Affinity Group Wellbeing
We need a regenerative culture, one that is healthy, resilient, and adaptable. Affinity groups are a key place where we build the relationships that make regenerative culture possible. Here we provide resources on a wide variety of topics to help your affinity group with wellbeing.
Please get in touch with action.care.xrmass@gmail.com if you have suggestions for improving this page!
Role of wellbeing coordinator
Responsibilities of wellbeing coordinators of affinity group are:
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knowing what resources exist on this page and on Regenerative Culture working group homepage, and be able to suggest resources that your affinity group could use
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getting in touch with the Regenerative Culture working group (action.care.xrmass@gmail.com) when your affinity group has a wellbeing-related question, or has a request for a particular kind of training
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helping find a few people in your affinity group to go to wellbeing-related trainings (e.g. protest health and safety trainings)
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making sure well-being roles are covered for actions
You do not need to be the one solely responsible for the wellbeing of your affinity group (e.g. managing conflict, holding all the action-wellbeing roles, etc.). It is up to everyone to build a regenerative culture and support each other.
Action wellbeing
We try to offer trainings in various aspects of action wellbeing every so often, and always before chapter actions. If your affinity group would like some type of training, please contact action.care.xrmass@gmail.com.
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Protest health and safety: online resources
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De-escalation: online resources from XR UK on non-violence and de-escalation
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Preparing for action and support roles: training handout
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Very comprehensive action wellbeing handbook from XR UK covering before, during and after actions. They also have this arrestee welfare section. There is a lot of useful, general information but also please be aware when the information is specific to XR UK only!
Legal support
Please get in touch with the arrestee support team (as.xrmass@gmail.com) if:
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you have any legal questions
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you need legal observers or legal representation from the National Lawyers' Guild for an upcoming affinity group action
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you have questions or need help with jail support
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you need to update the arrestee support team on details of arrests
Get in touch well in advance of when you need the information! Use this email only for initial contact, providing your Keybase username to talk over a more secure channel.
Debriefing and feedback
We encourage all affinity groups to follow this regenerative action cycle, and along with that we value reflecting and learning. Debriefing can help us learn and help us heal after difficult experiences.
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Post-action check-in for affinity groups immediately following an action (from XR UK)
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action debrief 1-3 days after the action, with editable template to send back to working groups. More about how to debrief.
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if anyone is struggling after an action, check out this information on action trauma.
To generally help with working together, here is a one-page guide with some tips about giving and receiving feedback.
Building relationships
An important part of being in an affinity group is getting to know each other. We've put together a few eye- and heart-opening exercises we've found here and we'd love to hear about more from you!
Conflict resilience
XR Mass has a conflict resilience team inside of the Regenerative Culture working group. If anyone is experiencing conflict or feel unsafe in our chapter, they can contact xrmass.conflict.resilience@gmail.com. The conflict resilience team can provide personal support or potentially act as a neutral third party in mediation. Your email will be read by our conflict resilience team and kept confidential. They will do their best to get back to you in 48 hours.
Other regen resources
There are a lot of excellent XR UK-based resources: the handbook linked earlier, general wellbeing, action wellbeing, post-action wellbeing. Just be aware of what is specific to the UK - we may have our own version of certain services (or not), use terms slightly differently, and their laws can be different.
Our Regenerative Culture working group homepage, lists many of our services and resources, including our climate grief events/resources, the contact info for our community advocates for underrepresented/marginalized communities, and meeting facilitation resources.