Ryun Anderson, MSW

Ryun Anderson, MSW, practices community and ecological care work in Southern Maine, Wabanaki land, which is the place that she grew up and holds an abiding commitment to repair and regenerative possibilities for people, place and the way we are with one another. 

Ryun’s work has focused on facilitating intentional, emergent, community-led systems change within educational institutions and human-oriented organizations. Her early work involved supporting youth leadership through outdoor education, youth advocacy and the co-creation of alternatives to dominant institutions, including youth-facilitated processes for repairing harm, and a statewide youth peer support network. From 2012-2021, Ryun led statewide restorative justice efforts, co-creating transformative justice with people who had caused harm, and survivors of individual and institutional harm. 

Her current work focuses on liberatory education and intentional accompaniment in personal, relational and culture change. This takes place in multiple pathways, such as community education and dialogue, individual coaching and support for people transforming their relationship to systems of domination, and consultation with organizations who are making room for more life-affirming practices in the best ways they can. Her relationships of responsibility and care in this work are beloved and tended daily, as we grow and create more capacity for care together.

At the University of New England, Ryun serves as the Director of Practicum Education for the BSW program, and teaches as an Assistant Clinical Professor. Ryun also co-leads the Master’s of Leadership for Sustainability program at the University of Vermont, an online, a transdisciplinary, place-based degree centering diverse, community-embedded socio-ecological care.