Joseph Green

Joseph Green is a motivational speaker, educator, trainer, professional storyteller, award-winning spoken word poet, and a person in long-term recovery.

With a background in theatre and performance poetry, Joseph intertwines storytelling and spoken word poetry to inspire his audience to join him on a journey  of self-care, self-awareness, self- forgiveness, and paying your blessings forward to make a world a better place for everyone. He believes strongly in stories’ innate ability to connect people to their higher purpose and one another.

Joseph Green’s workshops cover youth development, Creative Mindfulness as burnout prevention, inclusion and diversity strategies, youth prevention and recovery programming, and artistic activism. In his role as Program Manager at the Mentor Foundation USA, Joseph led the effort to revamp the interactive drug prevention youth rally known as “Shattering the Myths.” Joseph has partnered with many programs making a positive change in schools and communities nationwide. He has designed youth empowerment programs and a comprehensive training for adults working in youth development. In Washington DC, he created “The Healing Root DC” – a mental health literacy program for youth leaders. In Maryland, Joseph works with incarcerated youth to highlight their stories and help end mass incarceration.  

A Beacon of Hope- Joseph weaves his award winning Spoken Word Poetry with storytelling to share his battle with addiction and subsequent recovery, delivering a message of inspiration to anybody trying to be the best version of themselves.

Creative Mindfulness – Either at home or at work, doing too much can be the death of us. Combining his experience as a storyteller and Certified Mindfulness Workspace Trainer, Joseph guides his audience through his journey from self-medicated to self-realized. 

Artistic Activism- Joseph’s poetry has been commissioned by the National Fair Housing Alliance, Faces and Voices of Recovery, the Poor People’s Campaign, and many others. In this keynote, Joseph will share his own social justice poetry while speaking to the history of arts in activism.

Why we need Inclusiveness and Diversity

Inclusiveness and diversity programs are always necessary to ensure that all organizational stakeholders feel capable and encouraged to be their most authentic selves. It has been proven by science that this level of comfort enhances all aspects of business and learning. It’s also just a good way to be. Unfortunately, these terms have been misused and misrepresented to the point, where just mentioning them, can close more hearts and minds than they open. That is why this course is vital to any organization, business, or academic space trying to uphold a culture or equity, diversity, and inclusiveness. 

In this workshop participants will learn how diversity is greater than race, ethnicity, and gender and how inclusion can be best understood through exploring the emotions and motives associated with exclusion. We will discuss the principles behind creating brave and safe spaces to have these uncomfortable conversations at work. And through exploring the art of storytelling, we will find creative and responsible ways to express ourselves and listen to the journeys of others.

This workshop is often partnered with pre and post culture consultations and a second workshop focusing on creative and practical activities with which to keep the culture of inclusivity and diversity vibrant in your organization.

Creating Brave and Safe Spaces

Brave space isn’t the absence of danger of the eradication of fear. Rather it is the process of equipping one’s self and others with the ability to traverse danger and overcome fear.

Safe space is created when we exemplify the very lessons we have been trying to teach young people since childhood. To be patient, empathetic, kind, and good listeners. 

Creating brave and safe spaces is fundamental to facilitating an open forum for sharing and leading a successful and honest conversation on any difficult topic.  This workshop focuses on developing the skills, tools, knowledge and practices necessary for teachers/staff/administrators to create, maintain and facilitate brave and safe space so that youth and young adults feel comfortable, safe and supported in sharing personal stories with the group.  Furthermore, participants will learn and discuss practices necessary to resolve conflicts in a group setting, as well as approaching broader topics of global conflict and injustice.

Participants will: 

• Gain the knowledge to be able to establish a learning environment that encourages voluntary participation among students. 
• Learn how to support students in sharing personal stories and facilitating a discussion in which all students practice respect, active listening and build empathy.  
• Develop tools and techniques for managing and resolving conflict, from interpersonal relations, in the classroom, to supporting youth in resolving conflicts in their communities.          

Creative Mindfulness for Burnout Prevention

Joseph Green is certified in workspace mindfulness and has been working with professional adults and youth for over a decade to harness the power of storytelling through creative writing to process emotion, maintain agency over personal narrative, and restore humanity to community spaces. Combined with traditional forms of mindfulness practice such as meditation and focused breathing, this form of self-care assists in burnout prevention for those working in high stress occupations.

In this workshop, participants will first go through a series of team building exercises focused on the development of trust and creating a brave/safe space.  After an interactive presentation where Joseph uses stories from his personal journey as an example of the healing power of storytelling, participants will be guided through several creative writing prompts.  At the end of this workshop, participants will have increased their ability to articulate their personal stories and have received tools to continue this practice at home. Additionally, participants will explore how to weave these new mindfulness exercises with traditional ones into daily practice.