Liberatory Coaching Certification Program

The Liberatory Coaching Certification Program is a 9-month professional coaching certification training for BIPOC social justice movement leaders who are committed to learning coaching skills for individual and collective liberation.

The 9-month program teaches liberatory coaching skills from an anti-systemic oppression lens, with the awareness of spirit and the ancestors.

What You Will Learn

Engaging in Healing

Identify and address our needs

Creating
Justice

Increasing Self leadership

Cultivating Liberation

Create Conscious Relationships

Are you someone interested in these skills?

  • Growing in Self-leadership in order to ground yourself in creativity, compassion, courage, and connectedness.

  • Deepening your understanding of white supremacy and settler colonialism and how to address them in your community, organization, and the larger movement.

  • Addressing and releasing individual and generational trauma into a source of joy, abundance, and energy.

  • Identifying your needs and values and learning to identify needs and values of your team members, coalition partners, elected officials, coach partners, and clients in order to move into alignment with what is longing to be birthed.

coming home to self

Topics include: Resource Interdependence, Somatics, Partswork, Liberation Coaching skills, Creating Energetic Boundaries, Decolonization/Re-indigenization, Abolition and Transformative Justice, Blackness Ancestral Wisdom in Coaching, using coaching skills to address white supremacy and settler colonial culture in organizations, and more.

Program Components

  • 34 Weekly Virtual Classes

    Sessions are offered 9-10:30am PST and 5-6:30pm PST every Wednesday. Each week, participants choose which one of the two sessions they will attend.

  • 6 Weekend Retreats

    Our virtual retreats are from 9am - 4pm PST on the following dates: May 16-17; July 11-12; August 22-23; October 10-11; December 5-6, 2025; and January 23-24, 2026

  • Community

    Joining this cohort welcomes you into a deep relationship with 35 other BIPOC social justice leaders as well as the 300+ alumni.

  • Group and Individual Mentorship

    Individual and group mentoring is the best way to receive individualized feedback on your Liberatory Coaching presence and practice with an eye towards spirit and systemic awareness.

  • Coaching Practice

    You will be encouraged and supported to start practicing coaching right away with real coach partners as a way to integrate and deepen your skill.

  • Reading and Reflection

    Presence, body awareness, intuitive discernment, and anti-settler colonialism are at the root of what we invite you to read. Our text book is: Love Letter to the Movement: Using a Coach Approach for Healing, Justice, and Liberation.

  • "I feel like I'm in chrysalis. There are some things that are breaking down inside of me that I'm becoming liquid and the form I once had is gone and I am becoming something new. I don't know what that all means, but it does feel like decolonization, because you can't put shackles on water, can you?"

    Márquez Rhyne

  • "The tenderness and the love here and the invitation to take a breath and to rest in a practice of decolonizing is almost too much to bear in a way. That's the precipice you feel us on right now. For me, it feels that way. The breaking is such an apt way to describe it. I feel like I'm on the edge of the pool. Like I don't know, we get invited to do this a lot, but not in safe spaces. And here is this space, that is everybody gets each other."

    Gaye Theresa Johnson

  • "This space is so important. I loved how it was only BIPOC so we could have hard conversations without witnesses. I loved how "seen" I felt in the space. I also believe the tools are absolutely applicable to our work. This was a healing space and I am grateful."

    Program Participant

  • " After spending two decades feeling like my professional path would be one of continuous struggle and forever proving myself, this shift into just being myself and nurturing what that attracts is leading me to spaces of such transformation and alignment that I wake up every day eager to work. No more Sunday evening stomachaches or dread of how to write a response to a stressful email. That's not my world anymore. I'm so grateful that you all created a program that not only teaches, but requires us to do some real work on ourselves in the process. It's been a real honor to be involved in this program and I look forward to continuing to be in relationship with all of you in the coming chapters of our lives."

    Cecily Engelhart

 

Apply For Liberatory Coaching Certification

 

1 payment of

$13,500

What’s Included:

✔︎ 34 Weekly Calls

✔︎ 6 Weekend Retreats

✔︎ Group and Individual Mentorship

✔︎ 50 Hours of Coaching Practice

✔︎ Online Community Space

✔︎ Opportunity to Get Certified for our Transformative Futures Coaching Directory

Application is OPEN
For more details on fees and policies, please click here.

