Affiliated Trainers

Alphabetical by Last Name

Doug Adrianson

A leader of numerous Council training programs over the past decade, Doug Adrianson has facilitated weekly circles with students at five schools in Southern California, has guided rites-of-passage programs for hundreds of teenagers and adults, and served 11 years on the Ojai Foundation Board of Directors. A lifelong writer and editor who loves the power of language, Doug holds a journalism degree from Northwestern University and brings to his Council work the experience of 25 years in daily newspaper editing, mainly at the Miami Herald and Los Angeles Times. His ongoing education also has included a vision fast and other programs at the School of Lost Borders, an initiation weekend with the ManKind Project, and a vision fast with Animas Valley Institute. Doug is an avid musician, hiker, adventure diner, and tree house builder. He lives in Carpinteria, California.

Arrowyn Ambrose

Arrowyn Ambrose is a Council trainer, facilitator, writer, and mother. She has been practicing council since 2008, weaving it into the curriculum of the non-profit, The Young Storytellers, that she ran for a decade before leaving to pursue her own work, Story Tribe. Story Tribe is a dynamic creative writing and performance program that connects students to themselves and other through the art of council and poetry. She runs a monthly drop-in community Council in Highland Park affiliated with The Eastside Mindfulness Collective and the #LoveArmy. Her passion is introducing populations to the Council practice that would not usually find it on their own.

Camille Ameen

Since 1991, Camille has had the privilege of working with kindergarteners through graduate students, youth with special needs, the deaf/hard of hearing, students at high risk of dropping out, young women in transitional housing, inmates in the prison system, and Christian, Muslim and Jewish educators coming together. She co-facilitates Council 1 & 2 trainings and has mentored teachers, Council interns, and staff in social justice organizations. Camille co-founded Inside Out Community Arts (1996), a nationally award-winning non-profit that nurtures self-worth, and fosters understanding between diverse middle and high school youth through theatre. Now merged with PS ARTS, she continues to train artists in the curriculum/methodology. Camille is a core instructor for the UCLArts & Healing Social Emotional Arts Certificate Program. Combining her love of theater and Council, she’s developed a curriculum for theatre performance, art, and social emotional learning. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College in Theatre, she’s had a long career as a professional actress in New York and Los Angeles including Broadway, TV and film.

Camille says, "I believe the circle is a great equalizer with the capacity to bring us all to the highest common denominator. Learning to listen from the heart and seeing the world through eyes of love, is one of the most challenging tasks we are given as human beings. Council provides a pathway to achieving greater wholeness, as individuals, a society and as stewards of the Earth."

Lori Austein

Lori Austein is a Council trainer and facilitator, hypnotherapist and a contract program coordinator for the Cowichan Intercultural Society. Past experiences as a lawyer and teacher have informed her appreciation for high functioning groups of people. Lori has facilitated programs for youth, educators, psychiatric patients and non-profits. She lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia where she lives Council with her husband and son.

Leon Berg

Leon Berg is a founding member of the Ojai Foundation. He is a Senior Trainer for Center for Council and a Founding Advisory Board member. Leon has been facilitating Council groups in the U.S. and abroad for over 20 years. In 2001, he went to Israel to seed the practice of Council among Israeli Jews and Arabs, co-founding the Israeli non-profit organization Ma’agal Hakshava (Listening Circles). Leon has returned to Israel many times since then to conduct Council trainings and lead a variety of coexistence programs. In 2008 Leon and his partner, Glori Zeltzer, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, began to teach their council-based relationship workshops, Art of Intimate Conversation, to couples seeking to enrich and/or heal their relationships. They now teach the practices to couples in the US and abroad. Check out Leon's TEDx talk on the Power of Listening.

Jasmyne Boswell

​For over 30 years, Jasmyne has been a midwife to individuals in all fields, helping them successfully overcome personal stumbling blocks and to birth their business, career and projects. She uses her intuitive sense, her gift with the written word, and her years of experience to help bring ideas and aspirations into form.

As a certified Council Trainer, Jasmyne has trained and coached individuals, couples, teachers, facilitators, students, communities and families in the art of authentic communication.

