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Monique LeSarre, PsyD
Executive Director — Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness; Adjunct Lecturer — California Institute of Integral Studies
Monique LeSarre, PsyD, attributes her fierce critical thinking and social justice stance as being formed by her life experiences and honed by her undergraduate education in the Bachelors of Arts Completion Program at CIIS. Dr. LeSarre’s teaching is fueled by Cornel West’s quote, “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
Monique believes that in order to create individual and community healing, it is most effective to work on multiple levels of the system, beginning with individuals, families, and groups, and on academic, training, research, advocacy, and policy levels. In her teaching in the School of Undergraduate Studies, she brings all of her clinical psychology training, her community work with Insight Prison Project’s Restorative Justice projects in San Quentin and SF Probation Adult Re-entry programs, her clinical work with children and families in SF’s Bayview District, and her research and advocacy work on the African American Trauma Summit Taskforce, the SF Mental Health Services Act Advisory Board, and the SFDPH’s Cultural and Linguistic Competency Task Force.
Additionally, Monique serves as the Director of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Project at CIIS, recruiting, retaining, training, and supporting historically underrepresented groups in the five masters in counseling programs. Her current passion projects in that role are piloting an Indigenous Wellness Training series and co-hosting the Michelle Alexander fundraiser for formerly incarcerated students to come into the BAC program.
Monique LeSarre also serves as the Executive Director of Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness. Rafiki Coalition’s mission is to eliminate health inequities in San Francisco’s Black and marginalized communities through education, advocacy, and by providing holistic health and wellness services in a culturally affirming environment.
