ALL KINGS PROJECT INC
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Mission Statement
All Kings (AK) builds diverse and intergenerational peer-led networks to support the emotional wellbeing and develop the leadership of men who have been impacted by the criminal legal system and young men at risk of being impacted. Through transformational weekend retreats, weekly circles, and a network of mutual support, we help men heal from trauma, discover their innate power and purpose, and build lives of connection, contribution, and meaning. There are over 400 men aged 18 to 82 who are members of the All Kings community.
About This Cause
Founded in 2019, All Kings is grounded in forty years of feminist “men’s work”, an umbrella term for group-centered personal development communities that support men in healing from the lived experience of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. As this work has evolved over time, it also directly confronts racism and other forms of oppression. All Kings was specifically inspired by the Inside Circle Foundation, created in 1996 to address gang violence at Folsom Prison. Our work was recently featured in a New York Times story entitled “Where Men Go to Be Better Men.” All Kings serves men from the poorest communities in New York City, with the highest concentrations of people who have been incarcerated, and the fewest resources to support their residents’ health and wellbeing. Our work recognizes that, within the context of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color, there is also a mental health crisis. Research indicates that 43-44% of people incarcerated in our jails and prisons have a mental disorder. This is a significantly higher rate than the general population and, according to some research, underrepresents the problem. And then there is the inherently traumatic experience of being incarcerated and growing evidence of PTSD and lingering mental health issues after being released. As a result, men are carrying a lifetime of cumulative, unaddressed trauma that gets in the way of their ability to construct the lives that they want for themselves. The goal of All Kings is to aid men in safely exploring and healing from the cumulative unaddressed trauma that has shaped their lives from childhood, through incarceration, and as they struggle to succeed in the community. This trauma often manifests itself in health, mental health, and substance use issues; in dysfunctional family relationships and difficulties dealing with others. The cost to the individual is typically the experience of failure, isolation and loneliness. Too often, the result is self-harm, early death including suicide, or unregulated anger, violence, and the revolving door of involvement in the criminal legal system. The cost is not the individual’s alone: families and the community suffer. The majority of these men do not find what they need in the formal mental health system. There just are not enough, affordable clinical services offered in culturally appropriate ways. Further, there is an associated stigma that keeps many people away. All Kings aids men who have been limited by their trauma and their circumstances to manifest the full glory of their gifts–their strength, love, insight and energy. We do this by creating transformational experiences through which men become more emotionally whole and where strength is measured by being able to show honest vulnerability with others. All Kings’ programs address the wounds of systemic racism and promote mental health by forming a peer-led community that addresses early childhood traumas, ongoing fears, and daily struggles honestly. We help men identify the emotions they are feeling, develop insight into the cause of those feelings, and find healthy outlets for them–all within a supportive community of belonging that affirms and celebrates who they are. We introduce healing processes that generate new habits and practices, different ‘self-talk’, and an empowering social network of other men. From this place, one’s greatest wounds become the source of his greatest gifts. Men learn ways of managing stress, taking responsibility for their health and healing, and of supporting others. In the development of greater emotional intelligence, accountability, and authenticity, All Kings men learn skills that enable them to be better fathers, husbands, brothers and friends and to contribute to their family, community and society as a whole. All Kings programs have demonstrated effectiveness in improving the emotional wellbeing of our participants and for those who do need clinical services, of encouraging their openness to treatment. Participation in All Kings also increases the likelihood that men will take advantage of and sustain the benefit they receive from other service providers (housing, employment, etc.) because they are grounded in emotional awareness, accountability, positivity, and connection to others. There are three interrelated, interdependent dimensions of the All Kings program that draw from contemporary techniques of emotional and social development: The Quest-–intensive 3-day “rites of passage” retreats in which an inner journey of healing is framed as a search for identity and purpose. All Kings’ healing work draws on spiritual traditions, mythology, and neuroscience to combine ritual, deep listening, psychodrama, imagery, meditation, and exercises in somatic healing. By design, this initiation into the All Kings community can be done “in nature” or in an urban setting. Quests include men doing it for the first time with men who have done it before, and men with justice histories with men who have not been involved in the criminal justice system. Circles–Once a man has completed a Quest, he begins a 2 month Integration Circle series which meets weekly for 2-hours to aid participants in applying learnings from The Quest to their daily lives. Other circles provide support to alumni. Each circle includes an opening meditation, a check-in, and sharing on different themes. Exercises are focused on somatic healing, accountability processes, conflict resolution, and the development of greater emotional intelligence. All of them are reinforcing the culture and values of All Kings, and further developing the supportive network among members. Leadership Development–the third form of engagement for men who have completed a Quest weekend and the Integration Circle course. This includes Facilitator in Training (FIT) workshops which are foundational to making All Kings truly peer led. FITs practice by staffing Quest weekends; and through mentorship. Members are being trained to facilitate All Kings sessions and to more fully show up as leaders in all the settings in which they find themselves. We are also engaged in a growing number of partnerships with colleague organizations to bring their participants and staff into the All Kings community, and to share our practices in ways that can be integrated into their work. For example, we trained Black Men Build in how to hold men’s circles and they have widely incorporated those practices into their organizing activities. We regularly run circles for other nonprofits (and the Brooklyn DA’s office), and have brought a number of their staff and clients into the All Kings community. We have a robust relationship with a number of youth services and reentry organizations, regularly including their staff and clients in our programs. Through our partnerships, we seek to shift the culture of organizations working with justice-involved men to a strengths-based orientation in which the emotional literacy and mental well-being of both staff and participants is fostered, and their identity is celebrated, not demonized.