CONSULTANTS
Vincent Perez
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Vincent serves as the Executive Director for the Equity Institute. Vincent’s vocation is dedicated to the art and skill of facilitation. Meaningful learning experiences that honor the identities and dignity of participants are his first priority. Vincent founded La Cima Bilingual Leadership to serve the burgeoning Latinx population in 2004 (this later led to the middle school program ¡La Chispa! (the Spark!)), Rethink Manhood to promote healing-centered masculinity in 2016, and the Equity Institute in 2020 (a collective of equity consultants and researchers for racial healing and social justice). Vincent began exploring trauma-informed practices in 2012 and the study has deeply enriched his personal and professional life. He serves school systems through a trauma-informed multi-tiered system of support.
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Trauma-informed,
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Brenda Ochoa
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There’s not a lot of people you would know that both have a brave heart and a critical mind. The beauty of one’s insides doesn’t just stay in your body and illuminate your being, but what could be more beautiful is how you help others through the many things you do, whether it be for your family, for your friends, or for your community.
Brenda identifies as Chicana and uses she/her/ella pronouns. She is currently participating from Seattle, WA which is on the unceded territories of the Suquamish, Duwamish, Stillaguamish, and Coast Salish people. She comes to this work as a first-generation college student, an educator, an older sister, a daughter to Mexican parents who pursued the “American Dream”. She is Co-Director for La Cima, works for Equity Institute as their Youth Program Director and is also the co-founder of Sisterhood Nation alongside Kim Jansen.
Brenda’s work revolves around equity, diversity, anti-racism, social and racial justice, environmental justice, and women empowerment. She does this via mentorship, facilitation, and project management. She’s served Lake Washington School District, Lopez Island SD, Orcas Island SD, Wenatchee SD, to name a few. She’s always happy to uplift colleagues and partner with organizations in her field. During her free time, she enjoys spending time connecting with nature with her very sweet and loving golden retriever puppy. She also enjoys resting and grounding deep spiritual practices like acupuncture and somatic therapy.
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Culturally responsive pedagogy, near-peer mentoring, youth programs, Latine youth, curriculum development, public speaking, Story-telling.
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Kim Jansen
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Kim Jansen is the co-founder of Equity Institute (with Vincent Perez) and Sisterhood Nation (with Brenda Ochoa). Her background is in experiential education with an emphasis on humanizing/healing-centered practices, women’s empowerment, Latinx youth, and adults with disabilities.
Under the umbrella of the Association of Washington Student Leaders (AWSL), Kim had the opportunities to facilitate and co-create culturally responsive curriculum for programs like La Cima, La Chispa, L.E.A.P.’s Peer Leaders program, and The Dare to Dream Academies. She has extensive experience as a facilitator and educator. She has had the opportunity to teach and advise many different kinds of groups, from high school leadership camps to Superintendent PDs and training for government agencies.
Kim’s current focus is on healing-centered and culturally responsive practices. She is also passionate about her work engaging with clients in conversations about race and gender. In this work, Kim leads with curiosity and genuine interest. An expert at spotting patterns of thinking and behavior in a complex society, she is a fan of truth and hard/heart conversations. Kim likes to build a foundation by having people explore, and then root themselves in, their personal values. This helps us ease into the necessary work around cognitive dissonance (our defensiveness when confronted with our own unexplored blind spots and biases) in a non-judgemental, self-motivated way. She is endlessly interested in practices that center on the mental and physical well-being of everyone involved.
Kim navigates the world as a chronically ill person. She is housebound at times and uses a wheelchair to access the rest of the world. This means any collaborations with Kim will also have to include wheelchair-accessible accommodations. Kim uses she/her pronouns.
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Humanizing Practices, Women & Girls, Student Programming, Diversity & Equity, Culturally Responsive, Identity & Dignity, Healing Centered, Circle Training, Disability, LGBTQ+, Latinx Youth, Neurodivergence
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kim.jansen@equity.institute
Joe Fenbert
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Behind every person’s achievements, goals, and dreams is a loving brilliant mentor who wishes for nothing more than the success and fulfillment of their mentee. Joe Fenbert is a mentor to Vincent Perez and he has greatly contributed to the decisions that have brought Equity Institute to where it is now.
