Explicit & Implicit Bias Training & Consulting
Uncover Implicit Bias, Elevate Awareness,
& End Discrimination Through Inclusive Action
The Biascend Collection is a dynamic training and consulting series designed to uncover explicit, hidden, and implicit bias, identify the discrimination they produce, and unravel the complex intersections of identity, bias, and discrimination.
This collection empowers employees, educators, and nonprofit and corporate teams to ascend their bias awareness—from simply knowing about bias to taking meaningful action that creates healthy thriving workplace and community cultures.
Participants will explore how bias shapes self-perception, impacts interactions with others, and fuels the policies, systems, and cultural norms within their organization.
Biascend™ Consulting Solutions
Expert Guidance for Complex Bias Challenges
Biascend™ Consulting supports leaders, managers, and HR professionals in navigating the complexities of implicit and explicit bias in the workplace. Whether you’re facing escalating tension, unclear accountability processes, or the impact of discrimination, we help you make sense of the situation and move forward with confidence and care.
Our team brings deep experience in detangling bias-related challenges—helping you:
Prevent issues from escalating
Clarify roles and responsibilities when harm has occurred
Strengthen your culture of fairness and accountability
Create clear, equitable action plans grounded in restorative values
This consulting service is designed to bring clarity where things feel stuck, offer strategy where systems fall short, and build momentum toward lasting workplace vitality.
MindTrench™
Unearth the roots of Implicit Bias & Explicit Bias and how to Interrupt Them in the Workplace.
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MindTrench™ Unearthing the Roots of Bias and Discrimination in the Workplace
What are biases? Where do they come from? Why do even the most well-intentioned people sometimes act in ways that cause harm?
MindTrench™ invites participants on a powerful learning journey to explore these questions—digging deep into the foundations of implicit bias, explicit bias, and stereotypes, and how they show up in real-world workplace interactions.
This training is a refreshed and reimagined version of CircleUp Education’s most popular course, Diversity Uncovered, and remains one of our most sought-after and celebrated sessions. Rooted in clarity, simplicity, and empowerment, MindTrench™ breaks down complex concepts into accessible and engaging learning moments—without sacrificing depth.
Participants will learn:
What implicit and explicit bias are—and the difference between them
How our brains form automatic associations that can lead to unintentional harm
Why bias is not a moral failing, but a natural part of being human—and how recognizing it can lead to powerful change
How well-meaning actions can still reinforce a lack of fairness, exclusion, discrimination, or discrimination.
How bias affects relationships, decision-making, and trust in professional environments
With a focused exploration of explicit bias and workplace stereotypes, this session helps participants understand how conscious and unconscious bias can influence behavior, shape workplace dynamics, and create barriers to inclusion. Participants will also walk away with tools and language to help them identify bias in themselves, challenge bias when they encounter it, and begin removing explicit barriers to equity in their teams, culture, and systems.
Using real-world examples and case studies, MindTrench™ also examines how bias plays out across social identities—and the ways it can subtly and overtly impact opportunities, interactions, and perceptions in the workplace.
By the end of this session, participants will not only understand what a bias is, but will also have the confidence and tools to recognize it, talk about it, and begin the work of preventing it from causing harm to those they serve, support, or work alongside.
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Length - between 1.5-2 hours long
Format - Available in Live-online, In Person and Self-paced Format
Customization Available:
This training can be tailored for specific industries, roles, and identity focus areas—including race, gender, disability, and class—and adapted for audiences such as:School staff and educators (K–12 and higher ed)
Nonprofit professionals and service providers
Regional Center staff and service coordinators
Healthcare providers and medical teams
Managers, leadership teams, or general staff
Mirage™
Reveal Illusions of Implicit Bias & Microaggressions — Learn to Self-Interrupt Before They Cause Harm
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Mirage™ Revealing the Illusion of Implicit Bias and Learning to Self-Interrupt Before Harm Occurs
Understanding implicit bias—how it lives in our minds and subtly shapes our actions—isn’t easy. In fact, one of the most difficult concepts to grasp is that we can hold biases that we aren’t even aware of. Yet those hidden assumptions can deeply impact how we see others, how we make decisions, and how we treat the people we serve.
Mirage™ is designed to make the invisible visible—to help participants uncover the elusive, often unconscious nature of implicit bias and understand how even well-intentioned people can unintentionally reinforce discrimination. This training doesn’t approach the topic with blame or shame—it uses clear metaphors, practical tools, and brain science to bring clarity and insight to an otherwise fuzzy and misunderstood subject.
