Cultivating Belonging, Inclusive Spaces, and Reflective Practices
Grace Westermann in conversation with Monica Mathur-Kalluri
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
It’s been so inspiring really to watch providers from across the country as they’re slowly breaking through these barriers and dreaming about what if. And the truly powerful part in my mind has been, not only are they dreaming about what if, but then they’re stepping up. A lot of them are feeling like, “I have some power.”
Grace Westermann:
Welcome to Leading Voices, a podcast brought to you by WestEd, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research, development, and service agency. This podcast highlights WestEd’s leading voices, shaping innovations and applying rigorous research in ways that help reduce opportunity gaps and build communities where all can thrive. I’m Grace Westermann, and I’ll be your host.
Imagine a vibrant landscape with diverse foliage growing through challenging elements as it goes through stages of development. How many horticulturists does it take to enrich the soil and nurture the seeds to reach their full potential and thrive? Like a horticulturist, infant-family and early childhood mental health practitioners play a vital role in laying the groundwork, helping children ages birth to five by providing high-quality relationship-based care, education, and support during development. Their dedication and expertise help build strong foundations for children’s learning, well-being, and future achievements. Despite their vital role, these practitioners face various challenges in the field, including staffing shortages, lack of funding for programs and professional development, and insufficient cultural representation in the workforce.
Today, we have Monica Mathur-Kalluri on the program to discuss these challenges and her work to improve the field for early childhood practitioners, specifically Black, Indigenous, and people of color, often abbreviated as BIPOC. Monica is a project director and engages with state and community leaders, practitioners, and parents to enhance the well-being of infants and toddlers. She identifies as Indo Canadian and is a Zero to Three fellow, and proud mother of two. Thanks for leading us today, Monica.
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Thanks for having me, Grace.
Grace Westermann:
So, Monica, as a Washingtonian, I’m really interested in a project that you’ve been working on in Washington State’s King County called Best Start for Kids, which offers equity-centered workshops for early childhood practitioners. What do these workshops entail, and how could practitioners in other states benefit from a similar program?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Best Starts for Kids is an amazing program, and I often wish that there are other places in the country that could have similar resources. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with them for now over six years, and I can truly say that working with them has changed my work. It changed what I want to do, it’s changed how I want to do it, and for whom, most importantly, I think, and mainly because they’ve taught me what equity truly is, and I feel it in every part of the work that I do with them every day. As we’re thinking about trainings, whether it’s the topic of the training or when it’s held, how many languages we might interpret in, or even what food we have at the training, every piece of it is about access and responding to the needs, especially the needs of historically marginalized communities.
And I think we focus a lot on creating a sense of belonging for them. And I guess in answer to your question, that’s really what I would wish for all prenatal to five providers in every state, to have are these spaces where they feel belonging, spaces where they can be vulnerable and brave, and unpack all these complex ideas and feelings. And at Best Starts for Kids, we do this through a variety of different professional development type opportunities. We have these large group workshops where people come for more topic-specific experiences. We have things that run all year, community practices, some are agency-specific, some topic-specific. And actually, right now, we have an 18-month intensive course on infant, family, early childhood mental health happening.
And throughout all of these training activities, I think the commonality is these spaces for really deep reflective work, whether they’re embedded into the actual program or if they’re separate. I think last year we had over 85 reflective consultation groups running, which is absolutely incredible. So in the end, I think it’s these brave, safe spaces where people really feel like they belong. That’s what I would hope and wish were that all the other states, communities, counties could emulate and have available to all providers.
Grace Westermann:
What’s the essential element for creating a sense of belonging and inclusion in these professional development settings?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Grace, I’d say creating a place where people feel like they can share their full story and experiences, and where they don’t feel like they have to compartmentalize and think about what is okay or safe to share. And if they do share it, will they have to explain themselves or teach others? I think that’s also something that can be a wondering or a barrier, and I think it’s really important to have other folks with similar experiences that they can relate to.
So even, say, those who are facilitating the workshops, like when facilitators share authentically and respond authentically to participants, it really helps to create that welcoming vibe. And I think the topics and discussions that we choose and that we have, they also really help set the tone when they include real lived experiences of all people, including people of color. And we don’t shy away from the facts like, “Yes, we have oppressive systems,” or, “Yes, the Trail of Tears happened.” I think that folks start to feel like we’re talking to them, that this is truly about them, and then they feel that safety and belonging where they can bring all of themselves into the training.
