Social Justice Institute

Community Dialogues for Action is the next iteration of the Social Justice Initiative (SJI). Housed at Bryn Mawr College, the SJI launched in 2017, and has been active for 9 years. During that time, the SJI has convened a variety of conferences, webinars and learning opportunities that utilize the Four Pathways to Justice - Forgiveness, Cultural Humility, Courage and Compassion, and Radical Love - to advance the knowledge, values, and skills essential for dismantling the structures and systems of injustice in all its manifestations.

The SJI has always been actively engaged with different community organizations around the country. In 2026, to further the reach of our community-based work, the SJI is transitioning away from Bryn Mawr College to found a new nonprofit: Community Dialogues for Action (CDA). As part of the continuity of the work, CDA also does business as the Social Justice Institute, maintaining the acronym SJI.

Below are selected highlights of the work that the SJI has done over the years.

2025: workshop - building impactful internal strategic alliances

The Nonprofit Executive Leadership Institute (NELI) at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research (GSSWSR) of Bryn Mawr College offers a Nonprofit Executive certificate titled Leading with Impact. The SJI facilitated the fourth of ten sessions: "Building Impactful Internal Strategic Alliances: Sustaining Individual and Their Organizations."

2025: keynote - Walking the four pathways as a perinatal social worker

Darlyne Bailey delivered the opening keynote address for the virtual 49th Annual Conference of the National Association of Perinatal Social Workers. The presentation illustrated how each of the SJI's Four Pathways can "be walked" to best manage problems and dilemmas that can arise within perinatal social work practice.

2024: workshop - arrive already loved

The SJI coordinated a two-day workshop series offered in Bryn Mawr, PA by the Mariah Fenton Gladis Foundation to the counseling staff of the domestic violence agency Laurel House. The curriculum focused on the Arrive Already Loved workshops developed by Mariah Fenton Gladis at the Pennsylvania Gestalt Center.

2022-2023: organizational coaching - racial equity learning community

The Racial Equity Learning Community (RELC) was a cross-county, multi-sector initiative for 30 organizations in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, PA, to come together to learn, build relationships, and take action that deepens organizational and collective capacity to advance racial equity and justice in our community. Three planning partners - the Bucks-Mont Collaborative, Tri-County Community Network, and Interagency Council of Norristown - coordinated a monthly learning community with the national leadership of trainers from the nINA Collective. For two years, the SJI provided served as an organizational coach to many of the nonprofits participating in the RELC. The SJI’s coaching work aimed to support the direct application of learning throughout the organizations, assisting with building competency around anti-racist organizational development, guiding hands-on application of tools and templates within the organizations, and aiding them in development of organization-wide Racial Equity Action Plans.

2021-2022: Webinar series - on the road to unlocked!

The SJI partnered with Youth Advocate Programs, Inc (YAP) and the National Human Services Assembly to create this series of 6 live webinars, featuring renowned figures such as Fania Davis, Founding Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) and Co-Founding Board Member of the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice (NACRJ); Starsky Wilson, President and CEO of the Deaconess Foundation; Michael Umpierre, Director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR); Professor of Law and author Rhonda Magee and many others. These webinars included discussion of what communities could do to create a robust system of care that best serves youth and their families while keeping communities safe.

2020: conference panel - crisis at the southern border of mexico

Immigration policy changes in the U.S. and Mexico have endangered the lives of "extracontinental" migrants from Africa and Asia at the Guatemala and Mexico borders. This international panel at the virtual Council on Social Work Education conference featured SJI staff members Qádriyyah Major-Gray, Jenna Spitz, and Darlyne Bailey, with SJI Advisory Council member Eva Moya and Mexican community organizer and social policy analyst Carmen Villa. The panelists discussed the need for a closer exploration of migrants’ experiences using Critical Race Theory, formulating a call-to-action for clinical and macro-level practitioners. Participants left with strategies and tools to advocate for and grapple with immigration policy issues in their own communities, and gained an understanding of the adversities experienced by “extracontinental” migrants attempting to seek refuge in the United States and Mexico.

2019: Film screening & discussion - The mayor of graterford

The Mayor of Graterford documentary highlights the issue of life without parole sentencing in the Pennsylvania prison system. This film - created through Villanova University’s Social Justice Documentary Program - recounts the harsh realities of those serving life sentences and the effect on individuals, families, and communities. Co-sponsored by the Villanova's Social Justice Documentary Program, the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, and the Center for Child and Family Wellbeing at Bryn Mawr College, this event featured an SJI-facilitated panel presentation and active exchange with attendees following a screening at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Bryn Mawr, PA.

2018-2019: project - Teddy bear bank

The SJI helped send teddy bears (or, “ositos de peluche”) to mothers and children who were survivors of domestic violence and living in shelters and clinics in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. This was a two year collaboration with Temple Israel Ner Tamid of Cleveland, OH, to support the Teddy Bear Bank, a project founded by Peter Freimark.

2017: conference - Practicing the science and art of forgiveness

The SJI launched by convening a one-day conference on social justice that included international, national, and local speakers and panelists focused specifically on Forgiveness as a critical component of social justice: Fania Davis, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth; Marina Cantacuzino, Founder of The Forgiveness Project; Everett Worthington, Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University; Dorothy Johnson-Speight, Executive Director of Mothers in Charge; and Ulysses Butch Slaughter, author, filmmaker and teacher. SJI friends from across the country, including Bob Henry Baber, Shawn Boyd, Mariah Fenton Gladis, Kelly McNally Koney and Eva Moya, facilitated small groups and shared their own lived experiences. Inaugural Social Justice Humanitarian awardees included Jean Green Dorsey of Harlem, NY and Maria Sotomayor of Philadelphia, PA. The conference was designed to provide interactive experiences as well as evidence-based research to enable the 350 participants to reflect on their personal journeys and explore what forgiveness meant to each of them. Employing social work’s “micro to macro” continuum of care, discussions explored the internal process of forgiveness, how forgiveness impacts relationships, and the impact of forgiveness on communities and policies.

kevin j. robinson forum

After the sudden and tragic death of the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research (GSSWSR) junior faculty member Kevin J. Robinson, Darlyne Bailey established an award in his name that continues to go out every year to a GSSWSR graduating student who upholds his commitment to honesty, integrity, equality and fairness, and a commitment to social justice. The seeds of the SJI were then planted at a daylong gathering, the Kevin J. Robinson Forum. Rufus Sylvester Lynch, now the Chair of The Strong Families Commission, was a key member of this gathering.

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