The NYC POC Healing Circle Honor Code & Healers Oath

I solemnly pledge and honor to provide my care, services, and offerings to my community in the service of Black Liberation, abolition, and the entrusting of collectivist community care practices.

I will practice responsibly with self-awareness, integrity, dignity, and humility which are consistent with the values, ethics, and practices that are mindful of trauma-informed care [1], harm-reduction approaches [2], and reparations frameworks [3], that acknowledge the longstanding histories of anti-blackness, white supremacy, and universal oppression and suffering that exists in society and on this earth.

I will prioritize the peace, happiness, safety, health, and well-being of my client as I respect their truths that may be confided in me, even after my offerings are provided.

I will remain accountable to and honor the Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color traditions of healing practices in our shared and different cultural lineages, heritages, and histories. I will practice and serve with my client’s best interests, needs, and wants prioritized and centered during our session time. To this aim, I will be aware of oppression, universal injustices, and most explicitly anti-blackness in my healing practices where I will be aware of and tend to the considerations of gender, age, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, political philosophy/ideology, and/or socio-economic standing and other power, oppression, and/or privilege dynamics that may be present between me and my client and thus provide my offerings with the utmost care through an anti-oppressive lens.

If I feel that I cannot provide or follow through on my offerings for any reason at any time, or if I feel I have caused any misstep or harm in my practices I will notify the nycpochealingcircle@gmail.com to be held accountable to my commitments and contributions to the collective, our community, and this Honor Code & Healers Oath.

In my practices and offerings I will honor, respect, and be compassionate towards every human being.

I take this oath solemnly, freely and upon my honor.

This oath is an affirmation of why we choose to become healing practitioners to serve our communities and greater humanity in our shared goal towards Black Liberation.


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[1] Trauma-informed care is the recognition of how common trauma is, and understands that every client and/or person we interact with may have experienced serious trauma in their lifetime. Trauma-informed care does not question people about their experiences or ask them to qualify/quantify them, but rather, that we assume that they have had this history and thus provide care that is sensitive, caring, and always prefaces care delivery with consent and transparent communication (checking-in physically/emotionally/mentally and  asking for permission), as well as and prioritizes the consent of the client.

[2] Harm-reduction approaches center the priorities and immediate needs of the client, while trying to cause and/or create the LEAST harm possible in the process. An common example of harm-reduction approaches is clean-needle exchange, where, although clean-needle exchange programs do not promote the use of intravenous drug-use, such programs prioritize the safety of clients to use clean needles in safe places to inject drugs to reduce harm of chance of  with non-judgement and unconditional support of the client’s needs. Harm reduction prioritizes the safety of clients through non-judgmental and  non-coercive support which are intended to lessen the potential negative social and/or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors that may be perceived to be both legal and/or illegal.

[3] Reparations frameworks acknowledges that those who have been subject to historic human rights violations, mass genocide, war crimes, violence, +++,  especially the Black community globally, has the universal human “right to reparations” (Universal Declaration to Human Rights, Art. 8) to publicly address and recognize the harms caused, suffered, and endured. The parameters of the reparations must be delineated by those who were subject to such violations and can only be deemed satisfactory by them. Reparations can take the form of making verbal or textual amends to the wrong that was done; monetary amends, retributions, or physical restitutions to what was lost; etc. Reparations frameworks are ongoing as violations of oppression are also ongoing, pervasive, and perpetuated by universal white supremacy and the cis heteropatriarchy.