Grace Westermann:
You mentioned that you’re bringing in some of the real lived experiences of all people, including people of color. How can state agencies address the nationwide underrepresentation of BIPOC practitioners in the prenatal to five workforce and pave the way for a diverse and inclusive future in the field?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
From your question, I think the key word there is representation. So how do we change the prenatal to five provider demographics so that they look more like the children and families they support? So this might be, how do we support more providers who speak the same language as the children and families? If we’re working with children with disabilities, how do we have more providers that have disabilities that represent those children and families and are there to work with them or from the same cultural background or faith? And how we get there, it’s complex. And I think at the heart of it is really strategically thinking with each community, to think about what’s key for them, what’s the representation that’s lacking in that particular city or town or whatever level of community state that you’re looking at. And then working with that community to figure out how are we going to get more people into these fields? How do we maybe start to bring in lived experience as something we value into our professions?
I think of parents, for example, who have so much experience in the early childhood world, and, for example, a parent of a child with autism, how much they have to offer for somebody who just had a child with autism. The wealth of support and knowledge that they could share. There’s another part that I don’t think gets as much attention, and it’s actually where I’m focusing a lot of my work right now. And that’s not only how to get people into the field, but then how do we keep providers of color from burning out and from leaving the field? And I do hear this all the time from our prenatal to five providers, this feeling of burnout is the term that we were using. And actually, I’m reading this great book right now. I’m in the middle.
And I say reading, but really I’m engaging in this book because it’s all this self-reflective exercises, but it’s this book called Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmin and where she talks about how burnout is often portrayed as something that we have done wrong. So I haven’t managed to create space in my schedule for yoga. I have not managed to create space in my schedule to do these meditative breathing exercises or to get really organized at home and work so I’m able to fit this in and fit that in and do it all. It’s seen as kind of our fault, and especially for women of color. And she offers this reframe that’s just really rocked my thinking is that instead of it being burnout that’s our fault, it’s that burnout really is a betrayal of our system, so that especially, we as women of color are not set up to have this manageable home-work everything. And it’s a systemic piece that really needs to be addressed to take care of burnout. It’s not something that we, as individuals, necessarily can tackle on our own.
And if I think about BIPOC prenatal to five providers, and really all, the other piece of it is reflective practice, where we need these real spaces to do internal work and understand the work we’re doing with children and families and how our histories and lives intersect with that work. So to have reflective practice spaces is also another piece of keeping people in the field, I think.
Grace Westermann:
For our listeners interested in reading Real Self-Care, we’ll include a link to it in our show notes. Monica, you said reflective practice spaces can help keep practitioners in the field. Can you break that down a bit and tell us how reflective practice can address the needs of BIPOC practitioners in the field at large?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
So in infant, family, early childhood mental health, one of our pillars of our field is reflective practice. And if you think about the work that providers do every day in supporting babies and children and their families, it can be pretty difficult. Of course, there’s the beauty, the honor to be welcomed into families’ lives, and holding that privilege that people have invited us in. But a lot of our families have a lot going on. They might be facing extreme financial hardship or grieving the loss of a child, talk about heavy and difficult times, or they may have domestic violence going on. And it can be a lot holding just one family, you can imagine, through some of these difficult traumas. But imagine these providers are holding multiple families, 10, 20, 30, in some different roles, 50, 60 families on a caseload, and you can imagine how much they witness, how much they hold to support families in this sometimes grief, sometimes joy.
And reflective practice is this time where you get to step back for a second with a reflective practice facilitator or a reflective supervisor and pause. And you pause, and while holding the baby in mind, consider your own thoughts and actions and really spend some time wondering what was influencing your thoughts, your actions, what was influencing that parent’s thoughts and actions, that baby or that child’s thoughts and actions, and spend some time wondering what influenced that for you or for the family members. Was there something from your past maybe that made you react more strongly? A lot of our providers have experienced some of these same traumas that I just mentioned themselves and imagine then being in this place where you’re holding a family who’s going through the same thing that you’ve witnessed and you’ve been through.
So we’re now using something that we’re calling revolutionary reflective practice, which builds on the healing justice and anti-racist work. And it’s really part of this current infant, family, early childhood mental health movement that’s happening around the country. So in revolutionary reflective practice, we’re moving from that more individual, that piece of reflection where we’re bringing in the history of our people, the beauty of what our ancestors, the gifts that they have given us that we’re bringing in, as well as some of the atrocities they’ve faced, the systems of oppression that they’ve dealt with, and current day too, what’s happening around us.
And we bring all of this together and do some radical dreaming, we’re calling it radical visioning, of what could be. Using this visioning to think about what we could do, not just to support that one at a time, you can imagine that one child and a family, the second child and family who are going through similar circumstances again and again and how exhausting and just draining that becomes, but to think about what can we do for all of these babies and children and families who are experiencing some of these same oppressive pieces or systemic injustices, or even little, what supports can we provide in a more systematic way? And really, it all starts with each person turning inwards and understanding where they’re coming from in this work.