Root Learnings

These root learnings are skills designed to support you on your path to becoming a liberatory coach.

  • Puts attention on resourcefulness, alignment, impact, and transformation. Responds to a wide range of cues, including words, energy, motivation, or lack of movement. Slows down the process to support deeper listening.

  • Coach embodies one or more of the eight C’s--compassion, curiosity, courage, calmness, creativity, connectedness, clarity, confidence.

  • Recovers from moments of disconnection, refrains from judgment or advice, believes in the coach-partner’s resourcefulness, and trusts the coaching process.

  • Engages as an equal; builds trust and willingness of the coach-partner to explore any issue by naming the power dynamic that can exist between coach-partner and coach when appropriate. Lets the coach partner see when the coach’s heart has been touched.

  • Asks curious, open-ended questions grounded in transcendent listening, intuition, curiosity, and an open heart. Invites the coach-partner to explore and discover new territory, including ways of being, actions, and learning. Follows the energy and uses the coach-partner’s language.

  • Speaks to what is just beneath the surface by crystallizing what is emerging, identifying patterns, naming what is not being said, naming systemic oppression, power imbalances, and/ or calling out what is happening in the coaching relationship or in the coach-partner’s issue.

  • Offers intuitive responses, without attachment to being right. Draws from the unknown, bringing in images and words. Holds space for the coach-partner to deepen intuition.

  • The body is an equal partner in the coaching conversation. Coach asks questions to deepen body awareness and takes adequate time for information to metabolize.

  • Speaks heart to heart, naming innate, core qualities that live deep inside the coach-partner and are beyond the obvious. Creates space for the coach-partner to receive the acknowledgment.

  • Steps out of their comfort zone for the sake of the coach-partner. Speaks boldly, challenges, uses humor or irreverence, or anything else that expands the coach-partner’s power.

  • For a full list of our Root Learnings, please click the link here.

Your Trainers

  • Sarah Jawaid

    Lead Trainer

  • Damon Azali-Rojas

    Lead Trainer

  • Nitika Raj

    Trainer

  • Gaye Theresa Johnson

    Trainer

  • Mohamad Chakaki

    Trainer

  • tayla shanaye

    Trainer

  • Latonya Slack

    Trainer

  • Erin Trent Johnson

    Trainer

  • Shanda Sugg

    Trainer

  • Monique Castro

    Trainer

  • Cecily Englehart

    Trainer

Your Mentors

  • Rob McGowan

    Mentor

  • Latonya Slack

    Mentor

  • Aja Couchois Duncan

    Mentor

  • Johnny Manzon-Santos

    Mentor

  • Mari Ryono

    Mentor

  • Mohamad Chakaki

    Transformative Futures Mentor

  • Alison Lin

    Mentor

  • Serian Strauss

    Transformative Futures Mentor

  • Erin Trent Johnson

    Transformative Futures Mentor

  • Nitika Raj

    Transformative Futures Mentor

  • Jamari Michael White

    Transformative Futures Mentor

  • Ja Young Ahn

    Mentor

  • Shanda Sugg

    Mentor

  • Lupe Poblano

    Mentor

Is this right for me?

We are looking for folks who are:

  • BIPOC

  • Movement leaders such as community organizers, teachers, executive directors, spiritual leaders, healers, program officers, program and executive directors, cultural workers, consultants, prison abolitionists, and circle holders
    (Movement experience can be anywhere from 2 years to 50+ years!)

  • Open to connecting with Spirit and Ancestors

  • Willing to deeply engage in relation to an anti-systemic oppression analysis, self-reflection and healing trauma in a multi-racial, gender expansive space.

  • " After spending two decades feeling like my professional path would be one of continuous struggle and forever proving myself, this shift into just being myself and nurturing what that attracts is leading me to spaces of such transformation and alignment that I wake up every day eager to work. No more Sunday evening stomachaches or dread of how to write a response to a stressful email. That's not my world anymore. I'm so grateful that you all created a program that not only teaches, but requires us to do some real work on ourselves in the process. It's been a real honor to be involved in this program and I look forward to continuing to be in relationship with all of you in the coming chapters of our lives."

