The 2025 Office of Victim Services (OVS) Conference has 3 webinar offerings, which will lead up to the main event! This is the third webinar.

Webinars are free of charge, and open to all OVS-funded advocates and allied professionals. You do not need to be registered for the OVS Conference to attend these free events. Registration for each webinar is required.

Speaker: Nikki Patin, Founder, Executive Producer, Surviving the Mic

In 2014, Nikki Patin decided that she was tired of asking public performance spaces and their producers to hold space for the work of survivors of sexual violence. Starting as 10 week workshop series for spoken word artists who identified as Black, woman and survivors of sexual violence, Surviving the Mic (StM) evolved into a groundbreaking survivor-led open mic and workshop series. Surviving the Mic: How to Make A Brave Space will, highlight the differences between holding safe space and brave space; break down the StM Alignments (a set of survivor-led, co-created agreements that were designed with brave space as the intended outcome), with the opportunity for participants to begin envisioning their own brave spaces; facilitate a discussion with participants on how to center survivors and their artistic work, including best practices for building collaboration between cultural and educational organizations and clinical and social service providers to best support survivor artists. The StM Brave Space Experience will then immerse participants in building and engaging their own brave space with a mini writing workshop and reading salon, as well as a performance by Nikki Patin. As a result of this session, attendees will gain insight into a survivor-led model for holding brave, artistic space.