Programs
These programs were all developed using the Community Activated Medicine™ Theoretical Approach and the Intergenerational Healing Approach™. All are designed to strengthen mental health and wellness through relational healing. Through research these have shown to be effective for historical and intergenerational trauma healing. Please visit a licensed provider site to see these Mental Health Without Borders™ programs in action. Photos below are from licensed provider site HIR Wellness Institute.
Quick links: CAMPsites™ | CAM™ MasterClass | Daughters of Tradition | Elders Book Club | Gatherers of Tradition | Healing Dojo Podcast | N8V-T Podcast | Radical Joy
CAMPsites™
Community Activated Medicine Provider Sites™ are part of the Mental Health Without Borders™ programs developed by Lea S. Denny. These are mental health hubs that pop-up in community Lighthouse spaces to support immediate community and relational care. This is done by bringing licensed mental health and trained wellness providers, community healers, and advocates to shared collective spaces. This is program creates free access to mental health professionals and advocacy support.
CAM™ MasterClass
Developed by Lea S. Denny, MS, LPC, NCC, NMT this group is guided by CAM™ Mentors & CAM™ Practitioners in collaboration with community partners that are thought leaders and innovators around justice and healing. In this we take an interdisciplinary trauma-informed healing-focused approach to raise awareness and community action on the complex experiences of social injustice, historical trauma, intergenerational trauma, and Persistent Toxic Systems & Environments™ (Lea S. Denny, 2016). Our goal is to empower new providers to advocate and embody a culturally responsive practice when serving in diverse communities while learning more about the CAM™ theoretical orientation. This part of our training to improve culturally responsive and community-based care with future mental health professionals who will be better able to serve historically underinvested and chronically underserved communities.
Daughters of Tradition
Developed and launched by Lea S. Denny, MS, LPC, NCC, NMT in 2017. Daughters of Tradition was first launched utilizing the White Bison Inc curriculum of the same name. Since then Daughters of Tradition (DOT) has evolved as and become part of the Mental Health Without Borders™ programming that is a violence prevention, intervention, and restorative health justice program. This collective is an intergenerational and Indigenous girls’ youth group that consists of multiple ages: Little Sisters (4-6 years), Big Sisters (7-11 years), Mentors (12-13 years), and Ambassadors (14-18 years), who are collectively known as our DOT Sisters. DOT’s impact is steeped in individual, familial, and community healing, while stewarding systems and policy change/healing.
DOT sisters learn and practice leadership and mentorship from a decolonized, matriarchal, and heterarchical lens that inspires the energy of social change. Through our shared leadership approach DOT sisters receive weekly positive interaction with leaders in their community at the local, state, national, and tribal level. The skills they are learning today will impact our workforce for generations to come. They are our future healers, stewards, and leaders.
Elders Book Club
Developed and launched by Lea S. Denny, MS, LPC, NCC, NMT in 2017. Healing through our stories Elder Book Club brings our Native/Indigenous Elders together allowing them to connect with one another through the Indigenous way of storytelling.
Many Native/Indigenous Elders were not, and still are not, given the opportunity or the permission, to explore healing in an environment that is conducive to their needs. Our staff and interns not only hold this sacred space for our Elders, but provide somatic based, mental health informed, healing strategies to ignite the Elders’ healing within. In this program our intertribal elders are offered a space to connect and heal through storytelling.
Gatherers of Tradition Camp
Intergenerational Indigenous youth mental health and wellness program. In this program youth have: learned healthy relationship and wellness skills; learned and played Indigenous sports; met Indigenous youth and built lifelong friendships; learned from their community’s cultural teachers and elders.
Healing Dojo Podcast
Each academic year our CAM™ MasterClass cohort has the opportunity to participate in the Healing Dojo podcast. This innovative podcast is an intern-led opportunity for our emerging practitioners to activate and embody Mental Health Without Borders™. As students enter the field, we hope they continue their lifelong learning and healing journeys. A podcast is one way to increase capacity for healing and staying current. Join CAM™ MasterClass as they engage in meaningful conversation around the complexities of our collective healing, learning, and living.
N8V-T Youth Podcast
N8V-T [pronounced Native Tea] is a youth-led podcast series by feminine youth who have participated in the Daughters of Tradition [DOT] mentorship group. This is a social justice-focused podcast series collaborating with local women leaders. It is a collective call to action for change and embodies the teachings of the “Light of the Eighth and Final Fire”, an eternal fire of peace, love, brotherhood & sisterhood.
In this podcast the youth leaders share cultural teachings, connections to plant medicines, and shared healing practices. It is a platform where they elevate their voices and explore their ideas on the changes they see as necessary to heal our communities from both social and environmental injustices. Current and emerging women leaders will get the opportunity to hear Indigenous youth perspectives and together they build pathways for empowering young feminine voices and advocacy. This is a violence prevention, intervention, and restorative justice program.
Radical Joy
A virtual program designed for mental health healing. Practicing the acts of joy gives the body chemical doses (i.e. oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, endorphin) needed for a true act of resistance against pain and trauma. In embodying radical joy a better understanding emerges and informs that individuals are not minimizing, dismissing, or denying that there is trauma, sadness, or realness in life. Radical joy is an act of social justice informed healing.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
– Audre Lorde
Citations
Denny, L. S. (2016). Community Activated Medicine Provider Sites™ (CAMPsites™). Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2019). CAM™ MasterClass. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2017). Daughters of Tradition. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2017). Elders Book Club. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2021). Gatherers of Tradition. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2020). Healing Dojo Podcast. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2022). N8V-T Podcast. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
Denny, L. S. (2022). Radical Joy. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.