Jasmyne is the mother of two grown men and lives in Los Angeles, California. She offers her services locally, nationally, and internationally and also spends time in Boulder, Colorado and on Maui, Hawaii.  Besides enjoying the great outdoors wherever she is, Jasmyne coaches individuals and groups, and teaches writing in its many forms privately and at UHMC and the Maui Business Resource Center.

Andrea Brown

Andrea Brown, M.A., began her circle practice with elder Dolores LaChappelle in the San Juan Mountains in the early 1980s. Since then, Andrea has worked in the private sector, academia, and nonprofits on culture and the environment and was a National Science Foundation and James Irvine Foundation fellow. She has done research and taught courses on Environmental Problem Solving and Environmental Justice at the Urban Environmental Policy Institute of Occidental College. Certified as a Council Trainer, she has trained, mentored, and facilitated Council in English and Spanish for women, nonprofits, parents, and in private and public schools, both locally and internationally. Currently, she teaches at New Roads School and consults on various Council programs and trainings.

Yamin Chehin

Yamin Chehin is a Council trainer and facilitator, a doctor in Oriental Medicine, and has a bachelor’s degree in communications. She has explored a variety of philosophical and spiritual traditions that range from the descriptions shared by the Shamans of Ancient Mexico to Taoist and Buddhist teachings. These practices inform her work of partnering up with clients and groups to understand and meet with the healing potential implicit in the story enacted by the body. Yamin has facilitated Council circles in English and Spanish (her native language), for youth at risk, women, teen-age girls, and nonprofits. She lives and practices Council at home with her family and co-leads monthly couple’s circles with her husband and life partner, Alan Mobley.

​Gigi Coyle

Virginia "Gigi" Coyle has served as a community activist wherever she is, a Council trainer wherever called, and a rites-of-passage guide and trainer with many individuals and organizations. She is learning to be a mentor and an elder, and serving on such Councils, for the School of Lost Borders, the Ojai Foundation, Youth Passageways, European Council Network, and Weaving Earth. She was recently described “as a field catalyst of moments and long-lasting commitments to heart's truth of self, circle and life.” She has contributed extensively in the area of citizen diplomacy, women’s empowerment, and the healing ways with money. Founder of the alliance, Beyond Boundaries, she is devoted to inter-generational pilgrimages and projects of prayer, action and service and is currently co-leading the pilgrimage Walking Water. Co-author of The Way of Council, The Box, and Remembering the Gift.

Kirstin Edelglass

As a wilderness guide, experiential educator, and group counselor, Kirstin has been facilitating Council circles for over twenty-five years. She has taught Council facilitation in courses at Marlboro College, Colby College, and Lesley University, as well as in staff training workshops for a variety of organizations. Council practice is also central to a program she founded called the Earth Leadership Cohort – a training for young adults, inspired by the work of Joanna Macy. Kirstin is a founding member (with Bonnie Mennell and Paul LeVasseur) of the New England Council Collective which offers Council 1 and Council 2 trainings and supports a growing network of Council carriers in the Northeast. She lives on a homestead in Marlboro, Vermont with her husband and twin daughters and a steady stream of WWOOF volunteers.

Chris Elder

Chris Elder is passionate about authentic communication as a path to deeper relationships, greater social understanding and a more peaceful world. She has been facilitating Council circles in various settings since 1995. Following 25 years as an award-winning educator in public and private schools, often incorporating Council practice, Chris is active in our Inmate Council Program and Social Justice Council Project initiatives. She also serves as Ventura County program coordinator for our sibling organization, Council in Schools. Chris was a founding member of New Roads School in Santa Monica, California, where for 18 years she served as a teacher and middle school director. New Roads School is dedicated to diversity and social justice, and Council has been a cornerstone of the school from its inception. Chris facilitated weekly classroom Councils with students as well as Councils with parents, faculty, and staff. Previously, Chris was a bilingual teacher and BTSA mentor in the Los Angeles and Hawthorne Unified School Districts. A life-long learner who has attended 14 colleges over the years, Chris earned her bachelor’s degree in communications (magna cum laude) from the University of California at San Diego and a master’s degree in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica.

