Empowering Communities Through Expert Facilitation
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About me
Amanda Leigh-Zeller is a Two Spirit, neurodivergent, Indigenous abolitionist, and uses the pronouns He/Him and She/Her. He is from the Ts’il Kaz Koh and Kawakatoose Nations, and is a guest on unceded and unsurrendered Mi'kmaq Territory. She has a degree in Child and Youth Counseling. Amanda has been working with persons who have been intentionally marginalized by colonial systems of racialized power since 2004. In 2014, Amanda trained as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and has been providing one-on-one and group services ever since.
Amanda is an experienced community organizer, strategic leader, fundraiser, and creative thinker with a passion for community, program delivery, building relationships, and team engagement.
Many organizations and agencies in Kjipuktuk have benefitted from Amanda’s knowledge and expertise through workshops, consultations, and panels. Amanda is well known in community for his efforts in supporting people through mutual aid and organizational leadership.
Workshops and Trainings
Support and empower your staff with person-centered training.
Person Centered De-escalation
When we understand why a person becomes escalated, we are better prepared to support them getting their needs met. All behaviours are communication. This workshop teaches practitioners how to better understand and support escalated people, while maintaining professional boundaries, personal autonomy for the client, empathy and wellness for all. Practitioners have said this workshop has improved their service delivery as well as their ability to support themselves, their team, and their clients. Furthermore, this tool is useful for debriefing with practitioner teams to improve service delivery to clients through improved communication and co-regulation. The team has a person centered language, which supports the clients as competent individuals with inherent value and agency. Finally, this tool and the knowledge gained in the workshop facilitates an understanding of a person's escalated behaviour as communication, and intentionally builds and supports the practitioner's capacity and delivery of compassionate care for their clients. This provides the language and framework for de-escalation for practitioner teams and their clients, which naturally strengthens relationships, improving the practitioner's ability to de-escalate as well as maintain their own sense of competency, wellness, and valuable contributions to the overall team. Participants will get a certificate of attendance for De-escalation: A Person Centered Workshop.
Harm Reduction
This workshop teaches the history of harm reduction, the 8 pillars of harm reduction, and facilitates a dialogue with participants for implementing harm reduction principles into their operations as an organization, and within personal practice, with emphasis on person centered approaches and autonomy of the individual.
Mental Health and Neurodivergence; advocacy, strategies & supports
Anti-oppression
Creating a welcoming practice for 2SLGBTQAI+ community
Personal wellness = professional practice
This workshop is about the impacts of symptomatology from common diagnoses: Autism/PDA, ADHD, DYS disorders, HIP, personality disorders, PTSD, and FASD. These diagnoses are brain and trauma based and are invisible to observation. Practitioners will learn a variety of strategies for empathetically supporting individuals with their diagnosis, their autonomy, and the forms of advocacy they may need.
In this workshop we will discuss the medical model of care versus the social model of care, and the inherent biases an oppression that is derived through the medical model versus the potential for decolonial support offered by the social lens of care.
In this workshop we will deepen our understanding of power and privilege. Through an abolitionist and decolonial lens, we will explore the historic and contemporary structures of oppression and inequity. Anti-oppression requires continual learning and engagement, especially for professionals supporting individuals who have been marginalized by society. This workshop demonstrates how oppression is created by attitudinal, historic, social, and environmental barriers, based on characteristics that are not limited to sex, age, ethnicity, disability, economic status, gender, gender expression, nationality, race, sexual orientation, and creed. Finally, we will explore praxis: how to embody our understandings into accomplice work and community care.
This workshop teaches participants how to self regulate, and co-regulate under extenuating circumstances. Participants evaluate their personal wellness practices, and determine new approaches for establishing their own personal self regulation. Topics include: healthy boundaries, clear communication, and time management.
Professional community care agencies and health authorities need to be welcoming, valuing, and celebrating their 2SLGBTQAI+ staff, volunteers, clients, and community members. To achieve this, organizations need to firmly denounce all forms of homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, and other forms of oppression that negatively impact 2SLGBTQAI+ community. Resisting and dismantling cis-heteronormativity requires ongoing unlearning and intentional actions. This workshop addresses: microaggressions, cis & het privilege, the importance of pronouns, correct language, history, confidentiality & safety, the intersection of misogyny and anti-Blackness, examining your space: forms, manuals, policies, and bathrooms.
Amanda has so much knowledge and experience to share. I would take an entire semester of lectures with her. Conceptually, she unlocked de-escalation for me.
- Participant, Person Centered De-escalation 2023
★★★★★
Authentic. Real. Relevant. Interesting.
- Participant, Power & Privilege 2023
Very informative and eye-opening. Felt relevant both to my work role and personal life.
- Participant, Power & Privilege 2023
I liked that the workshop was very personal, with group conversation and stories. Interactive. Bringing process to practice.
- Participant, Person Centered De-escalation 2023
Refreshing compassionate perspective.
- Participant, Person Centered De-escalation 2024
I wish I had this training when I first started. Every point was so valid. Amanda is an absolute force. Would love him to do all my training.
- Participant, Person Centered De-escalation 2024
Engaging, flexible, and relatable.
- Participant, Power & Privilege 2023
★★★★★
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