Our Work
At Liberated Educators Lab, our work lives across five interconnected pillars that blend storytelling, research, and wellness to sustain and celebrate Black educators. Each pillar advances our mission while serving educators, researchers, families, institutions, and communities through culturally grounded, healing-centered practice.
Archival Justice & Storytelling
We preserve Black educator stories in ways that honor their humanity while generating research that shapes systems and reclaims legacy.
Archival Justice & Storytelling is the heart of our work. We uplift the lived experiences of Black educators through oral history, community storytelling, and multi-modal archival projects that prevent erasure and affirm legacy. Through The Exit Interview podcast, Podcast & Pause listening circles, and intergenerational projects like Drawing From The Well, we create spaces where story becomes data, memory becomes movement, and lived experience becomes a source of healing and justice.
Our storytelling work is poetic, affirming, and grounded in authenticity. It offers educators a place to breathe and be witnessed, while giving institutions insight into the realities of racial battle fatigue, retention, and educator wellness.
Our work includes:
• A living oral history archive (The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators)
• Community listening circles (Podcast & Pause)
• Photo-story exhibitions and intergenerational archives
• Story-centered research that informs equity and retention
Impact:
Educators feel seen and validated; communities learn from lived experience; institutions gain qualitative insight that drives systemic change.
Healing & Wellness
We create restorative spaces where Black educators reclaim rest, reconnect with themselves, and practice healing as liberation.
Our Healing & Wellness pillar centers rest, restoration, and collective care. Through Rooted RestShops and Liberated Retreats, we design culturally grounded spaces where educators can pause, breathe, and process the realities of racial battle fatigue and compassion fatigue. These gatherings blend somatic practices, breathwork, gratitude rituals, identity reflection, and community dialogue, helping educators cultivate sustainable wellness practices rooted in cultural wisdom.
The tone of this pillar is sacred, intimate, healing-centered, and deeply affirming. Our programs offer both immediate restoration and long-term strategies educators carry into their families, classrooms, and communities.
Our work includes:
• Rooted RestShops for healing and reflection
• Immersive Liberated Retreats
• Gratitude, breathwork, and somatic tools
• Healing-centered frameworks for educator sustainability
Impact:
Participants report new wellness practices, increased belonging, and meaningful reductions in racialized stress.
Speaking & Training
We bring story, research, and healing-centered practice to national audiences to shift narrative and inspire institutional change.
Our Speaking & Training pillar amplifies the voices and experiences of Black educators while equipping organizations with research-backed strategies for wellness and equity. Through national keynotes, conference presentations, panel conversations, and our Healing-Centered PD Series, we help educators and leaders understand racial battle fatigue, compassion fatigue, and the emotional labor carried by Black educators.
This work blends inspiration with data, poetry with practice, and truth-telling with professional learning. Each engagement helps institutions move from awareness to action, building more humane, equitable conditions for educators.
Our work includes:
• Keynotes for national conferences
• Healing-Centered PD Series for institutions
• Workshops and retreats for staff
• Research talks rooted in lived experience
Impact:
Participants gain new language, new insights, and actionable strategies that strengthen educator sustainability and shift organizational culture.
Consulting & Partnerships
We help institutions design systems that honor Black educator wellness and create conditions for thriving.
Our Consulting & Partnerships pillar supports districts, universities, nonprofits, and funders in developing healing-centered, equity-driven structures that sustain Black educators. Using lived experience, research, and data-informed analysis, we assess conditions, identify root causes of racialized stress, and co-design strategies that reduce harm and strengthen retention.
This work is collaborative, rigorous, and justice-rooted, bridging community wisdom with institutional change. Our partnerships ensure that policy, professional learning, and organizational culture reflect a commitment to wellness and equity.
Our work includes:
• Institutional assessments and recommendations
• System-wide wellness and retention strategies
• Multi-year partnerships with funders and nonprofits
• Research-informed consulting grounded in community voice
Impact:
Partners build sustainable, healing-centered systems that support Black educators and improve long-term retention.
Digital Products & Licensing
We design accessible wellness tools and scalable frameworks that bring reflection, rest, and liberation into everyday practice.
Digital Products & Licensing extends our work beyond in-person spaces by offering self-guided journals, rest plans, curricula, and digital courses that support educators and institutions year-round. These tools allow individuals to build restorative practices on their own time and help organizations embed our frameworks into policy, PD, and culture.
Our licensing options give institutions an affordable, scalable way to adopt evidence-informed wellness practices at a systems level, ensuring that healing-centered work reaches more educators across more contexts.
Our work includes:
• Journals, rest templates, and reflection guides
• Digital courses and self-guided learning
• Curricula that support wellness and restoration
• Licensing agreements for districts and universities
Impact:
Educators adopt new wellness tools, and institutions embed sustainable practices that support long-term healing and retention.
