Where Strategy Meets Community Power
Our programs are rooted in healing, justice, and the lived experiences of Black and Brown communities. Each initiative is designed to build power, cultivate leadership, and drive lasting systemic change.
Five Strategic Focus Areas
Every program we run is anchored in one or more of these interconnected pillars — because healing, justice, and community power are inseparable.
Healing & Collective Care
We cultivate spaces for healing, restoration, connection, and collective well-being. Through culturally rooted, healing-centered practices, we integrate wellness, relationship-building, and sustainable care into our programs, leadership development, and community partnerships.
Arts & Creative Activism
We harness the transformative power of art, storytelling, poetry, and cultural expression to inspire healing, reclaim narratives, celebrate cultural identities, and mobilize communities for collective action and social change.
Youth, Family & Community Well-Being
We center the lived experiences, cultural wisdom, and leadership of Black and Brown youth, families, femmes, and caregivers. Through intergenerational engagement and community-rooted approaches, we strengthen belonging, resilience, connection, and pathways to individual and collective well-being.
Leadership Development & Community Power
We nurture transformative leaders by strengthening skills, confidence, relationships, and opportunities for meaningful participation. Through healing-centered leadership development, mentorship, and collective learning, we equip individuals and communities to shape decisions, advocate for their needs, and drive lasting change.
Policy, Advocacy & Systems Change
We bridge community wisdom, lived experience, research, and advocacy to advance equitable policies, institutional transformation, and systemic change. Through participatory research, community-driven advocacy, and collaborative policymaking, we work to shift power, transform systems, and build conditions where communities can thrive.
Youth, Family & Community Well-Being
Our policy work is community-driven and grounded in lived experience. We advance equitable systems through research, advocacy, and collaborative policymaking.
School-Based Health
Advance policies, research, and partnerships supporting school-based health services, integrated student supports, and equitable healthcare access.
Restorative Justice
Support implementation of Virginia's HB298, restorative practices, policy research, advocacy, and related systems-change initiatives.
Family, School & Community Engagement
Strengthen meaningful youth, family, and caregiver participation in educational decision-making, community engagement, and participatory policymaking.
Community-Rooted Care
Advance community-informed care models, healing-centered approaches, care coordination, and cross-sector systems of support for youth and families.
Safe & Restorative Schools Initiatives
Safe and Restorative Schools Campaign
Transformative Changes partners with youth, families, educators, practitioners, behavioral health professionals, community organizations, and public leaders to advance safe and restorative schools across Virginia. Through healing-centered engagement, restorative justice, policy advocacy, leadership development, and cross-sector collaboration, we are helping transform how schools respond to conflict, build relationships, and support student well-being.
Virginia Community-School-Based Health Collaborative
A statewide collaborative advancing equitable access to integrated, school-based health and wellness services through community-school partnerships, coordinated care, and systems-level advocacy. The collaborative brings together healthcare providers, educators, families, community organizations, and policymakers to strengthen school-based health infrastructure, expand access to preventive and behavioral healthcare, and develop sustainable, community-rooted models of care.
Black Youth & Kin Restorative Justice Collective
The collective brings together Black youth, caregivers and kin, restorative justice practitioners, educators, and community leaders across Central Virginia to strengthen restorative justice practice and culture within schools, families, and communities.
Virginia Restorative Justice Stewardship Collaborative
The Collaborative brings together educators, restorative justice practitioners, students, families and caregivers, school and systems leaders, researchers, advocates, community organizations, behavioral health professionals, and public partners to build the relationships, knowledge, resources, and implementation capacity needed to support meaningful and equitable restorative practices across the Commonwealth.
Virginia Community-School-Based Health Collaborative
Convened by Transformative Changes in collaborative partnership with the Virginia School-Based Health Alliance
Whole Child. Whole Family. Whole Community.
Every child deserves to be healthy, safe, supported, and connected to the care they need to thrive. We bring together youth, families, educators, healthcare providers, community organizations, and advocates to advance policies, investments, and systemic solutions that strengthen school-based health and whole-child well-being across Virginia.
Turning Practice into Policy
We work in partnership with the Virginia School-Based Health Alliance's Stakeholder Conveners Group, drawing on expertise and promising practices from the field to inform policy advocacy, legislative priorities, budget investments, and systemic reforms — bridging practice, policy, and community voice.