    Cecily Engelhart

  • "This space is so important. I loved how it was only BIPOC so we could have hard conversations without witnesses. I loved how "seen" I felt in the space. I also believe the tools are absolutely applicable to our work. This was a healing space and I am grateful."

    Program Participant

  • "I feel like I'm in chrysalis. There are some things that are breaking down inside of me that I'm becoming liquid and the form I once had is gone and I am becoming something new. I don't know what that all means, but it does feel like decolonization, because you can't put shackles on water, can you?"

    Márquez Rhyne

  • "The tenderness and the love here and the invitation to take a breath and to rest in a practice of decolonizing is almost too much to bear in a way. That's the precipice you feel us on right now. For me, it feels that way. The breaking is such an apt way to describe it. I feel like I'm on the edge of the pool. Like I don't know, we get invited to do this a lot, but not in safe spaces. And here is this space, that is everybody gets each other."

    Gaye Theresa Johnson

FAQs

  • Applications close December 15

  • Yes, you need to attend classes live to receive credit. Also we offer our Deep Dives zoom calls in the morning and afternoon pacific time. You choose whatever call is most convenient for you each week. You do not have to attend both calls. You can work with your advisor if something comes up and we can create a plan with you. We don’t want this to cause stress like perhaps your previous academic experiences. We just ask for commitment for your sake and our community’s collective healing journey.

  • You will have access to the content for 1 year after completion.

  • Each week ebbs and flows. We would recommend you protect 4 hours a week at the least for the program and more on a week where there is a retreat. Those 4 hours include two hours coaching practice, a 90-min deep dive and 30 minutes of reading/reflection.

  • Financial assistance will be prioritized for individuals who identify as Black Men/Assigned-Male-at-Birth, Indigenous, and/or formerly incarcerated. Read more about our reparations fund philosophy here.

    Additional financial assistance for individuals outside of these categories will be provided based on individual need and available funds raised by Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation.

  • Contact Latoyia Hall at admin@healingjusticeliberation.org with any questions about the program or application process.

Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation Alumni

The following coaches have been a part of a Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation cohort and have completed the requirements to be a Healing Justice Liberation Coach (HJLC).

Diana Zuniga

E Lim

Erica Hernandez

Erika Strong

Felicia Griffin

Gaye Theresa Johnson

Gene Wilson

Heddy Nam

Henry Wai

Hillary North-Ellasante

Isabella Canal

Jaclyn Roessel

Jamala Taylor

Johnny Buck

Karen Ware

Kelechi Ubozoh

La Shanda Sugg

Lai Wa Wu

AJ Titong

Aaliya Zaveri

Adaku Utah

Adlemy Garcia

Alethia Jones

Amanda Rodriguez

Angel Mortel

Arianna Cisneros

Ashley Thomas

Carola Secada

Cecily Engelhart

Claudia Leung

Cory Fong

Daniel Penilla

Daniela Macias

Darlene Nipper

Denise Perry

Deycy Hernandez

Lawrence Barriner II

Leisy Abrego

Lorraine Ramirez

Makkah Ali

Marianne Chung

Márquez Rhyne

Maryam Abdul-Kareem

Maya Thornell-Sandifor

Melissa Salvatore-Alcala

Michele Kumi Baer

Najla Gomez Rodriguez

Namira Anani

Natalie Bamdad

Neha Mahajan

Neva Walker

Nico Chin

Nisha Purushotham

PG Watkins

Rachelle Robley

Rashida James

Rita Louh

Sage Crump

Saira Hamidi

Shauwea Hamilton

Shireen Zaman

Sól Gonzalez Jatar

Sophie Lan Hou

Stephanie de Wolfe

Stephanie Gutierrez

Tamara Prather

Tia Martinez

Tracy Gagnon

Umar Hakim Dey

Wazi Maret

Wendy Calimag

Coaching for Transformation Alumni

We’ve trained hundreds of coaches. The following coaches have been a part of a Coaching for Transformation cohort that Sarah and/or Damon were lead trainers for and have completed the requirements to be a Certified Professional Coach (CPC).

Join Our Cohort

Start your journey. Apply for the coaching program.