SERVICES
Each of our interactive diversity trainings is
customized to the specific industries of our clients.
Interrupting Racism Trainings
Interrupting Racism Level 1: Amplifying Individual Awareness (6 hours)
This training lays the foundation for a common understanding of the breadth and depth of racism and its impact on all aspects of society. Experiencing the History of Racism Timeline in community increases awareness and commitment to racial equity. Activities and exercises address:
- Community Agreements for engaging in learning together
- History of Race & Racism in the US Timeline
- Unpacking our personal histories of race and racism
- Data on the material impact of racism today
- Stereotypes, prejudice & bias
- Social identity and perspective
- Intersectionality and the complexity of belonging
- Looking through the lens of diversity, equity & inclusion
- Language for talking about race, ethnicity and racism
Interrupting Racism Level 2: Responding to Microaggressions (6 hours)
This training teaches skills for respectful and equitable interactions to improve employee and client experiences. Activities, exercises and scenarios address:
- Allyship: dos and don’ts, strategies for “finding your lane”
- Language for talking about racism
- Microaggressions: skills for examining and shifting everyday expressions of bias
- Calling-in templates for those who are intentionally or unintentionally causing harm
- Six tools for effectively and respectfully interrupting racism
- Apology exercises for healing and strengthening relationships
- Strategies for checking and leveraging privilege
- Engaging with cultural humility
- How to move beyond fragility: perspective, courage and racial stamina
Interrupting Racism Level 3: Operationalizing Racial Equity in Employment (12 hours)
This training is designed for those in leadership, supervisory and decision-making positions interested in solutions for amplifying racial equity and inclusion in employment practices. Activities and exercises address:
- Hiring practices and policies to amplify diversity, equity and inclusion
- Salaries, job titles and structural practices embedded with bias
- HR policy barriers and amplifiers of racial equity
- Workplace culture: cultural humility and practices of micro and macro-inclusion
- Supervisory practices that can make or break racial equity
- Mentorship, placement and paths to leadership
- Communicating through conflict and across difference
- Accountability, assessment and strategic planning
- Using a Racial Equity Impact Assessment Tool for planning and decision-making
Interrupting Racism Level 4: Creating Racial Equity in Services (12 hours)
This training examines the programs, services and method of delivery that your organization provides. Participants will learn to use a Racial Equity Impact Assessment Tool for planning events, developing programs and creating policies. Activities, exercises and scenarios examine:
- Clients, participants, beneficiaries of your services
- Ethics of serving communities of which you are not a member
- Eligibility guidelines and application requirements
- Services, programs, events, curriculum and other offerings to those you serve
- Marketing, messaging, reaching those you wish to serve
- Location, space and accessibility
- Service culture: communication, collaborations, inclusion, demographics of providers, cultural humility and cultural competence
- Community partnerships, allyship and bridge-building
- Restorative justice practices: alternatives to cycles of punishment and exclusion
Interrupting Racism Level 5: Responding to Racism from Clients (12 hours)
- Rights and responsibilities of the institution, employees, and clients
- Strategies for assessing different forms of bias and discrimination and identifying a range of appropriate responses
- Templates for engaging in dialogue with clients who express racism
- Educational opportunities and strategies to set clients up for success
- Comprehensive steps to support staff
- Institutional protocols
Beyond Good Intention: Creating a Racial Equity Strategic Plan (2 hours)
If your agency jumped on board the antiracism bandwagon in 2020 but hasn’t made much progress beyond posting a Black Lives Matter solidarity statement, you’re not alone. Many companies have found themselves stuck at the starting gate, unsure of what to do or how to proceed. Some created diversity committees that have struggled to gain traction or have become more of a support group. If any of this sounds familiar, join Human In Common’s Co-founders, Nialena Ali and Deborah Cohen, who will outline the steps of creating a racial equity strategic plan, including strategies for creating an effective diversity committee. This presentation will also feature insights of diversity executives from local human service agencies who are making strong progress on their racial equity strategic plans.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Trainings
Operationalizing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Employment: Level 3: (12 hours
This training is designed for those in leadership, supervisory and decision-making positions interested in solutions for amplifying diversity, equity and inclusion in employment practices. Participants are invited to:
