Tiarra Bryant

Background

About Tiarra Bryant

Tiarra Dearbone Bryant serves as Deputy Director at Purpose. Dignity. Action.(PDA) where she provides technical assistance and strategic guidance to jurisdictions across the nation implementing and operating Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion/Let Everyone Advance with Dignity (LEAD). Tiarra also focuses on workforce development, hiring, retention and professional advancement of people directly impacted by the systems we seek to change, both internally and as a national practice. Tiarra has served as a Project Manager for LEAD in Burien and Seattle and then as Seattle/King County LEAD Program Director, leading efforts to expand and innovate programming to address unprecedented conditions in communities related to public safety, disorder, homelessness, and quality of life. Tiarra focuses on collective impact to achieve community safety and health, and uses evidence based practices to reduce reliance on traditional enforcement and incarceration. As a member of the Klamath Tribes of Oregon and an expert on the impacts of intergenerational trauma, mental illness, and incarceration, Tiarra focuses on advancing racial and social justice initiatives in historically excluded communities, including post-prison education. She serves on the steering committee for the Husky Post-Prison Pathways (HP3) project at the University of Washington-Tacoma. Tiarra is a local community leader for the national Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network (FICGN). She served for two years as a facilitator of addiction recovery groups as a volunteer with SMART Recovery. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of Washington-Tacoma in 2019 as a first generation college student and is currently pursuing her Master's in Criminal Justice at Seattle University.