Transformative Changes

👋🏾 Hey friends,

🗳️ Vote for Transformative Changes & Chlo'e Edwards!

We’re excited to share that Transformative Changes and our founder, Chlo’e Edwards, have been nominated for the 2026 Visit BLK RVA Rising Community Impact Award.

Since 2023, we’ve worked to center the leadership, lived experience, and cultural knowledge of Black and Brown communities through healing justice, leadership development, arts and culture, and community-driven systems change.

This nomination reflects the collective work of every young person, caregiver, artist, organizer, community leader, partner, and supporter who has helped bring this vision to life.

❤️ We would be honored to have your vote.

✅ Voting is unlimited
🗓️ Voting is open through July 13, 2026
🔗 Vote here: visitblkrva.com/community-voting (or click the link in our bio)

As a grassroots organization, every vote helps elevate healing-centered, community-driven work in Richmond and beyond.

Please vote, share, and tell a friend to tell a friend. ❤️

“Drop a butterfly 🦋 🩵 in the comments after you vote!”

The person who cast the MOST votes will win a Transformative Changes Ubuntu Rest Box as a taken of our appreciation. Happy voting! 🗳️ 🏆

Transformative Changes was honored to join the West Piedmont Trauma & Resiliency Network at their Surviving to Thriving Conference. Together, we explored the historical ripple effects of systemic harm, disinvestment, and systems that were never designed for collective well-being in the first place.

But we also reflected on what becomes possible when we move beyond only reacting to harm and begin building cultures of care, connection, and repair by returning for what was left behind by centering cultural wisdom, collective healing, and uprooting injustice at its root instead of only treating its symptoms.

As an organization rooted in transformation, Transformative Changes continues to evolve. Last year, we intentionally slowed down and pressed pause alongside RootSpace Consulting to imagine what a liberated future rooted in healing justice could look like in this political moment. At the time, it was just Carissa Henry and Chlo'e Edwards plus Leo, our therapy dog. 🐶

Just one year later, we’ve implemented our strategic vision and expanded into a growing community of leaders committed to justice and liberation. We’re honored to welcome our incredible Board of Directors:

• Bria Gambrell MPP, MA — Executive Board Chair
• Kimberly Embe, LCSW — Executive Vice Board Chair
• Angela M. Lovelace MBA, MPA — Executive Board Treasurer
• Fadumo Abdi, MPH — Executive Board Secretary
• Briana Hunter, MPH
• Curtis Corbitt, MEng
• Sarah Leppert
• Niko Centeno-Monroy, M. Ed

We’re also excited to welcome Zachary Kopciak as Development Director as we continue building sustainable healing justice movements rooted in the leadership, lived experience, and cultural knowledge of Black and Brown communities.

Learn more about our team and board! https://transformativechanges.org/our-team

We hope you enjoy it!!

Thank you 🙏🏾 Transformative Changes
“Ubuntu- I am because you Are ❤️”

Join our Co-Executive Director, Chlo’e Edwards, on May 12 from 9 AM–4 PM at the West Piedmont Trauma and Resilience Community Network Conference: From Surviving to Thriving!

Chlo’e will be presenting Building Healing-Centered Communities in Times of Crisis — a timely space to slow down and examine how historical patterns of harm continue to show up in the places where we live, work, and organize, while exploring what it means to build systems grounded in collective care, resilience, and community well-being.

✨ Staying Whole in the Work: A Wisdom Walk + WISE Council Practice
Hosted by Crisis to Care: Black and Brown Healing Justice Circle

🗓 April 28, 2026
🕛 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM ET

A 30-minute space to pause, breathe, and reconnect while navigating racism, trauma, and injustice at work.

Featuring:
Bria Gambrell, Associate Director of Talent and Culture, GIFFORDS & Executive Board Chair, Transformative Changes

Register at transformativechanges.org/get-involved

We’re moving The Rest In to Black August ✊🏾

New date: August 15 | 11 AM – 4 PM

The Rest In is a healing-centered gathering for Black and Brown leaders, organizers, caregivers, and community practitioners to pause, reconnect, and be held in community.

In the spirit of Black August, we’re grounding this space in the truth that rest is resistance. This gathering centers the cultural practices, collective care, and ways of being our ancestors used for self-preservation and survival.

This shift allows us to expand resources and more deeply nurture those carrying so much in this work.

Already registered? You’re on our list.

To attend:
The first 75 folks who join the Crisis to Care: Healing Justice Circle will receive tickets. After that, folks will be waitlisted.

We’ll reach out by May 22 to confirm tickets.

Learn more + join + visit: https://transformativechanges.org/the-rest-in

Staying Whole in the Work

When you are navigating racism, trauma, and injustice at work, staying connected to yourself matters.

Join us for a 30-minute pause to breathe, reflect, and reconnect in community.

✨ Wisdom Walk + WISE Council Practice
🗓 April 28
🕛 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM ET

Hosted by Crisis to Care: Black and Brown Healing Justice Circle

Featuring
Bria Gambrell
Associate Director of Talent and Culture, GIFFORDS
Executive Board Chair, Transformative Changes

This space is for those holding a lot.
Come as you are. Leave with what you need.

🔗 Register at the link in bio

Back in January, we wrote about why Virginia needed to move away from exclusionary discipline and invest in restorative schools with , because too many Black students and students with disabilities are still being pushed out of classrooms.

Monday, HB298 was signed by Governor Spanberger 🥳.

It will require schools to consider restorative approaches before suspension in many cases and pushes the state to provide guidance and support for implementation.

That’s a real step forward. But what students actually experience day to day will depend on how this is carried out.

Through the Black Youth Mental Health Collaborative, we’re focused on making sure this leads to real change for Black and Brown students.

Read the op-ed at transformativechanges.org/news or link in bio.