​Jeannie Gunter

Jeannie Daly-Gunter, M.A., P.C.C. has been a facilitator of personal and professional growth programs, a coach and a ceremonialist for twenty-five years. She has worked nationally and internationally as a workshop facilitator, rites-of-passage guide, organizational consultant, and trainer. She is a certified Shadow Work® facilitator, a certified Council Trainer and facilitator through The Ojai Foundation, a certified professional coach, and a Voice Dialogue coach. She has been a rites-of-passage guide since 1999 and is a vision fast guide trained through the School of Lost Borders. She is Co-Founder of the Center for Soul Actualization and Transformative Loving with her husband Mark. She is also the President and Founding Director of Transformative Training, an organization that provides executive coaching and training for conscious businesses in leadership development, communication skills, conflict management, Council, and team development. In her free time Jeannie loves to spend time in nature, hike, travel, salsa dance and drive with the top down! Carpe diem!

​Marlow Hotchkiss

​Marlow is a poet, Council trainer, ecologist, and wilderness guide, with over 45 years of circle work and rites of passage with young people and adults, in classrooms and in nature. He has taught high-school and university-level courses and served as a Co-Director of the Ojai Foundation from 1999-2007. Together with other Ojai elders, Marlow offers programs in North America, Europe and Africa. He is a father, grandfather, and (as he cheerfully admits) a sort of a ‘small b’ buddhist. "I’m fascinated by human beings, how we grow and how we know. I love empowering others, elicting their innate gifts, their authentic selves. I work best in the context of partnership and group improvization. I believe deeply in the power of heartfelt, every-day talk to heal relationships and build community."

Miriam Joy Jones

​Miriam has been exploring cultural leadership, along with both social and organizational transformation and change, for over twenty five years. This curiosity has lead to a professional focus on practices and methodologies for collective wisdom, the practice of Council and Rites of Passage for all ages, wherein her personal and professional focus are deeply integrated. 

Miriam has worked with a huge variety of audiences, from homeless teenagers to executives in a boardroom of the top Fortune 500 companies, from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to those on the frontline of social justice. She has successfully founded her own companies and lead both for-profit and not for profit organizations in the personal transformation and adult education sector.

She has most recently completed a year-long journey as the Co-Executive Director of the Ojai Foundation with Adam Rumack, started a journey as a Council Trainer, and continues to partner with Adam in her leadership mentoring and organizational consulting as part of Open Circle.

​Paul LeVasseur

As an educator for over forty years, and a community activist for twenty, Paul LeVasseur continually explores ways to incorporate dialogic practices, including Way of Council, to enhance deep understanding across differences and foster vibrant, sustainable communities and relationships. He regularly uses Way of Council in a broad range of personal and professional contexts: the workplace, academic classes, meetings with local activists, in his relationship with his life partner, Bonnie Mennell, and any context that calls for deep listening and authentic speaking. Paul teaches graduate level classes in Council at SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont and offers Council trainings in the New England/New York area. He is a certified trainer in The Way of Council.

Kate Lipkis

Kate Lipkis is a former advertising copywriter, homebirth midwife’s assistant, and environmental activist. She has been sitting in circles since 1999, helping establish Council in five public schools in the LA Unified School District. She enjoys introducing the practice to new audiences – at the annual Bioneers Conference in Marin, through Center for Council’s Social Justice Council Project and prison work, via the Mother Daughter Council Retreat at The Ojai Foundation, during day-long programs in Australia, or at her home in Venice, where she offers monthly circles for practitioners and the 'Council Curious.'

David Listenberger

David Listenberger came to Council through his work in music. Hired as a singing teacher at Crossroads School in 1999, David quickly found a home practicing and witnessing the power of Council with students, parents, teachers, alum – all members of a school community. David has a B.A. in English from Chapman University, and an M.S. in Education from the University of Southern California. He is currently Chair of the Life Skills program at Crossroads School and has facilitated Councils for all manners of groups for over 13 years, including men's circles, women's circles, circles of prison inmates, religious and Rites of Passage circles. David is a firm believer in the power of ceremony and ritual in everyday life; and is specifically interested in the intersection of art, performance and Council, utilizing the Council circle to enable greater levels of openness and radical honesty in all who choose the path.