Care Beyond the Classroom
We advocate for policies and investments that advance a whole-child, whole-family approach connecting:
Physical & Behavioral Health
Preventive care, primary care, mental health, and early intervention.
Care Coordination & Navigation
Community health workers, family navigators, referrals, and continuity of care.
Family & Community Well-Being
Family engagement, peer support, health education, and community-rooted care.
Social Drivers of Health
Food, housing, transportation, economic security, and access to public benefits.
Safe & Restorative Schools
Healing-centered practices, belonging, supportive relationships, and positive school climates.
From Fragmented Systems to Collective Care
Expand Equitable Access to Care
Advocate for policies and investments that expand integrated school-based and school-linked preventive, primary, and behavioral healthcare.
Strengthen Systems & Care Coordination
Advance policies that improve cross-system collaboration, care coordination, and connections between schools, families, healthcare providers, and community-based supports.
Secure Sustainable Funding & Infrastructure
Champion Medicaid/CHIP access and reimbursement, sustainable financing, workforce investments, and infrastructure that support integrated care.
Center Youth, Family & Community Power
Elevate lived experience, cultural wisdom, and community-driven solutions in legislative advocacy, policymaking, and public investments.
Join us in advancing policies and investments that make whole-child, whole-family care a reality across Virginia.
Together, we create change.
HB298 Statewide Restorative Justice Implementation Collaborative
Restorative Justice Takes All of Us.
A statewide working network strengthening equitable, meaningful restorative justice in Virginia public schools.
Build relationships, resources and capacity beyond policy compliance.
- Statewide readiness
- Practitioner training and tools
- Youth and family leadership
- Equitable implementation
- Sustainable funding and policy
- Shared leadership
- Working groups
- Technical assistance
- Co-creation
- Continuous learning
- ♥Relationship Centered
- ⚖Equity Driven
- ⚖Justice Focused
- 🌱Sustainable & Future Focused
Be part of a statewide movement to ensure every student, every school, every community belongs.
Transformative Changes | www.transformativechanges.org
Initiatives Rooted in Community
Each program is designed to meet communities where they are — building healing, leadership, and power from the inside out.
Black Youth & Kin Mental Health Collaborative
Mental HealthA culturally responsive, community-driven 12-month initiative to address deep-rooted mental health disparities among Black youth in Virginia aged 13–18. Through a healing-centered, multi-pronged approach, BYMHC creates a supportive infrastructure that promotes emotional well-being, builds leadership, and drives policy change. The program integrates healing circles, culturally relevant mental health support, family engagement, youth storytelling, and participatory advocacy, co-led by youth, caregivers, and trusted community organizations.
Crisis to Care
Collective CareCrisis to Care (C2C) is a healing-centered initiative connecting BIPOC leaders, caregivers, frontline workers, advocates, and communities to culturally rooted pathways for healing, collective care, leadership development, and systems change. C2C operates through three interconnected components: the Network (an inclusive community of BIPOC leaders building connection and collective well-being), the Fellowship (a transformative leadership development experience for Network members), and the Community Care & Well-Being Ecosystem (bridging community relationships, resources, and coordinated support to strengthen pathways from crisis to care).
Youth Artivists of Color Alliance
Arts & ActivismA healing-centered leadership incubator designed to support young artists in using poetry, storytelling, and creative expression as tools for personal transformation and social change. Rooted in the healing justice framework of Transformative Changes, this model integrates art, identity, and civic engagement to cultivate youth leadership grounded in collective care and community impact.
Heal Her Leadership Collective
LeadershipDesigned for young Black women and femmes ages 18–35, the Heal Her Collective focuses on healing-centered leadership development, personal ecology, and strategic action. Participants engage in intergenerational mentorship, healing circles, and political education to build sustainable movements that honour both rest and resistance.
Community Cocoon
CommunityCommunity members build meaningful relationships, strengthen their sense of belonging, deepen civic participation, and identify pathways for ongoing engagement and leadership.
Together We Build the World We Deserve
Whether you want to volunteer, partner, donate, or simply learn more — there's a place for you in this work.