Learn concrete strategies for identifying and addressing potential risks. Build safety structures that are trauma-informed, scaled to your organization’s unique capacity, and adaptive to changing conditions.
Want to develop skills and specialized roles to help you advance your ability to anticipate, mitigate, and respond to risks? G.I.F.T.S. is an introductory training series that provides you with most of what your organization needs to know to begin cultivating a safety and security culture in your group. Built from decades of collective experience within radical left movement spaces, G.I.F.T.S. represents the culmination of our safety and security practitioners’ expertise, knowledge, and history-tested principles that can be applied to a broad variety of threat situations.
Sign up for G.I.F.T.S. today, and safeguard your community’s ability to strive towards greater self-determination.
G.I.F.T.S. is centered on, developed for, and led by the community. You show up ready to hold space with VCW and other workshop participants aligned in our work towards community safety as we push forward to collective liberation. This is a compressed and introductory training series, so be prepared to get the basics, interact with the group in breakout rooms and small group work, and reflect on what’s landing with you–or not. As with our programs and workshops, VCW takes a trauma-informed, healing-centered approach to this training series. We move through the content within an intersectional and abolitionist framework, moving with care and at the pace of trust.
G.I.F.T.S. LEVELS & TOPICS
101: Introduction to Safety
and De-escalation
(No Prerequisites)
What does progressive safety and security look like? QTBIPOC and other oppressed communities have long been developing safety strategies outside of state institutions of power.
This training introduces core principles of security culture, a part of the long-standing legacy of safety work.
Organizations learn the basic components of de-escalation, including assessing risk and practicing foundational verbal de-escalation tactics. They will also learn how to perform rapid safety assessments using all of their senses and the information available to them in the moment.
201: Safety for Direct Actions
and Events
(Prerequisite: MUST complete 101)
How can my group create safer events? How do we create a security team, and who should be on it?
Community Safety and Security work is collective work. In this session, organizations learn how to develop safety protocols for an action or event, including how to create a security team, differentiate team roles, and make team decisions.
The information learned can supply a blueprint for organizing your own security teams, implementing them effectively in an action setting, and addressing emerging risks or threats without compromising the values of the organization or the safety of its members.
301: Organizational
Security Culture
(Prerequisite: MUST complete
101 & 201)
How can my organization maintain or grow our security team? Where do we start with building an organizational security plan? How do we ensure the safety plans we make are implemented?
This training focuses on tactics to build and maintain safety structures built into the principles and protocols of the organization itself, including growing capacity for an effective security and safety team.
Participants learn strategies for building a security team, training practice, and how to start a security plan. They will also gain skills for teaching other members how to propagate safety through their daily practices.
What are the best practices to safeguard against digital safety threats? How can my organization build digital safety practices in a safe, non-intimidating environment? VCW is now offering a quarterly “401” training on Digital Security, facilitated by Jack Aponte. This training focuses on key concepts and frameworks in digital security, including how to assess your organization’s digital security situation and what essential elements to implement for your group.
Your organization will learn the basics of developing a digital safety culture, including: protecting privileged information, guarding communications against interception, and understanding how to make the best use of technologies available without compromising member privacy and safety.
Participants do not need to attend 101, 201, or 301 to attend this training.
Online, live and asynchronous
Monthly
Quarterly
Spanish available
Classes are conducted virtually once a week across three consecutive, 2-hour sessions. Each class must be taken in succession; i.e., complete 101 to register in 201. Note that there is no prerequisite for Digital Security 401.
$200 for one training
$500 for the whole series of three trainings
$700 for the whole series plus Digital Security
Bulk pricing available for teams and large groups. Solidarity scholarships are available.
G.I.F.T.S. is meant to provide a solid introductory foundation for community safety and security work. For more in-depth training and expanded capacity-building, we recommend attending our Community Safety & Security School, which is a 10-month intensive organizational cohort training program.
