What to Expect

The Healing Art Circle provides a supportive space to process emotions about current events and racial suffering through creative expression. Using an adapted Healing Circle format combined with art-making, participants explore their feelings in a safe, judgment-free environment.

Healing Circles Help Us:

Step out of ordinary time into a safe and accepting environment. We listen with compassion and curiosity, honor each other's unique paths to healing, and trust that each person has the guidance they need within them. We rely on the power of silence to access our inner wisdom.

Core Practices:

• Listening with attention: Being fully present for others' experiences

• Speaking with intention: Sharing authentically from the heart

• Tending to the well-being of the circle: Supporting collective healing

What You'll Need:

• Any materials or writing and art supplies you have available

• Any medium you choose (poetry, music, watercolors, collage, pen and paper, digital art, dance, etc.)

• No art experience necessary—all forms of creative expression are welcome

Past participants have created diverse forms of expression including poetry, music, watercolors, collage, paper and pen drawings, digital art, and dance. The focus is on the healing process, not artistic skill.

Need Help Right Now?

Hotline (English):
877-659-4304

Hotline (Español):
877-355-1461

Text Helpline:
512-872-5656

Restorative Justice Apprenticeship: Circle Keeping for Community Building

Learn the ancient practice of circle keeping to build stronger communities, facilitate healing conversations, and create spaces where everyone belongs.

📅Spring 2026

This groundbreaking event returns to Houston Community College for the first time since 2020, inviting you to experience the world through someone else's eyes using the power of virtual reality.

Join HCC Central for a special VR for Empathy event on Saturday, November 15. This groundbreaking initiative was first held at HCC in 2019, followed by a larger, more impactful edition in 2020, and now returns with fresh perspectives on how immersive technology can help us understand one another more deeply.

Why This Matters for Houston

• For Community Leaders: Data-driven insights to design programs that address social isolation in vulnerable populations

• For Policy Makers: Evidence that connectedness is a stronger predictor of well-being than traditional demographic factors

• For Nonprofits: A call to collaborate across sectors rather than working in isolation

• For Faith Leaders: Recognition of your role as trusted voices at the center of belonging experiences

• For Houston's Future: A roadmap to become a city known not just for diversity, but for genuine connection

Explore evidence-based strategies and community-driven practices that support student success across Houston’s diverse learning environments

Our expectations shape our systems. This session invites leaders to begin with a bold premise: every student has the potential to thrive. Drawing on local and national research, we’ll explore strategies that have made a significant impact on student success. Together, we’ll reflect on what it means to design learning environments rooted in possibility, care, and community wellbeing.

Parking Information

The session will be held at 1801 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002. Parking is available in the attached garage, with the entrance located on Fannin Street. Parking will be complimentary for all exits after 6:00 pm. We recommend arriving 5-10 minutes early to allow time for parking and check-in.

Step beyond workforce gaps to explore how networks, trust, and local systems expand access to opportunity.

Workforce development isn’t just about placement—it’s about belonging, access, and navigating a shifting economy. In this session, we’ll explore how opportunity emerges when systems are designed to reflect the realities of the people they serve. Rather than focus on short-term fixes, we’ll hear from regional leaders who are weaving together education, business, and community to build more adaptive and connected opportunity ecosystems. Participants will consider how relationships, not just programs, create durable pathways to economic mobility.

Parking Information

The session will be held at 1801 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002. Parking is available in the attached garage, with the entrance located on Fannin Street. Parking will be complimentary for all exits after 6:00 pm. We recommend arriving 5-10 minutes early to allow time for parking and check-in.

An intro workshop for those facing transition, considering a pivot, or curious about what life could be.

What if your next chapter could be your most aligned, resilient, and whole?

Design Your Life is a reflective and interactive mini-workshop for senior fellows who are anticipating or navigating change—professionally or personally—and are ready to begin aligning their time, energy, and purpose.

Especially for those who are:

• Entering or navigating retirement

• Experiencing a life transition

• Hungry for more meaning and fulfillment

Participants will leave with:

• The basics of a roadmap for the season ahead.

• Renewed confidence in the face of change.

• A renewed sense of story, resilience, and possibility.

Note: Those interested in continuing the journey will be invited to participate in an ongoing community of practice scheduled for early 2026.

Space is limited — register soon to confirm your spot.

Discover funding approaches that strengthen trust, deepen community connections, and create momentum for Houston’s future.

This opening session of the Bridge Houston series brings nonprofit, philanthropic and board leaders together to reimagine how we resource our region’s’s future. We’ll examine fresh approaches to funding that go beyond filling shortfalls, focusing instead on cultivating trust, fostering openness, and strengthening connections across sectors. Participants will engage in dialogue with peers from diverse fields to explore how Houston can align its financial strategies with its community’s assets and aspirations. By the end of the session, you’ll leave with new perspectives, actionable ideas, and relationships that can help transform how funding flows to the places and people that need it most.

Our conversation will balance practical insight with cross-sector discussion, offering a space to think creatively while staying grounded in Houston’s realities. Whether you’re a funder, nonprofit leader, civic partner, or business executive, this is an opportunity to contribute to a vision of a stronger, more connected funding ecosystem for our city.

Why This Matters

Racism damages health, weakens civic trust, and fractures communities. The Center's facilitated dialogues build shared language and listening skills, helping people examine racial conditioning, heal harm, and take collaborative action across lines of difference.

Art drives social change and builds resilience through creative expression.

At a time of division and violence, ICAN Peacework provides pathways for youth to develop leadership through nonviolence, emotional wellness, and community-centered justice. Their work builds resilience and healing through storytelling, conflict resolution, and restorative circles—equipping future generations with the tools to shape more compassionate, inclusive communities.