Open Up

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These community conversations for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color happen monthly. Each month we share stories and individual experiences from the intersections of race and disability while exploring healing + wellness tools for mind and body. This month, we welcome Sharise Nance, LCSW, Entrepreneur, Speaker Sharise is a highly educated and deeply experienced Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Trauma Specialist, Workshop Facilitator, Global Speaker, Award Winning and Serial Author and Entrepreneur. She is the co-owner and founder of HandinHand Counseling Services, LLC. Sharise and her partner started the private practice due to the mental health disparities for Black people, as well as their own experiences with pay disparities as mental health therapists and social workers. With over 20 years of experience assisting individuals, couples and families to see beyond energy depletion, hopelessness, panic, guilt and feeling overwhelmed, Sharise assists them in making a shift to a place of peace, joy, clarity, and satisfaction. Having dealt with her own compassion fatigue and burnout, Sharise also dedicates her efforts to running Vitamin C Healing, LLC, an organization that helps companies prevent Leadership Burnout and Compassion Fatigue using a trauma sensitive and systems approach to create a supportive work culture that prioritizes work life balance and integration. Known as the Compassion Fatigue Lady and Compassion Stress Coach, Sharise has become one of the pioneers of Compassion Fatigue in Western Pennsylvania. She has considerable experience speaking at keynotes, workshops, and seminars for helping professionals, mental health leaders and entrepreneurs across the globe. She strives to equip individuals with tools to tolerate the high demands of work and life, imposter syndrome, as well as managing and preventing compassion fatigue and burnout in order to live happy, fulfilled lives and careers. Sharise is the founder and creator of the S.W.A.G. Awards: Social Worker Appreciation of Greatness Awards, to honor the “heart work” of local social workers in the Greater Pittsburgh area who are often unappreciated and unrecognized. She is the proud wife of William Nance, and during her spare time she enjoys running half marathons, reading, watching sports, traveling, and trying new foods.

Have you been keeping up with our Forbes partnership? We still have a few more chances to highlight stories from the Open Up community. What topics would you like to see covered?

We wrote about the practice of "Yes...and..." that we use in working together--and in having fun! You can find it and other blog articles on our website. This practice originally comes from the improv community. We love it so much, we wanted to highlight it here! It helps to let others know that you are actively listening, that you acknowledge their contributions, and that you value their input. Play with "Yes...and..." and see how it goes for you! Image Description The first slide is on a pink background. The title says "Yes...and..." in your toolbox. One way we practice “Being Open” at Open Up is using the improv rule "Yes...and..." The second slide is on a purple background. It says "Yes...and...means listening to other people’s ideas, and adding on to those ideas so NEW IDEAS emerge." The third slide is also purple. It says "Yes...and...example: Person A: I think we need to add these 2 steps to the project... Person B: Yes, and that makes me think we should consider variable x..." The fourth purple slide says "Yes...and..." Experiment with “yes...and...” throughout your day. We’d love to hear how it goes!"

This just in! Dr. Rachel Robertson of University of Pittsburgh sat down with Open Up founder, Marissa Vogel to talk about how building a bridge between academia and community can result in collaborative research that can lead to sustainable, impactful programs that enrich both scholarship and the communities they serve. (attn: LEND Pittsburgh + Pitt Research) https://lnkd.in/eqdk843V

These community conversations for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color happen monthly. Each month we join April Jackson (she/her)and Wesley Hamilton for stories and individual experiences from the intersections of race and disability while exploring healing + wellness tools for mind and body. This month, we welcome Chimeria Terrell BSN, RN, a registered nurse at Pittsburgh Mercy, and the owner of Steel City Healthcare Training. A Pittsburgh native, Chimeria grew up in the Beechview neighborhood of the city and graduated from Pittsburgh CAPA high school. Chimeria completed her ADN at CCAC South Campus in 2013 before graduating with a BSN in 2018 from Western Governors University. Chimeria has been practicing nursing at her long-time employer Pittsburgh Mercy where she supports and cares for patients with mental health diagnoses and intellectual disabilities. While working at Pittsburgh Mercy, Chimeria discovered a new passion, during her time leading weekly health and wellness groups. This passion was education. She found that educating people about the importance of health and wellness extremely rewarding. In 2020, Chimeria was inspired to open her company Steel City Healthcare Training where she could instruct life saving techniques to both healthcare workers and lay rescuers. To date, Chimeria has trained more than 2000 people in CPR/First Aid. She has added active shooter, OSHA workplace safety training, and other safety trainings to her course offerings. When she is not caring for and educating the masses, Chimeria enjoys spending time with her 3 sons Tayshaun, Jayden, and Kyren, being a die-hard foodie, reading, and traveling with her family.

These community conversations for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color happen monthly, hosted by Wesley Hamilton and April Jackson (she/her). Each month we share stories and individual experiences from the intersections of race and disability while exploring healing + wellness tools for mind and body. This month, we welcome Gina Winstead. A nonbinary member of the LGBTQ+ community as well as a multiracial person, Gina is committed to disrupting systems and building creative solutions that advance education, leadership and access to diverse networks. A native of the Pittsburgh region, she has wide-ranging expertise in community development, nonprofit leadership and local entrepreneurship. Gina is the Carnegie Museums' first vice president for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA).

Join SSS tomorrow as Wesley Hamilton and I talk with Gina Winstead about equity, intersectionality and so much more.

Join SSS tomorrow as Wesley Hamilton and I talk with Gina Winstead about equity, intersectionality and so much more.

Open Up works hard to make everything we do a model for accessibility. At our events, we have a sign-in process that includes color coded name tags to indicate participants' preferred level of engagement. We also offer some examples of talking points that you might like to use, as we can all agree that sometimes meeting new people can feel hard! Image Description: First photo: Tessa Karel greets guests of a recent Open Up event sitting at a table with a big grin. Second photo: three different colors of name tags with color coded levels of engagement. Red = I prefer to observe (please do not approach me) Yellow = I'm open to chat but prefer to initiate (I'll approach you first) Green = Eager to converse and engage (feel free to approach me)