Grace Westermann:
Last year, you organized the first nationwide reflective practice space for BIPOC practitioners and have continued to host these spaces. Can you tell our listeners what the impetus was behind this and what you’re learning in these spaces?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Yes. In 2023, we launched a program funded by the Perigee Foundation called Revolutionary Reflective Practice for BIPOC Healing Liberation. And this program has been truly transformational, and I admit it’s far exceeded what I’d even dreamed or hoped would be possible. And I think I’ll start by sharing my biggest learning, which has been the power of having a BIPOC-only space. We have heard from so many of the participants about that immediate sense of belonging that they felt when they met the group, and people talked about, “Wow, I could just say what was on my mind right away. I didn’t need to filter. I didn’t need to think that way. I could just be open and share because there were other people who had such similar life experiences.”
And I remember actually one participant sharing about this moment when she realized that someone else had just voiced something that she had been feeling for a long time but that she actually hadn’t been able to put into words. Just that beautifulness of she’s like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes. That’s exactly what I meant.” And the vulnerability that they all brought into this space, it was just truly inspiring. Participants later told us that they shared things at the in-person retreat that they hadn’t even admitted to themselves. Sometimes it’s scary to bring up things that you don’t know how to handle what will come out of that, what comes next. And so that immediate safety, that connection, it was just so real. Really raw and real. And I’m going to admit that that in-person retreat was probably the most transformative training activity I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to a lot, I will say. There’s a lot of tears and a lot of hard work, really deep looking at some tough stuff, but there’s also a lot of laughter and joy too.
Grace Westermann:
I’d like to borrow a page from your book Monica and take a pause, and make space for a few of the practitioners voices so our listeners can hear what Leslie, a public health nurse in Oxnard, California, Carolyn, an infant development specialist in Fairfax, Virginia, and Rita, a pediatric parent coach in Watsonville, California, had to say about the revolutionary reflective practice retreat for BIPOC practitioners.
Leslie:
So I like to think of the one and a half days that we spent together as the biggest hug I could have ever received in my life, and I take that back to the work that I do with families. It is possible for all of us to find our space of safety and of equality, as much as sometimes it feels like an impossible task like constantly working up a hill, but it’s possible, and I’ve experienced it even if it was a snapshot moment in time.
Carolyn:
I think we need the space because there are providers who are out there doing the work, and the work is hard. And I mean, if you ever think about that reference of just carrying this yoke, I have this weight on my shoulders, and you can talk to a friend, you can talk to your therapist, you can talk to a co-worker, you can… In our early intervention program, we do teaming. So we all sit together and we talk about the things that are challenging, and we get strategies. So you can find those times and spaces to talk about it, but there’s something very specific and uprooting and cathartic and healing about the revolutionary reflective practice that those other options don’t give you.
Rita:
Just felt really good to connect in different ways with other people who are doing the work that I’m doing. So it’s very unique, and I know that it’s not easy to come by, but it’s very powerful to have us come together and to really feel each other and see each other. And I think it was very healing for me because I feel like it really helped me to jump over a certain divide that I have never been able to do before.
Grace Westermann:
Thank you, Leslie, Carolyn, and Rita, for sharing your lived experiences with our audience. Monica, how do you feel hearing about the impact of this space for BIPOC practitioners, and are there any other significant insights you’d like to share?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
These stories, hearing the voices of Leslie and Carolyn, and Rita, these stories are truly what fill my heart, what bring me joy, and give me so much gratitude for us being able to have had this space together and this holding of our community together. So thank you all for sharing.
So, Grace, you asked about what other learnings, so I’d say in addition to the importance of a BIPOC-only space, I’d say the other important learning I’ve seen in our program is how white dominant culture characteristics have really become a part of us. There’s so many, like these aha moments all of us, the participants began noticing as we heard about them, these characteristics that are so deeply embedded in our society that we all just take them for granted. Things like the desire for perfection, the worship of the written word, how we need things to be objective, and that other things don’t have as much value. And even as I’m saying these aloud, I can think about like, “Oh, yeah, urgency. I do that all the time, and I can feel my body. I do these things every day, and I’m complicit.”
I’m complicit in these ideas, as a lot of us are, because it’s really about society, and they’ve just become the rules of our society. This is how we function, and until we really have the time to examine our own behaviors and slow down, we continue to be complicit and propagate even these expectations and these ways of being.
Grace Westermann:
Yes, these issues are deeply ingrained in our systems from childhood to adulthood, and it seems like making space for BIPOC professionals to reflect on and share their lived experiences helps break down individualistic barriers and build collective systems change that’s more equitable and inclusive.
