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Language Matters: Using Person-First Language to Decrease Stigma
February 24 at 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
This discussion-based session will explore the importance of using person-first language as a tool to promote dignity, empathy, and respect. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how language shapes public attitudes and affects the wellbeing of individuals navigating substance use and misuse. Through interactive discussions and real-world examples, the session will highlight how stigma—often embedded in everyday language—can be unintentionally reinforced, even by well-meaning professionals.
By the end of the training, participants will be equipped with practical strategies to shift their language and communication styles in ways that humanize rather than marginalize. The session will also address the changing landscape of inclusive terminology, offering guidance on how to stay current while remaining sensitive to individual and community preferences.
About the Presenters
Rabbi Kerry Chaplin (she/her) is a spiritual counselor, ritualist, and teacher specializing in addiction and recovery, queerness, parenting, and people on the margins.
Most recently, Rabbi Kerry was a spiritual counselor at Beit T’Shuvah, where she helped addicts and their families choose life. Before joining Beit T’Shuvah in 2018, Rabbi Kerry was a Rabbinic Fellow with Lab/Shul, a community within the Jewish Emergent Network. At Lab/Shul, she co-created justice- and peace-centered rituals and drew on her community organizing background to empower people to lead and grow the community. Rabbi Kerry has also served college students and other university constituents at Vassar College and Hillel at UCLA, and has been a community organizer for decades.
She was ordained in 2015 by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University, and received a B.A. in Religious Studies and an M.A. in Non-Profit Management from Washington University in St. Louis.
Olivia Shrago, M.S.W. provides management oversight for the ABHPC program with a focus on Prevention Pathways, which aims to develop and retain the prevention workforce. Olivia received her Master’s in Social Work from the University at Buffalo in New York, where she began her prevention work on the university’s sexual violence prevention team. Since then, Olivia has worked with government-funded suicide and mental health prevention programs across a variety of settings, including middle and high schools, the United States Air Force, and Black churches. Olivia has experience with project management, training design and implementation, and supporting prevention research.
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