The Year We Turned the Key - 2020

1. Launched CFire LLC on social media - Facebook, IG, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and our website to introduce the mission: to change the narrative for Black women and DV (domestic violence).

1. Began organizing and detailing my DV story to help Black women to:

2. Identify lesser-known types of DV to self-identify if applicable

3. Slay the myths throughout our community of DV looks like for Black women

4. Introduce Empowerment through the Arts™, the alternative, culturally-based group therapy designed by a Black woman for Black women

1. This alternative group treatment for Black female DV survivors to learn to avoid future predatory relationships later became Empowerment through the Arts™. 

2. Created manuscript

3. Had it reviewed by 2 Black trauma-informed women therapists

4. Established community partnerships with Black trauma-informed therapists to refer to the program

5. Published as 1st edition- Healing through the Arts™

6. Conducted 2 focus groups

7. Updated program due to feedback from participants and observations through facilitation

8. Published as 2nd edition - now named Empowerment through the Arts™

9. Established us as a vendor with Crime Victim’s Assistance Division (CVAD) making the program FREE to participants

1. Formed 1st new relationship with mainstream system and began training with their therapists on how to allow the Black woman to show up as herself during crisis - Mosaic Family Counseling

1. Encouraged healing, self-advocacy, and unification directly to our community during some very difficult times 

2. Black Women Rise Rally Healing Speaker - #Permission to heal ourselves as Black women

3. MAV Annual Crime Victim’s Walks Speaker - How to Live in the AfterLife (life after we lose a loved one)

4. Panelist on Sunday Supper w/MarKaus - Code R.E.D. - Our Black people and mental health

5. Emcee for Black Women Voters Rally - encouraging Black community to come out and vote in 2020 presidential election

6. Televised Panelist on The Black America Forum with We Are Iowa News Anchor Sabrina Ahmed - Representing the needs the Black women and DV with the 2020 candidates

Utilized relationships within Black communities to create therapist referrals from Black trauma-informed professional women

1. Breanne Ward, CRC, LMHC, CEO/Therapist at ForWard Consulting, LLC

2. Jasmin Howard, LMSW, Licensed Therapist and Social Worker

1. Launched #PrepTalks, our 1st Facebook Live show, to help the Black community understand why we need to become educated on the Black woman's needs in order to be successful in changing the narrative for Black women and DV. We hosted three (3) shows:

2. Birth through Ascension: Prep Talk - This one was to help define the way art is utilized in helping our Black women utilize our culture and access therapy in a way that is welcoming, feels safe, and is more productive than traditional therapy alone. 

3. Prep Talk: Men at the Table - We brought men to the table who are considered leaders in our local Black community due to physical strength or spiritual strength to talk about what our Black men can do to help change the narrative for Black women and DV.

4. Prep Talk: Sister Therapists at the Table - We brought 3 Black women therapists to the table. They shared why they became therapists, some of the misnomers surrounding therapy, and some of the most dangerous myths surrounding Black women DV victims, Black male perpetrators of violence, and mental health.