The Work We Carry

Grief Support for Immigration Advocates

Defending immigrant communities under attack right now is both deeply meaningful and deeply heart-rending work. Attorneys, social workers and paralegals stand beside their clients each day, as they face a system designed to dehumanize and demoralize. Frontline advocacy can lead to exhaustion, numbness, hypervigilance, secondary traumatic stress, or disconnection from self and purpose. Grief is often found beneath the surface – unspoken and untended to.

The Work We Carry is an 8-week, cohort based program designed specifically for NYC-based immigration advocates and legal service providers. This cohort-based program offers a space to slow down, acknowledge the weight of this work, and learn practical tools for processing grief and sustaining long-term resilience.

Participants will receive:

  • Education on Grief as a Psychosocial Process: Learn how grief impacts the body, mind, and spirit and why naming it matters.

  • Experiential Practice: Each week introduces a different grief-tending practice or processing tool you can use immediately in your day-to-day work.

  • Dedicated Space to Process Loss: Weekly time to reflect and process specific experiences of loss, overwhelm, or moral injury within your work and in the world.

  • Community & Connection: Gather with others who share your values and understand the unique demands of immigration legal services.

  • Personalized Toolkit: By the end of the program, participants will leave with their own grief-tending toolkit and language to articulate what they’re experiencing — empowering them to sustain both their work and their well-being.

This group provides a rare, intentional space to witness, metabolize, and transform grief — building not just individual capacity, but collective resilience.

Details:

  • Format: 8 weekly live sessions (90 minutes each)

  • Dates: Mondays, October 27 - Dec 15 (excluding 11/26 holiday week) 

    • 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, 11/17, 12/1, 12/8, 12/15

  • Time: 7-8:30p EST 

  • Location: Zoom 

  • Who It’s For:  Anyone providing direct legal services to immigrant communities in NYC

  • Cost: We offer a sliding scale to make this group accessible to those across different income levels. 

  • Supporter Tier ($85K+): $800

    • Your higher fee helps subsidize spaces for lower-income participants and sustains this work for the long-term. For those making more than 100K, please consider contributing beyond the tiered fee of $800.

  • Standard Tier (65-85K): $600

    • This tier reflects the cost of running this program. 

  • Accessibility Tier (Below $65K): $400

    • A reduced rate for those who may have access to some resources but still feel financial stretch.

Facilitator Bios (+ headshots)

Keeney 

Elizabeth Keeney, LCSW, MPA is a psychotherapist and organizational wellness consultant in NYC. Keeney worked for several years at The Bronx Defenders, Urban Justice Center and Brooklyn Defenders before starting her own practice. She is passionate about the need for trauma and grief support in legal services settings.

Mangda Sengvanhpheng

Mangda Sengvanhpheng is an artist, death doula, and the founder of BACII - a platform that focuses on loss and grief while providing services and offerings for individuals, communities, and organizations that renew our engagement to life. Her life and death work is guided by her Lao last name, which means “the light of the full moon.” Mangda was an awarded recipient of Reclamation Ventures grant for under-represented leaders making pathways to addressing grief and loss and her work has been featured in VICE, Vogue, Architectural Digest, NY Mag’s Curbed, Brydie, Chacruna Institute and more.

The Work We Carry Enrollment Form