Participants will explore:
What implicit bias really is—and how it differs from explicit bias
Why implicit bias is so difficult to detect, even in ourselves
How hidden assumptions shape workplace interactions and service delivery
The real-world impacts of unchecked bias, including microaggressions and unintentional harm
The difference between intent and impact—and why understanding this matters
A cornerstone of this training is the introduction of the Self-Interruption Tool™—a simple but powerful technique that helps participants pause, reflect, and disrupt unconscious bias in real time. This tool can be used daily to reduce the likelihood that hidden attitudes shape behavior and outcomes, especially in client-facing, caregiving, or team environments.
Mirage™ brings compassion and clarity to the conversation around bias. It equips participants not just with knowledge, but with the self-awareness and skills to interrupt internalized patterns before they cause harm. Rather than trying to “fix” people, this training empowers them to understand the psychological processes that lead to bias and to take mindful, proactive steps to create safer, more equitable interactions.
This session is a refreshed and elevated enhancement of CircleUp Education’s most popular training, Diversity Uncovered—informed by years of field-tested feedback and refined to leave a lasting impression.
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Length - between 1.5-2 hours long
Format - Available in Live-online, In Person and Self-paced Format
Customization Available:
This training can be tailored for specific industries, audiences, or focus areas, including but not limited to:
School staff and educators (K–12 and higher ed)
Regional Center teams, service providers, and case managers
Healthcare professionals, nurses, and support staff
Nonprofit organizations and direct service teams
General workplace staff and managers in public or private sectors
The Call-in Card™
Disrupting Bias & Clarifying Questionable Behaviors Using Conscious Conversions
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The Call-In Card™ - Disrupting Bias & Clarifying Questionable Behaviors Using Conscious Conversations
Over the last decade, one question has come up more than any other in our implicit bias trainings:
"What should I do if someone says or does something that feels discriminatory, but I'm not sure?"In the workplace—and in life—these moments are all too common. A coworker makes a comment that sounds like a compliment but lands uncomfortably. A client says something that feels off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Or you witness a behavior that could be biased or discriminatory, but calling it out feels risky, confrontational, or unclear.
The Call-In Card™ was created for these exact moments. This practical, skill-based training teaches participants how to engage in what we call a Conscious Conversation—a structured way to pause, seek clarity, assume best intentions, and explore what’s really going on when behaviors or statements feel questionable, confusing, or potentially harmful.
Rather than jumping straight to calling someone out, this training focuses on calling in—an approach that brings more awareness, curiosity, and compassion into moments of tension or misunderstanding. Participants learn how to:
Recognize when a comment, behavior, or action may stem from implicit or explicit bias
Pause and reflect on their own perceptions, emotions, and intentions
Engage in a conversation that promotes mutual understanding without escalating conflict
Use the Conscious Conversation Protocol to navigate sensitive situations across teams, departments, and client relationships
Interrupt bias in a way that’s constructive, respectful, and de-escalating
This training empowers participants to build brave, inclusive cultures without fostering shame or fear. The goal is not to accuse—but to understand. It’s a tool that honors the reality that even well-intentioned people sometimes make mistakes, and that honest conversations can prevent misunderstandings from turning into division or harm.
Whether you're working in education, social services, city government, tech, or healthcare, the Call-In Card™ can be applied across roles and sectors. With thousands of participants calling this one of CircleUp Education’s most transformative tools, it remains our #1 skill-based training for workplace inclusion, respectful communication, and everyday bias interruption.
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Length - between 1.5-2 hours long
Format - Available in Live-online, In Person and Self-paced Format
Customization Available:
The Call-In Card™ training can be tailored for specific industries and focus areas, including:
Client or community engagement for service coordinators, social workers, and outreach professionals
Peer-to-peer scenarios for school staff, administrators, and city teams
Leadership and HR applications for managers, DEI officers, or executives
Healthcare communication between providers, staff, and patients
Public-facing environments like retail, hospitality, or utilities
Training scenarios and role-plays can be custom-developed to reflect the unique dynamics, challenges, and frequent points of miscommunication in your organization—ensuring that learners walk away with tools that feel directly relevant, immediately useful, and easy to apply in real-life conversations.
Crossed Culture™
Exploring the intersection of Culture and Bias: Uncovering the Hidden Costs of Misunderstanding
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What happens when two cultures meet—but don’t understand each other? Crossed Culture™ explores that fragile and powerful space at the intersection of identity, bias, and belief. This training surfaces the invisible lines between tradition and assumption, curiosity and judgment, culture and discrimination.
