Community Values and Agreements

The following are a collection of values and guidelines. Your participation in the live coaching calls and NeuroDefiant Collective online community space is your agreement to act in alignment with these values.

Vision and Purpose:

At Expansive Expressions we center Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, nonbinary, gender expansive, Two Spirit, fat, disabled, Autistic, ADHD, neurodivergent lived experiences.

We are co-creating new systems of care and as such, we must *pause,* sit with our discomfort, reflect, and listen when being called in and held accountable to these values. This is not a space to defend your intentions or allyship; this is a space to learn and grow.

This is a space for conversation, sharing resources, memes, continuing discussion topics from live circles, building a supportive collective. Please market, solicit, or otherwise promote products or services ONLY on the designated days.

Give more than you take in this space. Consider how you might engage in mutual aid. Let’s practice abundance!

We speak from our own lived experience rather than offering advice or “shoulds.”

We do not proselytize any belief, lifestyle, or practice to others.

We honor the privacy of this space; we do not ever screenshot, quote, share, or otherwise violate the privacy of the original content shared in this space without explicit written consent from all parties; with the exception of public memes and resource links.

We resolve conflict through a calling in, restorative justice process.

We hope and expect that each of us is capable of navigating difficult conversations. In the event that a discussion/post/thread begins to feel unmanageable, there is dirty deleting, and/or there are other violations of the rules specified above, please follow these suggested steps to resolution:

Engage the post in conversation or discussion (to the extent that this feels “safe” to do, remembering that discomfort is expected and ok). Each person is responsible to manage their own triggers and consider:

Are there points being made that should be taken into consideration? Is this a matter of expansiveness?

Ask yourself if this is the hill you wish to die on…..

Mute the discussion

Ask that you not be tagged further in the discussion

Tag and contact the group Host

Ask the Original Poster (OP) to pause/mute/close comments until the host can respond

Promotions, Marketing, and Solitication

There will be a designated day for sharing offers, products, and opportunities you have available. Please engage sparingly and remember to give more than you take.

Here you will be invited to share with others any programs, services, or opportunities that you have available to others

We do not endorse any people, products, or services in any of these thread; use your own judgement and descretion.

Agreements:

All members must obtain explicit written consent before private messaging any other member.
This is an actively anti-oppression space that has zero tolerance for racism, ableism, bigotry, and hate speech of any kind.
If someone tells you what you have said is harmful, do not argue; pause, listen, reflect, and learn.
- We all make mistakes, no one expects perfection here and learning and growth are essential to this space.
- We do not delete posts or comment threads because they are uncomfortable or intense
If you have been called in to address something you have said, participate in the learning and growth process
- Leave comment/post up for learning and to honor the labor that went into them.
- If you have done harm (whether intentionally or unintentionally) acknowledge and accept accountability. This is a space for learning and growth by way of curiosity and compassionate calling in.
- Make amends with the person you harmed
Be prepared to offer some form of compensation when you are asking directly for someone’s emotional and/or professional labor.
- In this space we name that those of targeted and oppressed identities are often called upon to provide education; be mindful of this and offer compensation.
- This is not about the regular discourse between collective members, but more so when a person asks, “Can you help me understand more…?” or “What are some articles that speak to that point…?” or “Why is XYZ thing important or harmful to this identity?” etc.
We do not engage in tone policing or derailing tactics.
- Posts or comments that require debate of identity/lived experience, tone policing (requiring niceness or “professionalism”), playing “devil’s advocate,” concern trolling, equating personal choices (like religion, political party, etc) to identities (race, gender, etc), or other derailing tactics may result in muting and/or removal from group.
- Understand that direct communication does not automatically = rude, critical, or mean.
- Many neurodivergent people communicate directly as a natural default; do not create friction where there is none.
- Center kindness and curiosity…if there are several ways to interpret a comment or post, go with the most generous assumption of a person’s motive and be curious with them

How Violations of Group Values are Addressed:

- Step 1: Host may make a request for a calling in discussion via DMs and modification of behaviors.
- Step 2: Members are asked to engage in “right action” and “self-regulation” by implementing change that was discussed in Step 1.
- Step 3: Members may be placed on “mute” in increments of 1-3 day(s), 1 week, 2 weeks, or 1 month, depending on the infraction and frequency with which the behaviors are noted.
- Step 4: Suspension from the group. If a member is suspended from the group, the Admins will re-evaluate readmission upon request, following a 90 day period.
- Step 5: Permanent removal from the group without refund.

Process for Engaging Admins and Moderators

- Step 1: Tag Host – Jennifer Alumbaugh – in a comment
- Step 2: Report post/comment to group Host
- Step 3: DM Host with post link