Field Guide to A Crisis
Field Guide to a Crisis functions as a teacher's training tool by mentoring people residing in sober living homes in Eureka, CA to become “educators in resiliency.” Participants get the opportunity to identify, present, and teach their own crisis resilience skills through lesson plans, instructional videos, and public presentations. The program aims to build confidence, self-esteem, and resilience in its participants by uplifting lived experience to the status of expert knowledge. This work seeks to
determine how self-identification through guided participatory expression can help [re]frame personal narrative around substance use and reclaim it from the grasp of stigma, building towards a communal pedagogy of hope, while shifting community identification away from shame towards compassionate responsibility.
A primary goal of the program is to create opportunities for participants to become paid instructors. Throughout the year public lectures are organized to give participants experience and confidence. Four participants presented at the 2020 and 2021 PSU Art and Social Practice Assembly, as well as at the Center for Photographic Arts in 2021. For each presentation, one participant is asked to be the lead instructor and develop an interactive performance to invite a larger audience into the work. Graduating participants are part of a larger network of mentors and educators. The greater goal of FG is to expand nationally, where graduates will be paired with participants in new locations to serve as mentors.