This trauma-informed, expressive-arts workshop invites participants to reconnect with joy, imagination, embodiment, and collective care through accessible theater- and improv-informed practices.
Designed for people working in the homeless response sector and nonprofit spaces, this session offers an alternative to the pressure to continually perform competence, contain crisis, and carry the emotional weight of care work.
Participants will be invited into “real play”: low-pressure activities rooted in what is already true for them rather than requiring them to invent, perform, disclose personal details, or be funny. Through optional movement, gesture, storytelling, reflection, chat-based participation, and collective image-making, participants will explore small moments of joy, notice what their bodies and minds may be needing, and practice imagining support as something we create together. The session centers healing justice by treating joy, creativity, and rest not as luxuries or individual rewards, but as practices of restoration and resistance. Participants will leave with simple, adaptable expressive-arts tools they can use to reconnect with themselves and their communities during demanding workdays.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
Use at least two accessible expressive-arts or improv-informed practices to support grounding, self-expression, and emotional renewal.
Identify a personal and collective practice of care that can be integrated into their workday.
Explore joy and play as healing-centered resources that support sustainability in care and justice work.
Practice participating in community care without pressure to perform, disclose, or “get it right.”
Accessibility and Facilitation Approach:
Participation will be consent-based and adaptable for camera-on, camera-off, chat, voice, seated movement, or private reflection. No theater, improv, movement, or artistic experience is required. Participants will be invited to engage at their own level of comfort, with clear options to observe, pass, or modify activities. The workshop will be facilitated through a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, healing-centered approach that honors participants’ lived experiences and the realities of frontline care work.
Mercedes Frierson, LCSW, MSW is a proud Black woman who knows her purpose is to be a social worker, educator, and pathway for people’s healing and self-discovery. She is the Founder of ACTION to Healing, LLC where she consults with businesses and organizations to help them create a work environment that is culturally humble, trauma-informed, and inclusive. With years of working in the Los Angeles homeless services sector, providing anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) workshops nationally, and curating staff development programming, Mercedes customizes her services to include in-person or virtual offerings that “meet clients where they are” in every aspect.
SJPLA’s Wellbeing Series is a free workshop every second Thursday of the month at 11 am. The workshops introduce a variety of healing modalities as part of our Racial Equity in Homelessness Initiative. These sessions promote personal rest, renewal, and connection creating space for discussion on how to sustain wellbeing practices.
