MY HISTORY
In a previous life… I became an educator in 1990 when I took a position as a High School English Teacher at Clara Barton High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I have been teaching in one form or another fairly consistently ever since.
When the Crown Heights riots broke out in August 1991 after my first year of teaching, I found myself teaching about it on the fly while also being trained by several non-profits to help young people understand and respond to the events. Over the next summer of 1992, with a small group of educators I helped develop a violence prevention/conflict resolution/prejudice reduction/diversity appreciation curriculum for New York City Public Schools. I stayed at the school one more year as Coordinator of Student Affairs, teaching Leadership classes based on the curriculum we wrote.
The next year I left the school system, and became a trainer and educator specializing in diversity, conflict resolution and anger management. Over the next several years, I developed Train the Trainer programs, implemented Peer Leadership programs throughout the New York City area as well as Baltimore and Washington DC, I trained over 70 new consultants in a 5 Day train the trainer model, was Director of the NYC Project of the A World of Difference Institute, and I provided workshops, training and coaching for everyone from Pre-K teachers and their students, to college staff and students, and on to corporations and government agencies.
Eventually, the Anti-Defamation League and the New York Community Trust tasked me with creating a Juvenile Diversion program for young people who had been convicted of hate crimes in New York City. That program ran for almost a decade, and received high marks from the NYC Mayors office and the Clinton White House.
I then became a Health Educator, providing substance abuse prevention and intervention workshops at independent school and international schools throughout the country and around the world through FCD Educational Services. In this role, I provided multi day workshops for young people, parent nights for the families, and coaching and intervention services to individuals. I presented coast to coast but primarily on the West Coast, as well as Taiwan, China, England and France.
Over the years now as a therapist, I have further developed my platform skills in group therapy settings, and in trainings and workshops I have had the opportunity to provide. Now I am coming around full circle. My trainings and workshops offerings are expanding. They are encompassing most if not all of my interests, passions and desire to create a larger community of educators, therapists, healers and others who desire more information, more skills building, more facilitated dialogue.