John McCluskey

John W. McCluskey, teacher, council carrier, activist, trainer, principal of Centennial Middle School, in Boulder, CO, co-founded the Colorado Center for Council Practice in 1996. He has been working to change the way we think about education and schools since 1989. Council practice has played a critical role in his efforts since 1991. He is a long-time faculty member with the PassageWorks Institute. John has held Council in diverse settings for youth, educators, men, couples, civic groups, and has been instrumental in bringing Council as a practice into many public and independent schools in Colorado and beyond. John is living in Council with his wife and three children in Longmont, Colorado.

Bonnie Mennell

Bonnie Mennell's work in and for the world is informed by her many years of language teaching, teacher training, teacher supervision and program management in diverse educational contexts around the world, her studies of and uses of Psychosynthesis in education, Vipassana meditation, Dialogue practice, Council practice, her work as a visual artist and the stewardship with her partner, Paul LeVasseur, of a beautiful 10 acres of hilltop land in Putney, Vermont. A weekly Council Walk has been a central and life-giving part of their 33-year relationship. Her consulting work in education, group dynamics and team/community building has allowed her to offer Way of Council as both explicit and implicit parts of the teacher training, curriculum development and team building work she does in educational settings (both private and public), non-profit organizations and community groups around the US and overseas. She is an adjunct professor at SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, VT.

Alan Mobley

Alan Mobley is Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Criminal Justice at San Diego State University. He teaches courses in law and society, community-based service learning, and restorative justice. His research explores the security dimensions of global interdependence and social sustainability, particularly as they affect the size and scope of corrections populations. He has a deep commitment to experiential education, participatory action research, and peer-driven communicative strategies. Alan is a founding member of All Of Us Or None, an organization working to restore full civil rights to the formerly incarcerated. He is also a practitioner-in-residence at the Sweetwater Zen Center, in National City, California and Carrier of Council at the Ojai Foundation.

Taylor Morgan

Taylor Morgan spent several years as a morning radio host before studying various healing arts. Experiencing Council for the first time was a revelation: after all those years of striving to find the "right" thing to say to engage or entertain, she discovered how powerful listening can be.

Taylor is a certified Council Trainer, writer, massage practitioner and ceremony officiant. Her business provides wellness and massage programs in corporate settings, and she has used and taught Council in schools and prisons and to facilitate ceremony for weddings, memorials and other events of significance.

Judy Piazza

Judy Piazza served The Ojai Foundation as Program Director from 2010 through 2016, and has been facilitator for youth and adult programs for more than ten years. Her exploration into the mysteries and spirit of Council has deepened exponentially over time. She has experience weaving Council into Rites of Passage retreats, nature-based Council retreats, gender-based gatherings, music workshops, women's groups, University retreats, staff retreats, conflict resolution, corporate groups, ongoing staff circles, and more. Her deep respect and joy in Council as practice has been grounded by her recognition that listening is an act of love, and that opening a space for sacred communication provides opportunities not often experienced in today's world.  

In addition, Judy has been recognized nationally and internationally in the field of music therapy and education for over 30 years, and has worked with youth and adults of all ages to nurture harmony, health, joy, and vitality in clinical and non-clinical settings. With a BA in music therapy, her journey into the healing arts deepened as she explored and experienced indigenous wisdom traditions through pilgrimage, travel, ceremony, and study. Her love of nature, harmony, sound, rhythm, and life finds expression in her work with people of all ages.

Presently, Judy lives in Green Mountain Falls, CO, and is Living Arts Program Director for Smokebrush Foundation for the Arts in Manitou Springs, CO, introducing Council to those in the state through staff gatherings, social justice organizations, and more.

Lise Ransdell

Lise Ransdell, M.A. is a certified Council trainer with Center for Council and Council in Schools. She began in Council circles 18 years ago at Palms Middle School. A group facilitator, trainer, presenter and coach, Lise comes from a professional foundation of over 20 years experience in intercultural dialogue and human relations. Lise has been an invited presenter at many conferences, exploring the complexities of race and culture in a changing world. She holds a Master's Degree in Intercultural Relations from Antioch University and the Intercultural Communication Institute.

