Franita Ware, Ph.D.

Dr. Franita Ware, Ph.D., is a qualitative researcher, educator, and author on the topic of Warm Demander Teachers. Her area of expertise is racial and educational equity. She creates and facilitates workshops and extended training to engage participants in disrupting their learned biases to examine how to change the systems, structures, policies, and practices perpetuating education oppression for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Her work has been impactful and award-winning. Dr. Ware is from Atlanta, Georgia, where she received her Doctorate in Educational Studies from Emory University and her Master of Arts in Elementary Education and Leadership Credentials from Clark Atlanta University.

Dr. Ware is the author of a classical research publication on Warm Demander Teachers, which continues to be cited and reviewed in the academic press, led to hundreds of workshops, and is continued to be valued by classroom teachers.

Her continued focus on professional development for educators informs her scholarship, which focuses on the internal work of Radical Self-Care. Radical Self-Care requires a focus on educators’ well-being as an initial step toward racial and educational equity. Dr. Ware started training Denver Public School’s employees in Radical Self Care in 2016, reaching schools and departments and becoming a part of the DPS’s school system culture. Additionally, she has trained Denver Public Schools’ Gifted and Talented (GT) Teams and partnered with the Culture Equity and Leadership Team (CELT) to shift the mindsets of educators in the gifted and talented department. This training was led by Dr. Ware and was awarded The National Association for Gifted Children Professional Learning Award.

Dr. Ware realizes that supporting educators’ growth to be culturally responsive and eventually anti-racist teachers requires the first step of an intentional focus on health and well-being. This allows educators to disrupt and begin to heal from the racialized trauma that is a significant aspect of American culture.

Dr. Ware’s unique contribution to the education community is the Radical Self-Care workshop. Radical Self-Care has been developed through training with educators who give numerous examples of the positive impact of Radical Self-Care on their social-emotional, physical, and brain health, which supports educators’ and administrators’ ability to disrupt biases. In Radical Self-Care, Dr. Ware examines how to minimize the impact of American culture-supported stress by focusing on restorative sleep, movement and exercise, nutrition, nurturing relationships, and purposeful work that can begin to heal racialized trauma.

The theoretical framework of Radical Self Care is neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, and Positive Psychology. Dr. Ware believes when we understand the difference between temporary pampering and intentional and consistent care, which is Radical Self Care, we build resiliency and become better at creating healthy relationships and managing life’s stressors. Dr. Franita Ware feeds her creative side through nature photography and values the healing of gardening and sharing her organic produce,