Wellness

Program

First launched in October 2020 in partnership with Liberation-Based Therapy (LBT) LCSW, PLLC, viBe’s Wellness Program is uniquely designed to provide additional comprehensive, culturally responsive mental health and wellness support services to participants (ages 13-26), administrative and programming staff, year-round. 

viBe’s Wellness Program was designed to address the unnoticed and unmet mental health needs of the Black girls, young women, and gender expansive youth of color (ages 13-26) we serve. The Program provides essential, free cultural and gender-affirming mental health services, as well as diverse modalities of wellness resources in order to provide trauma-informed care and community-based interventions for youth.

The decision to name this initiative the Wellness Program was intentionally done in order to de-stigmatize mental health for communities of color. In all aspects of its design, the Wellness Program seeks to create a shift from trauma informed care to healing centered engagement.

While the Wellness Program implements a very clear mental health strategy, it is coupled with a healing-centered framework that requires moving beyond questioning “what happened to you?” to “what do you need?”

Centering wellness (mental, physical, and emotional wellness) and empathy rather than solely trauma and harm creates opportunities to strengthen the roots of well-being for our participants while also getting to the root-causes of harm.

A Message from Tanisha Christie, LCSW Founder of Liberation-Based Therapy

What viBe’s leadership began to understand long before the pandemic and racial justice uprisings of 2020, was that there is a nexus between the individual creative growth of Black and Brown girls, young women, and femmes that is intrinsically tied to their mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.

Hear more about the impact of the Wellness Program from founder of Liberation-Based Therapy (LBT) and Wellness Program Director, Tanisha Christie, LCSW. LBT is a NY-based psychotherapeutic group practice that supports mental health and wellness through the lens of liberation-based healing practices.

Wellness Program Services

  • Group Wellness Sessions

    On a monthly basis, participants attend free group wellness sessions with a licensed Liberation-Based Therapy clinician. These facilitated sessions mirror the small, intimate spaces youth engage in during rehearsals and are another touchpoint for trust-building and creative collaboration.

    Purpose of group sessions:

    ● Affirming the collaborative philosophy of viBe’s methodology which emphasizes its ​​participants

    ● Holding space for one another through a process of validation, reflection, and questioning to aid in gaining insight. 

  • Individual Wellness Sessions

    Participants and staff receive bi-weekly subsidized 1:1 wellness sessions with licensed Liberation-Based Therapy clinicians, as well as referrals for long term therapeutic care.

    Purpose of individual sessions:

    ● Gaining insight on creating liberating spaces for self and others.

    ● Reframing limiting patterns and beliefs. 

    ● An emphasis on developing a well of inner resource and resilience. 

  • Restorative Wellness Sessions

    Whereas healthy, might be defined by the absence of disease, wellness can be defined as the ‘steps taken’ to enhance a healthy lifestyle.

    Guided by this holistic understanding, viBe offers free restorative movement and healing-based classes to participants, staff, and community members.

    Restorative wellness sessions are offered in collaboration with practitioners based in New York City and nation-wide, and reflect diverse modalities including yoga, pilates, breath-work, bio-energetics, reiki, herbalism, among others.

  • Wellness Partnerships

    viBe’s Wellness Program is made possible due to a constellation of values-aligned partnerships with wellness-based businesses, individual practitioners, community-based youth development organizations, and school partners.

    Since the Program’s founding in 2019, viBe has been proud to partner with: Liberation-Based Therapy, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Linda Lopes of LL in Wellness, Avél Juliette of Avél Juliette Pilates, Taja Lindley of Colored Girls Hustle Inc., Renee Smith of Akika Flower Essences and Apothecary, Ebony Noelle Golden of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, The Circle Keepers, Leoansy Calzado, Joyous R. Pierce, and many more.

    We are committed to providing quality wellness experiences to our community and welcome the opportunity for collaboration.