Protecting Children, Advocating Change

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Giving Tuesday Kickoff Event

Protecting Children, Advocating Change

Join us for an important fireside chat between Jamie Forbes and Jason Craige Harris as they take up the question of how to center and protect children in schools and places of worship. Jamie is a survivor of child sexual abuse and Founder of Learning Courage, working in schools to manage incidents of abuse more effectively and implement prevention protocols. Jason is a board member at Hidden Water and a former school-based educator who now works across contexts as a conflict mediator and restorative justice practitioner.

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Jamie Forbes

Jamie is the founder and CEO of Learning Courage. His experience includes nearly two decades in the private sector in both finance and marketing roles, where he honed his business acumen, strategic thinking and creative approach. Jamie has also consulted with, helped start, and been involved in board leadership of a variety of nonprofit organizations.

His work with schools began when, in 2016, he shared the story of being sexually abused in 9th grade at Milton Academy. During the school’s 9-month investigation, he observed first-hand how important and yet challenging it can be for both survivors and school leaders to rebuild trust and support healing.

Learning Courage came out of his observation that schools needed guidance keeping survivors at the center of incidents of sexual abuse and misconduct. Central to his findings in this work is that being survivor-centered is in the best interests of not just survivors but also the institutions where the abuse occurred. The best way to improve the sector's response to sexual abuse, he reasoned, was to create an organization that collected and shared what they learned.

Jamie graduated from Connecticut College and lives in Portsmouth, NH with his wife, two daughters and a dog that thinks he’s actually human.

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Jason Craige Harris

Jason Craige Harris is a voice for healing and transformation. He works in a variety of contexts, with a range of constituents, and across industries to promote dignity and belonging in business, technology, government, law, media, education, nonprofits, and faith communities. He brings together insights from diverse fields as a mediator, circle keeper, coach, storyteller, and strategist. As a researcher and educator, Jason holds expertise in the psychology of leadership; the social sciences of identity, group dynamics, and inter-group dialogue; inclusion strategies; conflict transformation; and restorative justice. Jason regularly advises leaders on how to solve big challenges and pursue lasting change. In all of his work, Jason draws on a deep well of research, practice, and mindfulness to transform leaders, managers, and workplace cultures.