- Create a diversity, equity and inclusion mission statement
- Review data on workplace hiring, leadership and wage gaps
- Identify employment policies and practices that hinder diversity, equity and inclusion
- Explore workplace culture
- Consider the impact of historical inequities and trauma on workplace dynamics
- Examine and problem-solve scenarios and case studies
- Consider neutral versus greenlining policies
- Use a DEI Impact Assessment Tool
- Develop policies and practices to amplify diversity, equity and inclusion
Amplifying Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Services: Level 4 (12 hours)
This training is designed for those in leadership, supervisory and decision-making positions who want to offer services, products or curriculum to meet the needs of a diverse clientele. Participants are invited to:
- Create a diversity, equity and inclusion mission statement
- Explore ethical best practices when serving diverse communities
- Develop a service assessment
- Identify service policies and practices that hinder diversity, equity and inclusion
- Explore service culture
- Consider the impact of historical inequities and trauma
- Examine and problem-solve scenarios and case studies
- Consider neutral, green-lining and reparation practices
- Use a DEI Impact Assessment Tool
- Develop policies and practices to amplify diversity, equity and inclusion
Interrupting Prejudice & Hate (6 hours)
This training has been designed to increase participants’ awareness of a range of hateful rhetoric and behaviors that can silence, disenfranchise and encourage violence against specific targeted groups. Our team will provide tools for effectively interrupting harmful behavior and strategies for creating healthy workplace and community norms based on diversity, equity and inclusion.. We can customize Interrupting Prejudice & Hate to particular industries and specific forms of prejudice and hate. This program includes our half-day Ethical Upstander© training. Depending on the workshop focus, possible outcomes include:
- Identify who is at risk for being targeted and who is at risk for perpetrating hate crimes
- A deeper understanding of the history of prejudice and hate in the United States
- Understanding the legal definition of discrimination, harassment, assault and hate crimes
- Identify common manifestations of prejudice and hate and their prevalence
- Developing preemptive strategies to support safe, respectful, inclusive environments
- Use Ethical Upstander© strategies to effectively interrupt potentially harmful situations
- Learning strategies for respectfully “calling in” those who are engaging in harm
- Community and individual safety considerations
Gender Equity & Inclusivity Trainings
Interrupting Gender Discrimination Level 1: Amplifying Awareness (6 hours)
This training is designed to increase participants’ awareness of the roots of gender discrimination in US history and its present-day manifestations. At the completion of this training, participants will be able to:
- Have a deeper understanding of the history of gender discrimination in the United States
- Understand definitions and manifestations of gender discrimination
- Identify the material impact of gender discrimination today
- Recognize gender bias, stereotypes and utilize strategies for challenging them
- Consider gender discrimination through an intersectional lens
- Identify practices to amplify gender equity
Interrupting Gender Discrimination Level 2: Sexual Harassment & Violence (6 hours)
This training provides and overview of the breadth and depth of sexual harassment and violence, and includes our Ethical Upstander© training. Participants will:
- Define sexual harassment and assault and recognize their manifestations
- Understand the frequency, scope and impact of sexual harassment & assault
- Identify who is at greatest risk for being targeted and for committing the harm
- Recognize rape culture and its expressions and manifestations in pop-culture
- Recognize how and why our culture engages in victim-blaming
- Demonstrate effective allyship with those who have been targeted
- Understand intersectionality and ways harassment and discrimination impact specific social identity groups
- Develop specific strategies for preventing sexual harassment and violence
- Engage in scenarios using our Ethical Upstander© toolkit
Creating a Transgender & Gender Queer Inclusive Workplace (4 hours)
This training is designed to increase awareness, empathy and recognition of bias and inclusive practices. Participants will identify the promoters and inhibitors of gender equity and inclusion in the workplace. Workshop includes:
- Gender Bias: what it is, how we learn it, how we can unlearn it
- Language, communication and the etiquette of respect and inclusion
- Promoters and inhibitors of gender diversity, equity & inclusion
- Allyship and strategies for interrupting harmful behavior
- Action plan: strategic shifts for individual and workplace transformation to create a trans & gender queer welcoming and inclusive workplace
Ethical Upstander© Trainings
Ethical Upstander© Train the Trainer EUT3 (20 hours)
This program trains members of your team to provide Ethical Upstander© Training to others within your organization. Call for more information.
