0:00:04.1 Sally Laskey: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. I'm Sally Laskey, NSVRC's Evaluation Coordinator. In this episode, we talk with Anne Smith and Diana Gonzalez about Amplify. Amplify is a national project of the Vermont Network focused on strengthening collective leadership to mobilize a more powerful movement to end gender-based violence.

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0:00:52.3 SL: I'm excited to have guests from the Vermont Network with me today. Could you tell our listeners who you are.

0:01:01.3 Anne Smith: Hi Sally. Thanks for having us. My name is Anne Smith. I'm the director of Amplify Leadership Lab to uproot gender-based violence, which is a national project of the Vermont Network, which is the Dual Domestic and Sexual Violence Coalition in Vermont. And Amplify serves to strengthen the collective leadership of people working to uproot gender-based violence. Really happy to be with you today.

0:01:23.7 Diana Gonzalez: And Sally, I am Diana Gonzalez, and my pronouns are she and her, and I am the Training Director at Amplify and the lead on the fellowship that we're gonna be talking about. So I'm so excited to be here as well.

0:01:35.4 SL: Oh, I'm thrilled. And what great timing, 'cause we're focusing on leadership development and what it means for sexual violence prevention specifically. But I wanted our listeners to hear more about your project and you just opened applications for the Amplify Leadership Lab Fellowship Program. Could you share how Amplify, the Amplify Leadership Lab came to be? 

0:02:07.9 AS: Sure. I'd be happy to. So Amplify Leadership Lab is a national project, as I mentioned, of the Vermont Network, and it's also a legacy project of Marcelle & Patrick Leahy. And as some of the listeners may know, Patrick Leahy was Vermont Senator for nearly 50 years, and he holds a long standing commitment to ending gender-based violence. And in 2023, Senator Leahy retired and we had the opportunity to seek funds to create this national project to strengthen the collective leadership of people working to end gender-based violence across the United States. And the Leadership Lab of which the Amplify Fellowship is a part, will be offering leadership opportunities that support folks working to end gender-based violence, to increase their impact in their communities and learn with and from one another. And also highlight innovative approaches to ending gender-based violence and uprooting oppression, and engage in leadership development built on the belief that leadership is really in all of us, and that leadership includes who we are and how we are not just what we know, not just our skills, even though those things are also important. So that's sort of the basis of our approach at Amplify.

0:03:25.9 SL: I really like that framework and kind of shaking up what leadership is seen as. So can you talk a little bit more about why you think leadership development is important specifically to the gender-based violence field? 

0:03:45.9 AS: Yeah, yeah. The Vermont Network has been engaged in conversations both locally and nationally about what is really needed to end gender-based violence and build that, you know, the world we hope for where people truly have access to the care that they need, the healing, the resources that they need to really thrive. And we also spoke to people across the country in our field who are engaged in this work right now. And we heard that in order for our field to really be effective and impactful, we need support for our sustainability in this work. And those needs related to sustainability for our workforce have only increased as the pandemic, you know, just turned up the need for resources and the stress on people experiencing violence and also those... The stress on those who are responding to that harm.

0:04:37.1 AS: And we also had the need to have the space to learn with and from one another and to practice the visioning of the world that we want. You know, people just really want that space to be together in community and learn together and learn from each other. And we need the leadership and the skills to live into this vision and support others to do this as well. There are really wonderful leadership development opportunities that already exist in this field for folks doing this work. And we heard support, that there's need for more. More leadership development opportunities. So it's our belief and our experience too that when we create spaces where we can really learn with and from each other, that there's something that happens for folks that can only happen in that space together and their potential impact really grows from that learning together and that connection and the meaning making that they have in that space together. And the result is a more powerful movement to end gender-based violence. And that's what we really wanna support.

0:05:38.6 SL: Anne, 100%. I know our listeners are gonna be hungry to learn more about who should apply for this fellowship or is it, you know, are they the right match? What are you all looking for? 

0:05:55.1 DG: Yeah. Well, in our inaugural class, we are really looking for a diversity of people in what work they're doing and what sphere in the movement they're working in. That as Anne just laid out those peer-to-peer connections and that place to practice and play with different things really benefits from people with a wide range of experience. And so in our inaugural class, we are looking for people that their job is either prevention response including policy to end gender-based violence, but their organization that they're a part of could be so many things. So it is not just DV coalitions, for instance, for the organization. We are so excited that we'll absolutely have people who work at DV coalitions as part of the fellowship, part of the cohort, but not just that.

