Meet Carly Tolbert | Mental Health Practitioner & Founder of Kaftan Collective

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carly Tolbert and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carly, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Kaftan Collective was born on January 6th, 2021. At that time, I was working as a Clinical Supervisor at a community based mental health clinic. After almost one year of serving children and families amidst the pandemic, I was fighting off burnout and emotional fatigue right along with my supervisees who I was there to support.

The images of the insurrection coming across all my screens was triggering for me, like so many millions of other people. I had the choice of going into my next meetings pretending that I was OK, but I just couldn’t do it. I was overcome with anger, grief, worry, and sadness.

I called my boss, Angel, another Black woman, who’s aptly named, and I asked her for the rest of the day off. She made space for me, even though she felt the exact same way, and I unraveled. She validated my experience, allowed me to feel my feelings, and we navigated the waters of rage, fear and uncertainty together. It was a pivotal moment for me, and what would become Kaftan Collective.

Black folks living in America are very familiar with the brutalities of white body supremacy, in all of its forms. From institutional and structural biases, experiencing and witnessing violence against Black and brown bodies, sometimes for profit in media, all the way to personal microaggressions in the workplace.

The truth is that we are survivors of racialized trauma. Although we are not a monolith in our experiences and backgrounds, we all have the shared experience of navigating this world in bodies that are explicitly and implicitly impacted by the forces of systemic oppression. We’re often taught to override our feelings, intuition and needs when we’re feeling triggered. We rarely take or are given the space to process these experiences in real time, especially at work. Doing so bares the risk of being labeled “unprofessional.”

My work is helping to care for children and their families and support the array of mental health providers that work directly with them. This burden felt particularly heavy that day, trying to metabolize the individual and collective trauma that seemed to come to a head that day.

That night, I made the decision to step away from that job. It became clear that the burdens that we were carrying individually were not meant to be carried alone. I decided to take a more active role in building support systems for people like me.

I wanted to facilitate supportive groups for Black mothers, caregivers and mental health service providers, particularly those folks from marginalized communities. I wanted to create a soft place to land for people who are in positions of caring for others, and who are also deserving of their own care.

Kaftan Collective is a space where we show up in our full humanity, to be seen, heard and held. That’s what Angel did for me, and so many other times since, and that’s what I do every day in this work.

What should our readers know about your business?
Kaftan Collective has two arms: a private clinical practice and an organizationally focused consultative practice that centers embodied social justice, equity and the power of safe relationships as keys to intervention and healing.

My clinical therapy practice is focused around facilitating process groups for Black mothers with young children. Parenting alone is challenging, but doing so while facing systemic oppression can activate feelings stress, anxiety, shame and isolation. My aim is to help my clients to better understand the sources of their pain, and then to cultivate resource and resilience so that they may continue to navigate their parenting journeys with compassion and love. Building upon concepts that I have learned over the course of my career in the fields of reflective parenting, attachment, trauma, mindfulness and generative somatics, my groups serve as communal spaces for collective healing.

The consultation arm of Kaftan Collective has a similar aim. I facilitate reflective supervision and consultation groups for clinicians working within both private non-profit and government-based community mental health organizations.

My reflective groups integrate body-based practices, supporting the regulation of our collective nervous systems, processing vicarious trauma, and giving relief for when compassion fatigue, reducing staff burnout.

Everyone working in this field is a human being first, and is doing vital and challenging work in the communities in which they live, some of which are structurally underserved. As we are all people, so many of us working in the field of mental health are working through our own traumas, while simultaneously supporting our clients in their own healing.

Being intentional in creating these spaces for mental health practitioners is paramount as we engage in the critical work of caring for others. Using our collective wisdom and resource we’ll find greater longevity in the field.

As a Black woman and mother in America, I, of course, have the lived and felt experience of grappling with the impact of racialized trauma and discrimination, for myself and my children. The world is, at times, unsafe for us. What is also true to and for is the joy of playing with and caring for my children as they grow into beautiful human beings, and good citizens of the world.

Kaftan Collective allows me to integrate all parts of myself, and to leverage and honor my connection to nature, a collective and unconditional love with my community, and the wisdom of my ancestors. It is a labor of love and a joy to be a resource to other clinicians in their work with children and their families.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, I feel like food is always a good place to start. First, I’d probably swing them by Hank’s Market on Florence Ave. where we could pick up some snacks and drinks for the week. Hank’s is more than a market, it’s an experience. They have a beautifully curated selection of food and gifts, it’s family owned and they do amazing work in the community. Then we might grab sandwiches from Orleans and York on Slauson. I’m a sucker for their catfish po’boy and potato salad.

Then maybe we’d pack a picnic and head out for a beach day. This summer my family and I connected with an organization called Color the Water which offers free surfing lessons to the BIPOC community. It’s very cool. They have weekly meetups that are always a good time with music, community and good vibrations.

I’d definitely want to hit up Alta Adams for dinner or a weekend brunch. The food and drinks are so good and their patio is the perfect spot to enjoy the perfect LA weather. We could go and checkout the latest exhibit at The California African American Museum and then maybe take a stroll around the rose garden at Expo park.

One morning we would have to grab tea or coffee from Hot and Cool in Leimert Park and do some book shopping at Eso Won books. And because food is life, we’d probably head over to Smorgasburg Los Angeles which happens on Sundays and is one of my favorite place to get a good variety of tasty treats.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d love to shoutout my grandmother, Janis Garrison who is my ancestral muse for Kaftan Collective. Beyond being a woman who could rock a Kaftan and make it look beautiful and glamorous, she taught me about unconditional love, balance and the importance of rest. I’d also like to shout out my mother (Marilynne), husband (Dante), my kids (Parker and Dillon) along with my entire family for their love and support. Finally, Resmaa Menakem, Dr. Sará King, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens, Prentis Hemphill, and adrienne maree brown and so many others doing the work of decolonization and social justice from whom I have learned so much over these past couple of years and whose wisdom have shaped my work greatly.

Website: www.kaftancollective.com

Instagram: kaftan.collective

Linkedin: Carly Tolbert, LCSW

Image Credits
Herman Au (the family photo)