Jane Raphael

Jane is a thirty-year veteran Los Angeles Unified School District teacher with National Board Certification and a Council trainer specializing in primary grades. Jane began using Council 13 years ago to build an inclusive community in her classroom and deepen children’s connection to the academic curriculum. She uses Council as a vehicle for developing students’ social, emotional, physical and academic potential. She has been a pioneer in fostering full school implementation of a culture of Council by including circles for school staff, for parents and families, and with community members. She has used Council for school governance, student leadership, and as a part of a restorative approach to school discipline. Jane has developed curriculum for our youngest learners, as well as for parents and teachers.

Deborah Raoult

Deborah Raoult is a longtime yoga teacher and movement educator. Her work emphasizes the dynamics of breath and motion as a discovery process and gateways to freedom. The weekly Councils she leads with women in Santa Monica weave inquiry with mindful breath and bodywork. After raising three children, founding a yoga center and leading intensives throughout the country, Deborah is now based in the Los Angeles area where her heart is continually surprised and humbled by high desert hawks and an Arabian horse named Silver.

Ken Rosen

Ken Rosen received his BA in Film Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Following graduation, he traveled and worked for five years throughout Asia, Central, and South America. Upon his return, he worked for ten years in the entertainment business until a desire to give back to his community led him to Crossroads School, where he was introduced to the way of Council in 2009. Ken earned his Masters in School Counseling from Loyola Marymount University while deepening his Council practice at Crossroads. In 2016, in addition to working full time as an Advisor and Life Skills teacher at Crossroads, Ken began facilitating Council at Snap, Inc. Through his own company, Council at Work, Ken works with organizations and schools who are looking to use Council to connect in deep and meaningful ways. Ken is married, has two daughters, and lives in Los Angeles.

Adam Rumack

Adam is the director of Mysore Oakland Yoga School, founder of The Open Circle consultancy, and former Executive Director of The Ojai Foundation.  He has been practicing council since 1996 as a student of Crossroads High School and has since incorporated Council into all he does.

Anita Samaha

Ani began facilitating outdoor educational experiences in 1999 with the Santa Barbara Middle School, helping to run their mountain biking and backpacking adventures. In 2004 she moved to New Zealand and continued to follow her passion of working with youth using one of the best teachers there is: mother nature. There she ran an outdoor program for 2 years, taking students on multi-day backpacking, surfing, and hiking adventures. Returning in 2006, she began facilitating ropes courses/team building through the Wilderness Outdoor Leadership Foundation and Camp Whittier. In 2007 she joined the youth team at The Ojai Foundation, bringing the wonderful, transformative tool of Council into her life.

Jared Seide

Jared Seide is the Director of Center for Council and has designed, piloted and coordinated Council-based programs in prisons, assisted living facilities, youth groups and a variety of non-profit and faith-based organizations and social service agencies, including “The Co-Mentoring Project” for emancipated foster youth, the “Social Justice Council Project” in partnership with the Angell Foundation and the “Prison/Reentry Council Initiative,” with the support of the Nathan Cummings and JIB Foundation, in addition to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He has also coordinated, mentored and facilitated Council programs at eleven schools in Southern California and has led “Rite of Passage” retreats for a host of middle and high school youth, in addition to coordinating the LA-based “Council Collaborative Initiative.”  Seide was coordinator of the nine-member leadership team that relaunched the "Center for Council Practice" division of The Ojai Foundation, the antecedent of Center for Council. He co-led the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Conference on integrating Council and SRM in California and Rwandan prisons and was subsequently invited by the foundation to be a Resident Fellow at the Bellagio. He has been a presenter at several conferences and seminars, speaking on the integration of Council into varied arenas. Seide’s educational background includes a BA with high honors from Brown University. Prior to his work with Center for Council, Seide led successful careers in the entertainment industry and the corporate world. He is a member of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and a sixth cohort graduate of the Chaplaincy Program of Upaya Institute, under the direction of Roshi Joan Halifax.

