Healing Bells’ Community Standards

Healing Bells’ mission:

Rooted in the healing arts, we collaborate with survivors

to transform trauma into empowerment through musical storytelling.

Our purpose is brave.

Our purpose is bold.

We have the great honor and profound responsibility to serve as vessels of

safe-keeping and support for survivors’ vulnerable stories.

We listen deeply, without judgment.

We believe survivors and validate their stories through arts co-creation.

In our journey, we face injustices.

We look trauma in the face, and say, “We will not be defeated by you.”

Healing Bells builds welcoming and supportive communities. We prioritize voices that have been ignored, including people of the global majority, women-identifying people, LGBTQIA2S+, survivors, persons with divergent abilities, and persons forced to migrate. We foster agency, support, and leadership within these communities by sharing our individual and collective stories through arts engagement.

Disclaimer: Healing Bells’ personnel are not licensed therapists and are neither practicing as such, nor diagnosing, providing treatment, nor liable for healing or trauma outcomes. Our purpose is to make the arts accessible for those who wish to engage with us co-creatively to explore a new form of narrative for their story through the arts. In many issues and stories, trauma is present, and we highly recommend seeking professional help for the trauma, and processing it with a therapist before, during, and after engaging in the healing arts.

Trauma, like grief, contains a series of unpredictable stages & responses. Typically, trauma responses are either directed inward–self-doubt, overwhelm, anxiety, depression, fear, flight, freeze, panic–or outward–anger, blaming, attacking, fawning, avoiding, aggression, yelling, projecting, etc.

To work respectfully with one another, we need to

Check in with each other, listen deeply, and see one another’s strengths and goodness.
Communicate honestly & respectfully with one another about what is working well, and find constructive solutions for what we can do better. If you become ill or face a family emergency, communicate with the Artistic Director as soon as possible so that we can support you and pivot to a workable solution for our events and activities.
Be accountable: prepare for our sessions, arrive at rehearsals and meetings early to check in with one another, come with a can-do attitude, and be ready to begin the rehearsal/meeting at the designated time.
Stay focused, efficient, & attentive throughout rehearsals/classes/gigs/meetings. If you need to step out for a moment to take care of yourself, please communicate that to the Artistic Director, and do so. Please do not disrupt rehearsals. Make appointments to discuss ideas and issues, as needed.
Create a welcoming space for our community through our words and actions: no weapons, illicit substances; do not arrive under the influence of alcohol or drugs; no speaking over, speaking louder than the situation warrants, speaking ill or acting disingenuously toward one another; no attacking, blindsiding, condescending, interrupting, overstepping personal or physical boundaries, destructive criticism or behavior that could feel aggressive.
Conclude our meetings supportively with debriefings, notes, & documented next steps.

For any public media, we will ensure that all participating parties offer written consent. Confidentiality clause: any personal information not publicly disclosed or not permitted in writing will remain between shared parties, unless information includes threats of self-harm or harm to others, which will be reported to appropriate authorities.

Healing Bells has a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech and discriminatory actions including racism, homo- and transphobia, gender discrimination, ableism, ageism, documentationism, etc. This includes forms of social media harassment, verbal harassment, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, retaliation, physical violence or threat of violence both to personal body and individual property. Failure to comply with Community Standards will be met with consequences, including termination.