FACILITATOR TRAINING PROGRAM
Small Rooms, Stages & Conversation Curation
with Aaron Johnson
February 1 - May 31, 2026
Applications for 2026 will open soon!
Learn how to ask your own questions, organize your own events, emphasize song and embodiment, and facilitate in a way that disrupts racism rather than adds to it.
Build your capacity and resilience for asking difficult questions, and become a conversation curator. Build relationships around anti-racism for life.
​
The 2026 program will focus on public speaking — how to hold space for stages and bring your authentic voice to the microphone Learn how to search for stages that can expand your voice and message. Is the TEDx stage for you? Or are you more suited for a small room?
​
​The program will culminate in an in-person weekend Summit in Southern California at Grief to Action Sanctuary to learn how to co-facilitate with nature and with each other.
Thank you for reaching for us in this work! Check out details below and email us with any questions.
FOUR PART PROGRAM
Choose the parts that work for you.
We invite every facilitator who is hoping to work with Holistic Resistance to take all four parts to build relationship with us. For us to really be able to drop into co-leadership, we need a comprehensive narrative to work within Holistic Resistance workshops and to build relationship with you as you build your capacity for this work. However, individual Program Parts are also offered, so you may customize your experience.
PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS
Overview of anti-racist facilitation: Build your capacity to have, hold, and track racial justice and liberation conversations in your communities.
-
How do you track your own trauma stories and emotional defenses while faciliating racialized conversations?
-
What are your community's trauma stories and emotional defenses around race?
-
How to track a room and pace conversations around race?
-
How do you birth questions, how do you birth questions for more questions, and encourage community to practice scratch counseling?
-
Build a strong network of folks around you that you can facilitate with for years to come.
-
Start the impossible task of finding a co-facilitator to lead with.
​
DATES:
February 1 - 22
PART TWO: PUTTING IT INTO ACTION
Digging deep into what our programs actually look like. Build your own capacity to dive deep into having and facilitating these conversations. This is a mentored and supported space for you to practice specific programming and designing your own programs, for example:
-
One-on-one programs
-
Workshops — Intros, sharing your own stories and asking questions, holding people's answers and growth
-
Consulting clients — How would you build a plan for them? What questions would you ask? Moving at their pace while taking care of your own energy
-
Caucus spaces
-
Parenting programs
-
Mediation
-
Facilitating intersectional themes: for example race and gender, race and queerness, race and disability, race and class
​
DATES:
March 8 - 29
PART THREE: SUMMIT
An in-person weekend and immersive nature experience. We want to find our resilience in being close to nature and caring for the environment as we move through facilitation. Learning how to co-facilitate with nature and with each other. We will be having our summit at the Grief to Action Sanctuary in Phelan, California an off-grid site of 11 acres that has natural building, camping options, and wifi. ​
​
​
DATES:
Late April 2026
PART FOUR: STAGES​​​
The culminating section will focus on how to hold space for stages, and bring your authentic voice to the microphone, including microphone practice. How to search for stages that can expand your voice and message.
-
How to structure your speech or talk
-
Share a talk or a speech that considers your positionality (race, class, education)
-
How to speak across cultural lines of race/class
-
Trauma tracking a room from the stage (internally and externally)
​​​
DATES:
May 3 - 31
FORMAT
-
WEEKLY VIDEO CALLS
Sunday evening Zoom group calls, 5-7 PM PST. These will all be recorded. ​
-
1-ON-1 PHONE CALLS
One customized phone consultation with the facilitator to work on the material from the training or your own facilitation program
-
PRACTICE FACILITATION SPACE
Build your facilitator muscles with various co-facilitators in a space that is supported by peers; receive feedback and emotionally support each other as you build community; hone your questions, and practice holding space.
-
ASSIST
Holistic Resistance workshops and deep dives: Depending on what Holistic Resistance is up to during and after the training, there may be an opportunity to assist Aaron in programming including a chance to co-faciltiate in these spaces.
We would like you to have attended at least one of the following events before considering participating: Deep Dives, 16 week 1-on-1 program, Disrupting Our Whiteness, or organizing a weekend of Holistic Resistance events with us. ​
​
If you have not attended Holistic Resistance events, we would you to have done some level of either public speaking, song leading, or have a basic exposure to and commitment to being anti-racist and anti-oppression work.
COST
Apply for the Full Program, or individual parts. All parts include the In-Person Summit.
​​
-
Any ONE Part of the Program (4 weeks, plus Summit): $4,200
-
Any TWO Parts of the Program (8 weeks, plus Summit): $6,000
-
All THREE Parts of the Program (4 months): $8,000
-
ONLY the In-Person SUMMIT (Weekend): $1,000**
**To attend *only* the Summit, one part of the Facilitator Training Program OR prior work with Holistic Resistance is required.
Facilitator Training Program is a sponsoring program. Higher tiered tickets subsidize programming for People of the Global Majority to participate at low to no cost.
​
Work Trade
We have three partial work trade positions available for reduced program cost. Apply during application process.
​
-
Zoom Tech (4 months): Partial Tuition $750
-
Summit Videographer (Late April 2026): Partial Tuition $750
​
Payment plans are available: complete final program payment by the 15th of the month, halfway through your program. Please email us to set up a payment plan. ​
PROGRAM + WORK TRADE
APPLICATION
​The application has two parts, written and video, with an option to send us a voice clip for all of it. The questions as they appear in the application are below.
​
Written (or Audio):
Send us in one paragraph (or poem, or written format that you choose).
​
1. What is your vision for this work? What do you want to do with the skills and practice you gain from the Facilitator Training Program?
​​
​
Video (upload in application) or Audio (here):
As a facilitator, you will be publicly speaking, and creating your own content of podcasts and videos, and building the muscle of getting more clear about what you're sharing. We don't need you to be perfect, but we want to know where you're starting from. We want your authentic voice. Read the question, don’t think about it, hit record, and answer each question for a maximum of 90 seconds each (3 minutes total). There is no right way to do this - screaming, crying, yelling about the question is all appropriate.
1. How do you navigate your own trauma and overwhelm when you’ve committed to a longer program like this? How do you relate to other people when you’re in trauma and overwhelm?
​
2. How do you build connection with other people in anti-racism work when they trigger you? Specifically, how do you build connection in anti-racism work with other white people, and how do you build connection with People of the Global Majority, when they trigger you?
​
​
A NOTE ON TRAUMA:
​
***Anti-racism and anti-oppression work is trauma work. It will rub up against our own personal traumas. For example, it is impossible to entirely separate sexual trauma, exploitation, and domination of black bodies from unraveling our racism in America. In this program, we aim to meet you where you are in tracking your own trauma and encourage you to let us know of any trauma points you may be particularly sensitive to.***
​​
with any questions and to see if this program is a good fit for you.