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Yeah, definitely, Grace. I think the power is in the reflection and the spaciousness that most of us day to day don’t have the privilege of having because so many, I think of our providers are just in this go-go-go state, and in many of us, we’re so focused on doing that we don’t get a chance to stop and pause, and reflect. And that is really, like I said earlier, where learning happens, where change happens, where growth happens. I’ll tee off from this to one other point that I had about another learning, and it’s again from what one of our participants had said about, they said something like, “To change everything, first we have to learn to dream.” And it’s been so inspiring, really, to watch providers from across the country as they’re slowly breaking through these barriers and dreaming about what if.
And the truly powerful part in my mind has been, not only are they dreaming about what if, but then they’re stepping up. A lot of them are feeling like, “I have some power.” They’re reclaiming some of that power, saying, “Not only does this change need to happen, but maybe I’m going to be the one to help start it.” I think this is liberation, when we feel like we have the power to control our destiny, we have the hope that that’s possible, and then we find ways to heal and make changes for our future generations.
Grace Westermann:
Well, Monica, like skilled horticulturists, you and your team of visionaries are cultivating environments to foster growth in the communities you serve, and it’s been a privilege to learn about it. Before we wrap up today’s episode, would you mind sharing a significant moment from your journey that has strengthened your dedication to this work?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Sure, Grace. But first, I really need to clarify. This is definitely not just my work. I am blessed to work with an amazing team of visionaries who have put so much heart, passion, and wisdom into this work. My funding partners for all these different projects that I do across the country, my wise facilitators, Monica Noriega, Ratnesh Nagda, who really have done so much of this dreaming with all of our small group facilitators and our dedicated WestEd staff, and especially the providers who are daring to dream with us and taking up this invitation to join in this revolution. And all of us, we are all standing on the shoulders of all the leaders doing healing justice and anti-racist work that come before us.
So a significant moment for me, just from that retreat I’ve been talking so much about, there was this moment when somebody said how that day and a half, just one and a half days, saved their life. So it wasn’t like she said, “It made me so much better as a provider,” or, “It really helped.” But she said, “It saved my life,” and that’s something that I’m holding all the time. I think really from that day, it’s making me think about folks who work in this prenatal to five field. It’s a lot. It’s not that it’s even just burnout, but it’s all of these multiple loads they’re carrying.
We ask a lot of our prenatal to five providers, and really, I was quite amazed how, just in this short time, this day and a half, we were able to create this possibility of hope, these possibilities of healing, and reclaiming of power for these individuals and really for the group as a collective. And that’s been a transformative moment for me and really been on my mind a lot, thinking about what’s my work? Where’s my sacred responsibility in this work and what’s next, and where can I make a difference towards knowing that as we bring each new baby into this world, what are all of us doing? What am I doing to know that they’re going to be supported to thrive?
Grace Westermann:
Thank you so much for sharing that moment with our listeners. I think it’s such a powerful reminder of how crucial a community support system is for fostering change. To help our listeners dare to dream, Monica, how can they reach you to learn more and partner with you to bring revolutionary reflective practice and equity-centered training for early childhood practitioners to their communities?
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Yes, Grace, thank you. For as you can see, this is definitely my passion, and I would love to connect with anyone who wants to do either the revolutionary reflective practice work locally or equity-centered training, and really, I think all of us are needed in this work. So whether you’re a BIPOC provider who’s thinking about, “Yes, I really need a space like this to reclaim my power and to get my hope and think about healing and liberation so I can better support children and families,” or whether you’re an ally thinking about, “What can I do to create some equity-centered spaces?” Or whether you’re an agency or a state leader who’s thinking about, “How can I grow this type of work in my community?” Or if you’re an early childhood program funder who can help us continue to do this work, really it takes all of us working at all these different levels to work together and to move the work forward, starting wherever your journey is right now.
Grace Westermann:
If you’d like to connect with Monica, please see our show notes for her contact information and website about revolutionary reflective practice for BIPOC healing and liberation. Monica, thank you so much for sharing your insights, wisdom, and stories with our listeners. I really hope you’ll consider joining us again soon.
Monica Mathur-Kalluri:
Thank you so much for having me, and I feel like I am here on behalf of all the participants, all of the people, all the early childhood providers out there, so I hope I’ve done justice to their voices in being here. But thank you for providing this opportunity.
Grace Westermann:
And thank you to our listeners for joining us today. You can find this and past episodes of the Leading Voices Podcast online at www.wested.org/leadingvoicespodcast or on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Spotify.
This podcast is brought to you by WestEd, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research, development, and service agency. At WestEd, we believe that learning changes lives. Every day, we partner with schools and communities across the country to improve outcomes for youth and adults of all ages. Today’s episode focused on just one important facet of WestEd’s work, and I encourage you to visit us at WestEd.org to learn more. And special thanks to Sanjay Pardanani, our audio producer, and the BIPOC early childhood practitioners who shared their voices and experiences with us today. Thank you for listening. Until next time.