0:06:52.4 DG: So, people that are working in direct service or are working primarily in education or various things, various organizational affiliations, but that their work is to, is specifically focused on gender-based violence and that they are in, they have some experience, but they're not at the top level of their organization. So the... While there's lots of leadership opportunities out there, there's not any that we can find that really look at those folks that have some experience and are managing people and/or projects, but are not the top level of their organization. And so the fellowship really targeting that group of people. And so those are some of the logistic pieces, but really people who are ready to amplify their leadership, that are ready to be in community where they get to reflect on their leadership, get to take a pause in a nine month format where they get some input, get some reflection, get those peer-to-peer connections because they are ready to expand what they've already built up and are ready to have their impact be even more impactful.

0:08:06.3 SL: So you mentioned about these peer support and connecting opportunities. Could you share more specifically like what fellowship recipients could expect? 

0:08:16.4 DG: Yeah, absolutely. So we are leaning into a hybrid model. So over the course of the nine months, we are gonna start and end with three days of in-person workshops. So all 20 fellows will be in-person to start at the end and do lots of community building, lots of reflection. People will create their own leadership goals that they're gonna work on for those nine months. And then every month there's a three hour webinar that people will attend. I don't think webinar is necessarily the right word, because it'll be about reflecting together and talking and all these things, but it'll be on the Zoom. So, you know, webinar's a good word for that one. And so that will be part of it, that there's, we're using an online platform where people will do chats with each other and their... People could meet up in virtually to support one another and have, or phone calls or those kinds of things.

0:09:18.2 DG: But, and peer-to-peer connections throughout the entire time using our online platform is a key part for those peer-to-peer development. And there will be input of some kind, whether that be reading something or listening to a podcast or watching something. And interviews will be a piece of it for at least one month and then some reflection as well. So that might be a writing, that might be an audio recording, that might be a drawing or some other art piece, because really the people aren't creating products, they're creating space to reflect. And so accessing different ways of reflection and integrating is different for everyone and different for the topic that we're working on, the different points of things. And then the last component that we have for the fellowship is that we have three, one-on-one mentor opportunities, mentorship opportunities for folks where they get to have a focused attention from a mentor to help them further develop their work on their leadership goals.

0:10:22.3 DG: So they'll identify their leadership goals in the first in-person, and then they'll get this lovely mentor that they'll have three sessions with that they get that individual attention. And so all of those different components across the nine months averages about two hours a week or eight hours a month. And so people can always do more if they want to, but the way that it's designed is two hours a week so that folks can fit that in and think about how to manage that in their... The rest of their workflow.

0:10:55.5 SL: I really appreciate the structure, the variety within it, the different types of supports in that you've also been thoughtful to think of. So what is the time commitment? That is often the hardest...

0:11:08.5 DG: It's so hard.

0:11:09.4 SL: For people to envision what that would look like when we don't often have support or the internal idea that creating this space is really critical to advance our work.

0:11:25.8 DG: Well, and that goes to another important component is that this is a funded fellowship. And so all fellows are required to have an organizational affiliation so that their organization can receive funds that then goes towards their salary so that they can do the fellowship on work time. And so that organizational commitment is the... Organizational affiliation and commitment is a vital piece to the fellowship.

0:11:58.5 SL: Wow. That's huge. That is rare. Thank you for prioritizing that and I hope you get some wonderful applicants. Is there anything more you would like folks to know about your project? 

0:12:17.1 AS: Well, for sure, we want them to know that applications are due November 15th by 5:00 PM Pacific time, and that they can reach and access information about the fellowship on www.amplifyleadership.org and also through the Vermont Network website, if that's easier for you.

0:12:38.9 SL: Beautiful. And we will make sure to put those dates and links in our show notes for folks. We hope that people will pass on the information to folks in their lives if they're not gonna apply themselves. But thank you so much for the work you've done to create this opportunity and thanks for sharing about it on our podcast today.

0:13:05.0 DG: So Wonderful. Thank you so much for having us.

0:13:07.3 AS: Thank you so much, Sally. Appreciate it.

0:13:10.0 Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go. For more resources and information about preventing sexual assault, visit our website at nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources at nsvrc-respecttogether.org.

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