Sheila Siegel

Dr. Sheila Siegel has been a Council Trainer for the past two years. While she was at Harvard Westlake School as the school psychologist, she used Council with Peer Support trainees and students in her Choices and Challenges class. After retiring, she began working as a volunteer with Free the Slaves, traveling to India, Haiti, Nepal, and Ghana teaching lay staff about trauma-informed mental health care for freed slaves, as well as offering Council 1 training. She worked to help those involved in the daily struggle to liberate others develop counseling, body calming, and self-care techniques that would make their lives and the lives of those they rescue much easier. Currently she works as the clinical supervisor at Safe Place for Youth (SPY), a drop-in center for homeless youth located in Venice, California. She is involved in bringing the practice of Council to her work.

Alexis Slutzky

Alexis works with groups and individuals as a mentor​, facilitator, and guide. She has been practicing Council since her introduction to the Ojai Foundation in 1999, where she currently serves as an advisor. Alexis has shared the practice of Council in a variety of ​settings, including women’s circles, permaculture trainings, veteran retreats, public and private schools, youth groups, nonprofits locally and internationally. Alexis is a wilderness and vision fast guide trained with the School of Lost Borders, honor​ing the wisdom of indigenous traditions and the natural world. She creates and has led ​a variety of rites of passage programs for youth, as well as other nature-based programs for adults. Alexis holds a BA in psychology from UCLA and a graduate degree in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is a licensed ​Marriage and Family Therapist​ and Adjunct faculty at Antioch University. She is based in Santa Barbara, CA.

Lillian Soderman

Lillian discovered Council in April of 2011 at the memorial service of a friend, which was being lead by John McCluskey, a veteran Council trainer. The two immediately connected and decided to reconnect at a Council Training 1 in the summer. After this training, she was hooked. She left her career as an alcohol and drug counselor in Portland, Oregon and moved to Los Angeles where she could be closer to the Council action. A few years later, she was certified as a trainer. She was a part of the pilot prison program, which brought the practice to a Northern California prison. She also joined the youth program and continues to facilitate high school rites of passage trips for Los Angeles students. She now resides in the mountains of Colorado, but frequently visits Southern California to continue the work. When she's not practicing Council or being a data nerd consultant, Lillian is a musician and plays shows frequently around Colorado. 

Irasha Talifero

Irasha has been connected to The Ojai Foundation since its beginning in 1975. She has made her home in Ojai and has been a naturalist ever since, working with projects such as M.E.S.A., Naturalists at Large, Camp Whittier, Forest Hills, Taft Garden, and Wolf. She has worked as a substitute teacher for the Oak Grove School since the early 80s. Through her work as an educator and a naturalist, she has designed many programs over the years, all starting and ending with Council. Her most powerful experiences are with “at risk youth” and “newly released prisoners.” She looks forward to deepening her practice with others already on this path.

Bonnie Tamblyn

Bonnie Tamblyn is a Certified Council Facilitator and Trainer with Center for Council and Circle Ways. She served for three years in an advisory body called the Nine for the The Ojai Foundation Board. She has written Council curriculum for the Council in Schools Program. Bonnie first interned as a Council facilitator in 1993 at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences and then taught there for seventeen years in the Human Development Department. She facilitated Council at Palms Middle School, where she met Joe Provisor, and brought the program to Santa Monica Alternative School (SMASH) and Archer School for Girls. She has conducted yearly Council Intensives for GiRLFeST Hawaii, whose mission is to prevent violence against women and girls through education and art. Bonnie is the Council Mentor for the Katherine Michiels School in San Francisco, and currently serves on the Trainers Mentoring Circle, a certifying body for Trainers and Facilitators of the Ojai Foundation’s Way of Council Path.

A singer-songwriter as well, Bonnie’s passion is building community and giving voice to the human story, whether told in a Council Circle, or shared on stage with a guitar in her arms. “While I was an Artist in Residence at SMASH in the 80’s, I discovered Council through my colleagues at Crossroads. As a music and art teacher, I found Council to be wonderful process to develop authentic expression, and find meaning through our shared realities and stories. Whether through Council or music, I love bringing people together to celebrate life and tell our Stories. I embrace the harmony and discord alike on the journey we take together. I am delighted to share my curriculum with new teachers and Council facilitators. The Ojai Foundation has been my heart-place for personal growth as well. I am honored to be included in this circle of extraordinary individuals.”

