Healing Justice
For 10 years, Dignity and Power Now have worked within black and brown communities with the goal of achieving healing and transformative justice for incarcerated people and their families. Our work in healing justice is grounded in the principles of abolition, healing, and transformative justice. DPN has a multitude of programs centered around activism that not only challenge many of the tools of state-sanctioned violence but also aim at healing and strengthening those impacted. DPN’s Healing Justice team works within the framework of addressing generational trauma using ancestral/ indigenous practices and embracing new forms of healing.
Building Resilience (BR) is Dignity and Power Now’s cohort of healers dedicated to providing healing justice to those impacted by state violence. Using indigenous and holistic practices such as acupuncture, massage, reiki, yoga, bodywork, somatics, plant healing, and meditation, DPN’s Building Resilience team addresses intergenerational trauma while demonstrating that people don’t always need to rely upon capitalistic medicine (the same system that often causes abuse). Healing Justice offers communities methods to find healing power within themselves and their communities. Using the principles of healing justice, Building Resilience is transforming and ending systems of oppression to create a world in which people are healthy and care for each other. They do that by sharing and creating collective practices that honor the legacy of resilience that our families and communities have through ancestral connections. Building Resilience provides healing justice through an array of programs and community partnerships.
Wellness Clinics & Rapid Response Team
DPN healers are often called upon by the community to organize wellness clinics, rapid responses, marches, rallies, vigils, and social justice campaigns.
Wellness Clinics are held at various times throughout the year in rotating locations based on community needs. These free clinics are led by the Building Resilience team and provide entire communities with wellness services. Community members can visit the clinic and choose which stations they’d like to participate in at their own pace. Healing stations have included: reiki, community acupuncture, divination readings, massage therapy, meditative arts, drum circle, workshops in ayurvedic medicine, medicinal herbs, community altars building, and gardening.
In addition to the above-mentioned modalities, the Wellness Clinics also provide listening stations, food, and DPN Wellness Kits, which include homemade items such as bath salts, teas, salves, aromatherapy spritzers, rollers, and medicine pouches.
Rapid Response Team Dignity and Power Now is dedicated to building a sustainable crisis response model in which public safety is implemented by the people. DPN’s Health and Wellness plan is to provide traditional and clinical health support as first responders for crises involving mental illness, houselessness, and over-dependence on substances. DPN’s Healers Rapid Response team consists of natural healers trained in the areas of de-escalation, breathwork, listening, acupuncture, mental health, plant medicine, and the arts.
Our team trains impacted families and communities vulnerable to law enforcement violence to be the trauma-informed rapid response healers for their communities. The ultimate goals are to be self-sufficient in responding to crises in our communities, to make our model replicable, and to build strong partnerships with other abolitionist coalitions.
In 2022, DPN Healing Justice partnered with A Peace Builder from South Central Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Compton to provide immediate responses to community crises and mental health emergencies. A Peace Builder is a community safety and wellness partner that is culturally competent and culturally rooted to serve and protect their people without law enforcement and system inclusion. They work the streets to find the best support for young people in need of health, safety, and protection and supportive services for holistic wellness for themselves, their families, and their communities.
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