In workplaces and service settings, cultural bias often masquerades as values, preferences, or “just how we do things here.” But when unexamined, these deeply ingrained beliefs can lead to implicit exclusion, explicit harm, and missed opportunities for understanding. From misinterpreted behaviors to unconscious reactions, this training examines how cultural differences become misread, moralized, or even weaponized.
Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of how implicit and explicit bias are woven into cultural norms—sometimes invisibly, sometimes painfully—and how to notice when they or others are operating from cultural assumptions that distort perception, limit inclusion, or cause harm. Through reflective storytelling, scenario-based practice, and powerful tools for self-awareness, Crossed Culture™ helps teams build the emotional and intellectual capacity to work across difference—without crossing the line.
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Length - between 1.5-2 hours long
Format - Available in Live-online, In Person and Self-paced Format
Customization Options
This training can be tailored for:
Cross-cultural teams, public service roles, or intergenerational dynamics
Specific sectors such as education, government, nonprofits, and healthcare
Teams needing support to bridge cultural divides, reduce conflict, or strengthen inclusion
Specific Cultures that exist in your community and their interactions with other cultures
Focus Group data can be used to adjust the training content to make it more relevant.
Scenarios, stories, and content can be adjusted to reflect the cultural dynamics and day-to-day challenges of your team or service population.
PersonCentrik™
BIAS
Applying Person-Centered Thinking Through Implicit Bias Lens for Inclusive and Empowering Support Planning
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Even the most well-intentioned service planning can fall short if it doesn’t truly reflect the person at the center—or if it unconsciously embeds bias into goals, language, or expectations.
PersonCentrik™ is a practical, reflective training designed to elevate how service providers, coordinators, and support staff apply person-centered thinking in a way that is also equity-driven and bias-aware. This session helps participants understand how implicit and explicit bias can influence planning processes—from intake conversations to the details written in an Individual Program Plan (IPP) or One Page Profile.
Participants explore how cultural assumptions, diagnosis-based stereotypes, or internalized social norms can unconsciously shape what we think someone needs or deserves. More importantly, this training offers strategies to interrupt those patterns, so plans reflect the full dignity, voice, and identity of the person receiving services.
Participants will learn how to:
Define person-centered thinking and examine how it relates to identity, equity, and cultural humility
Identify points in the IPP and One Page Profile process where bias is most likely to appear
Understand the difference between “important to” vs. “important for” and how bias can disrupt this balance
Apply bias-aware planning practices that uphold each person’s lived experience, values, and communication preferences
Use reflection tools like the Floodgate Technique™ to check assumptions before they become barriers
Begin developing a lens to assess whether existing service plans or recommendations honor the person’s humanity—or unintentionally stereotype or erase it
This training acknowledges that bias in planning isn't always obvious—it can show up in the language we use, the goals we suggest, or the way we define "safety," "independence," or "quality of life." By building in reflection, equity, and cultural context, participants can transform their planning practices into something more inclusive, collaborative, and impactful.
Who Should Attend:
Regional Center Service Coordinators
Counselors, therapists, and restorative circle keepers
Direct support staff, paraprofessionals, and care providers
IPP writers, program managers, and behavioral staff
Anyone involved in planning or delivering person-centered services
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Length - between 1.5-2 hours long
Format - Available in Live-online, In Person and Self-paced Format
PersonCentrik™ can be adapted to reflect your organization’s specific tools, service models, and populations. Customizations can include:
Integration with your existing One Page Profile templates, IPP documents, or person-centered planning frameworks
Focus on specific client communities (e.g., multilingual families, BIPOC clients, neurodivergent individuals)
Custom case scenarios based on staff-to-client, team-to-family, or peer-to-peer interactions
Incorporation of your agency’s values, initiatives, and compliance requirements
Coming soon: A full 2-day PersonCentrik™ Certification Course, which includes continuing education units (CEUs). This extended training will provide a deeper dive into person-centered thinking and bias prevention strategies, offering learners a certificate of completion that affirms their readiness to lead equitable, identity-affirming planning processes.
BiasBlitz™
Creating New Implicit Bias Training Reinforcements To Enhance Core Learning & Skills.
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Length - between 1.5-2 hours long
Format - Available in Live-online, In Person and Self-paced Format
Customization Options
This training can be tailored for:
Interested in bringing a Biascend™ training to your organization? Want to enroll multiple people in an upcoming Live-online course?
Let’s connect for a FREE 30 minute assessment call!
Let’s Connect Today!
Hours
Monday–Friday
7am–7pm Pacific Standard Time
Phone
(510) 470-5290
Location
Oakland, California | & Your City!