Partner With Us
Let’s begin with what matters.
Perhaps your organization is trying to understand a community more deeply.
Perhaps important stories are at risk of being forgotten.
Perhaps your people need a place to pause, reconnect, and experience themselves beyond what they produce.
Or perhaps you know something needs to change, but you need a thoughtful partner to help uncover what comes next.
Liberated Educators Lab partners with institutions and communities through research, storykeeping, and healing-centered experiences.
We begin by listening.
Together, we identify what needs to be understood, preserved, restored, or reimagined—and build an engagement grounded in dignity, relationship, and lived experience.
Ways We Can Work Together
Our partnerships take many forms. Some begin with a specific project. Others begin with a question that an organization has not yet found the language to ask.
Research
Understand the people behind the decisions.
We design qualitative and community-centered research that helps organizations move beyond assumptions and learn directly from lived experience.
Research partnerships may include:
Qualitative research design
Listening sessions and focus groups
Oral history interviews
Community needs assessments
Program evaluation
Interview and narrative analysis
Research advising and thought partnership
Community-informed reports and recommendations
Our research does more than gather information. It helps organizations recognize patterns, understand context, and make decisions informed by the people most affected.
Storykeeping
Preserve what should not be lost.
Every community, institution, and movement carries stories that help explain how it became what it is.
We help organizations preserve those stories with care, context, and consent.
Storykeeping partnerships may include:
Oral history projects
Podcast development and production strategy
Community archive projects
Institutional memory initiatives
Story circles and facilitated interviews
Narrative-based publications
Public scholarship
Archival strategy and partnerships
Story-informed exhibits or digital experiences
We do not approach stories as content to extract. We treat them as knowledge entrusted to us—and as part of the historical record future generations may depend on.
Healing & Joy Spaces
Create room for people to return to themselves.
People cannot continually be asked to lead, serve, produce, and care for others without opportunities to pause and reconnect.
We design healing-centered experiences that make room for rest, reflection, joy, truth-telling, and community.
Partnerships may include:
Conference wellness and restoration spaces
Retreats and organizational gatherings
Facilitated reflection sessions
Racial battle fatigue education and support
Rest and joy-centered workshops
Community healing experiences
Somatic and grounding practices
Leadership reflection spaces
Custom experiences for affinity groups and professional communities
These spaces are not an escape from the work. They help people return to it with greater connection, clarity, and care.
Not Sure Where Your Project Fits?
You do not need to arrive with a finished plan.
Some of our strongest partnerships begin with a story, a tension, or a question.
You may be asking:
How can we understand what our community is actually experiencing?
How do we preserve this history before it disappears?
What would it look like to listen without extracting?
How can our people feel more seen, heard, and valued?
How do we create a healing experience that feels meaningful rather than performative?
How can lived experience better inform our strategy, programming, or leadership?
If your work sits between research, storykeeping, and healing, that is not a problem.
That intersection is where Liberated Educators Lab does some of its most meaningful work.
Who We Partner With
Our mission is rooted in Black educators and their communities.
Our partnerships extend wherever dignity, stories, knowledge, and healing matter.
We collaborate with:
Museums, libraries, archives, and cultural institutions
Foundations and philanthropic organizations
Universities and research centers
Healthcare and public health organizations
Nonprofits and community-based organizations
Government and public agencies
Schools, districts, and educational organizations
Arts, media, and storytelling organizations
Professional associations
Mission-driven companies
We are especially aligned with organizations willing to listen deeply, examine what has been overlooked, and build with the people most affected by their decisions.
What It Means to Partner With Us
We do not bring a prepackaged solution into every space.
We begin by learning.
We ask thoughtful questions, pay attention to context, and create a process that reflects the people, history, and purpose of each partnership.
Our partnerships are:
Relational
Trust is not a step we rush through. It is part of the work.
Community-centered
People are not simply participants or data sources. They are knowledge holders whose experiences should shape the process and the outcome.
Culturally grounded
We recognize the historical, cultural, racial, and institutional realities that shape people’s experiences.
Thoughtfully designed
Every session, interview, research question, and gathering should have a clear purpose.
Built for learning
Our goal is not only to deliver a project. It is to help organizations see, understand, and respond differently.
Our Partnership Process
1. We Listen
We begin with a conversation about your organization, your community, and what is bringing you to this work. You do not need to have every detail figured out. We will help you identify the central question, need, or opportunity.
2. We Design
We develop an approach that reflects your goals, timeline, audience, and organizational context. Depending on the partnership, this may include research, facilitation, interviews, archival work, workshops, public programming, or a combination of services.
3. We Build Together
Our work is collaborative. We remain attentive to what is emerging and make thoughtful adjustments when the process reveals something new.
4. We Preserve and Activate What We Learn
The work should not disappear when the engagement ends. We help partners consider how stories, findings, practices, and insights can continue informing leadership, strategy, programming, and community relationships.
What We Ask of Our Partners
Meaningful work requires more than a contract.
It requires care, honesty, and shared responsibility.
We work best with partners who are willing to:
Listen without becoming defensive
Respect the knowledge of the people closest to the issue
Protect participants’ dignity and confidentiality
Make room for complexity
Compensate community members when appropriate
Use what is learned responsibly
Commit sufficient time and resources to the work
Consider how the partnership can lead to meaningful action
We do not expect perfection. We do expect intention.
Speaking & Keynotes
Looking to invite Dr. Asia Lyons to deliver a keynote, participate in a panel, facilitate a conversation, or contribute as a subject matter expert? Speaking engagements may explore:
Storykeeping and archival justice
Black educator experiences and racial battle fatigue
Dignity, wellness, and organizational culture
Podcasting as public scholarship
Community-centered research
Rest, joy, and healing
What institutions can learn when people tell the truth about leaving
Preserving lived experience as a strategy for change
Start a Partnership Inquiry
Tell us a little about what you are carrying, building, questioning, or hoping to preserve. You do not need to know exactly which service you need. Begin with what is bringing you here.
Let’s build something that lasts.
Your organization may already hold the knowledge it needs.
Your community may already carry the stories that point toward what comes next.
Your people may already know what has been missing.
Sometimes, the first step is creating the conditions for that knowledge to be heard.
We would be honored to begin with you.