Ray Tucker

 

Ray Tucker is a Certified Council Trainer for Center for Council and Council In Schools (CIS). In 1995, after an extended career in law enforcement, he successfully completed comprehensive training to become a practitioner of Council. Since that time, he has convened Council circles in a variety of diverse communities from public to private schools, special needs school for the deaf, law enforcement, foster youth in transition and many more. He co-authored the 6th grade curriculum currently used in the Council training manual for educators. Ray’s participation in the practice of Council has inspired him to share the process with anyone who will take time to listen.

Stefani Valadez

Stefani is a Certified Council Trainer who has facilitated and mentored the Way of Council for ten years in Los Angeles Unified School District classrooms and two years as part of the seminal team for Council Practices at Archer School for Girls. She has led Council retreats for Palms Middle School students and Crossroads seniors Rites of Passage at the Ojai Foundation.

She was a panel participant and performer at the Parliament of World Religions in Barcelona and has performed several times in the L.A. Sacred World Music Festival, which sparked her interest in working with interfaith communities. She volunteers at California Institute for Women leading musical activities.

Stefani is a rock 'n' roll grandma of three and performs as a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and percussionist, singing in 5 languages. She has trained in NLP with 5 Changes Evolutionary Leadership, enjoys creating one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces, is a licensed Massage Therapist, and a dedicated practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and Qi Gung. She leads a monthly women’s Council rich with women of various ages, hues, and ethnicities.

Jill Valle

Jill Valle, MA, MFT began her Council work in 2001 following her first training at The Ojai Foundation. Jill is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and holds a B.A. in Psychology from Boston College and a Masters Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. She has been a counselor and educator in schools for the past fifteen years in both California and Boston and has created life skills programs in all of her schools for grades 5-12 with Council as the foundation of the curriculum. She has led parent, student and faculty councils in addition to Council based retreats for adolescents focusing on issues of identity, body image, rites of passage, sexuality and leadership. An artist and photographer, Jill utilizes the Council process in her “I Am A Woman Who” photography campaign. The campaign seeks to empower women and girls worldwide through cathartic stream of consciousness writing, storytelling and portraiture.  

Julia Wasson

Julia Wasson is a National Board Certified third-grade teacher and mentor teacher in Los Angeles. A veteran Council trainer, she trains school faculties and organizations, and collaborates on a variety of Council-based lesson plans and activities. She has written about Council for Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and the Huffington Post. Julia is particularly interested in how the Council storytelling culture promotes students' language arts development. Julia and her teaching partner share stories on their Huffington Post blog of the passionate and heartfelt people who contribute to Los Angeles.

Natalie White

Natalie White sat in her first Council circle with educators in 1990 and knew immediately that this practice would change the way she taught, communicated, and listened in both her professional and personal life. Now a Certified Council Trainer, Natalie is an active member of Center for Council and Council In Schools. She has worked in the leadership and classrooms of Palms, Daniel Webster, Paul Revere and Marlton Schools, and coordinates the Pressman Academy Middle School Council Program. She was also a trainer and mentor in two non-profits as part of the Social Justice Council Project through Center for Council. Natalie earned her BA in English and a California Secondary Teaching Credential from UCLA, and was a Language Arts teacher for 24 years. She has her Masters degree in Clinical Psychology and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in West Los Angeles.

Jack Zimmerman

Jack Zimmerman holds a BA, MA and PhD from Yale University, Harvard University and the University of Southern California, respectively. He is the co-author of Flesh and Spirit: The Mystery of Intimate Relationship with his life partner, Jaquelyn McCandless, and co-author of The Way of Council with Gigi Coyle. Jack held several leadership roles at The Ojai Foundation over a period of 30 years, including President, and co-founded the Oakwood Secondary School in Los Angeles. Jack started Heartlight School in Los Angeles in 1979 where the use of Council in schools was initiated. The success of Council at Heartlight led to Council programs in other independent and public schools in California, and in other parts of the US, as well as abroad.