Harassment Prevention Trainings
Workplace Harassment: Prevention and Response (2 hours)
This training is designed to increase awareness and prevention of harassment in the workplace. Scenarios and case studies provide participants an opportunity to practice. Topics include:
- Definitions of key compliance terms
- An explanation of the laws relating to harassment and discrimination
- The impact of harassment and discrimination in the workplace
- Recommendations for appropriately responding to and reporting misconduct
- Strategies for creating and maintaining a respectful, inclusive workplace
Other Services
Black, Indigenous, People of Color Affinity Group Facilitation
A Human In Common BIPOC facilitator will facilitate discussions, partner sharing and self-reflective exercises; provide articles, short videos, and activities to:
- Hold space to share/express the trauma of racism and other forms of systemic prejudice
- Create supportive community
- Identify barriers to racial equity within workplace/community
- Identify priorities, goals, objectives for amplifying racial equity
- Identify areas for collaboration
- Develop skills for self-advocacy, interrupting racism and leadership
- Practice skills using real-life scenarios
- Create restorative healing practices
Trainings For Students
Student Workshop
Student Workshop
Why Human In Common?
Testimonials From Our Participants
“Inspiring!”
“The workshop was engaging, thought-provoking, and thorough. I left inspired, more conscious and more prepared to act in the service of others should the circumstances arise. I also found it helpful to my professional practice in dealing with clients. Thank you!!”
A.M, Psychotherapist
Northampton, MA
“Loved it!”
“I loved both workshops by Human In Common. I learned how I can and should respond to racial discrimination and biases. Can’t wait to attend more of them!”
Venita Qualls
Director of Soulful Essentials
“Amazing!”
“I had an amazing experience and learned a lot. I feel like, in the social justice world, we talk so much about checking our privilege and understanding it, and very rarely do we talk about how to best use our privilege for good or how to stand up in difficult situations. Thank you for opening up the conversation!”
Annie F., Hillel
Social Justice Fellow
TRAININGS
KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
CONFERENCE TRACKS
Offering You A More
compassionate, experiential approach
compassionate, experiential approach
Unlike typical diversity trainings that only focus on compliance, our training is a compassionate, experiential approach to practicing specific skills for effectively interrupting and preventing bias and harmful behavior. We teach strategies for creating a respectful and inclusive environment where all members feel welcome.
Professional Diversity + Ethical
Upstander© Training
Upstander© Training
Human In Common specializes in providing professional diversity + Ethical Upstander© Training for nonprofits, municipalities, businesses and schools.
Professional Diversity + Ethical
Upstander© Training
Upstander© Training
Human In Common specializes in providing professional diversity + Ethical Upstander© Training for nonprofits, municipalities, businesses and schools.

TRAININGS
Human In Common specializes in providing professional active bystander intervention trainings for schools, businesses, and organizations. Our interactive diversity trainings are customized to meet the specific needs of our clients. Unlike typical diversity trainings that only focus on compliance, our training is a compassionate, experiential approach to practicing skills for actively interrupting and preventing bias and harmful behavior. We teach strategies for creating a respectful and inclusive environment where all members feel welcome.
Human In Common specializes in providing professional active bystander intervention trainings for schools, businesses, and organizations. Our interactive diversity trainings are customized to meet the specific needs of our clients. Unlike typical diversity trainings that only focus on compliance, our training is a compassionate, experiential approach to practicing skills for actively interrupting and preventing bias and harmful behavior. We teach strategies for creating a respectful and inclusive environment where all members feel welcome.
CONSULTATION
Human In Common consultants can provide a wide range of assistance including:
- Partnership with your team to design and implement a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) strategic plan
- Establishment of a mission, roles and responsibilities for Diversity Committees
- Development of inclusive and equitable policies and practices
- Attendance at staff, committee and board meetings
- Facilitation of dialogues (e.g. BIPOC focus or affinity groups, mindful dialogue to address conflict within departments, etc.)
- Coaching for managers
- Assistance in responding to crises related to DEI
- Content creation for letters, handbooks, website, blogs and social media sites
EXECUTIVE COACHING
We offer individual and executive coaching. Essential for those in leadership roles, our individual sessions support developing competence and confidence in a range of diversity, equity and inclusion areas including:
- Appropriate language for discussing social identities
- Addressing current events
- Respectful dialogue
- Perspective-taking
- Creating inclusive policies and practices
- Challenging conversations
- Equitable, inclusive and transparent decision-making
- Apologies and reparations
- Building bridges
- Responding to crises
KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS
Contact us if you are interested in one of our diversity specialists speaking at your next conference or keynote.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Contact us if you are interested in one of our diversity specialists speaking at your next conference or keynote.
CONFERENCE TRACKS
Contact us if you are interested in one of our diversity specialists speaking at your next conference or keynote.
Send Us A Message
Request a Consultation
Request a Consultation