Joe has served more than 35 years in education in a variety of roles. He has 11 years of classroom experience including eight years teaching middle-level students at Tonasket Middle School (Tonasket SD) and Evergreen Middle School (Everett SD) and three years teaching at international schools in Venezuela and Honduras. For 25 years, he worked for the Association of Washington Student Leaders at the Cispus Learning Center teaching outdoor education, leadership, and team building on a high and low challenge course. Joe served on the White Pass School Board for eight years as the Legislative Representative and co-created a volunteer community-based mentor program called the LOU Crew (Linking Our Youth) for the White Pass Schools. He has also been a track and field coach, ASB adviser, youth group leader, and field supervisor of teacher candidates for the City University of Seattle.
Joe was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Federal Way graduating from Federal Way High School in 1980. He attended Green River Community College where he was elected student body president, and he earned an education degree from Eastern Washington University where he lettered in track and field. Joe’s wife Roanne is an elementary school teacher and their oldest son Bradley is a teacher and their youngest son Jeffrey has a Natural Resources Degree and works for the United States Forest Service.
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White affinity space, team building, project management
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joe.fenbert@equity.institute
COLLABORATORS
Fernell Miller
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"Excellence is nothing without the courage to execute it" Audre Lorde
My work as an educator spans 40 years and carries deep roots of community trust among youth, families, educators, and community members. I understood at a very young age that my humanity and very existence as a Black girl were being challenged. I continue as an education activist, youth advocate, and community organizer as a result of my own “Ruby Bridges” experiences of racism throughout my educational experience. My racial identity was attacked by my peers and educators, I was completely erased from the curriculum, and the anti-blackness practices along with extreme racial isolation were, and still are, excruciating and exhausting. Ruby and I need everyone to embrace cross-racial solidarity, intersectional social justice, and center our humanity, in order for us ALL to be liberated and heal. So yes, I will continue educating, advocating, and organizing, even after I retire from teaching.
Since I rarely saw a positive representation of black identities that was needed in order to see myself in the world, so I decided to become an educator and BE what I wanted to see. I returned to shine a light in the very place where I was diminished, in order to disrupt the white narrative. I served as a mirror for the Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Students of Culture who were yearning for that representation as I did for so long, while also providing a window for White youth and adults, to unlearn the roots of bias and privileges which we all have, and relearn the value of our diversity, solve inequities and truly develop a culture of belonging.
“I had to create brave spaces where we could show up with our full Identities, without apology or explaining why we need spaces that reflect the true history of Black people; by centering our brilliance, beauty, contributions and the resilience of black humanity which represents who we are, and who we want to be in the world.” - Fernell Miller
My roots of commitment to disrupting white-centered education and racial inequities over the past four generations are deep due to the intentionality around taking a teaching position in PE/Health. Everybody gets to take PE - and see beautiful Black me - Right? I've cultivated and cherished so many rich relationships that are built on truth, transparency, and trust. I'm often told how much I have enhanced our learning community, especially among Black, Brown, and Indigenous families and students of Culture. My very presence in a predominantly white community presents many opportunities to address the racism we were taught not to see, not to hear, and certainly never to speak about. My plan is working!
This is what led me to open Racial Healing Circles. I needed a space to begin these transforming conversations with everybody in 'zoom'. Families and folks of all ages, ethnicities, races, cultures, genders, languages, and abilities are welcome, wanted, and needed in our circles.
We are each other's medicine - we are each other’s healing.
Knowing ourselves, and digging up our roots, is the first step in building strong diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities of practice. From this groundwork comes the knowledge needed to build strong, resilient, multicultural, multiracial teams, organizations, and communities - the sturdy trunk. It is there where we branch out and embrace each other, always working towards the establishment of a just society. Roots, trunk, branches. - Fernell Miller
The Root Of Us works with the Equity Institute in educational, government, and nonprofit organizations in service of racial healing, racial solidarity, and intersectional social justice. We shape our work to fit your needs and we can't wait to meet, work, build, learn and heal with you.
We are rooting for you!
Fernell Miller
Founder and CEO of The Root Of Us.
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Erin Jones
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Erin Jones has been involved in and around schools for the past 26 years. She has taught in a variety of environments, from predominantly Black to predominantly White to some of the most diverse communities in the nation. Erin received an award as the Most Innovative Foreign Language Teacher in 2007, while working in Tacoma, WA, and was the Washington State Milken Educator of the Year in 2008, while teaching in Spokane. She received recognition at the White House in March of 2013 as a “Champion of Change” and was Washington State PTA’s “Outstanding Educator” in 2015. After serving as a classroom teacher and instructional coach, Erin worked as an executive for two State Superintendents. Erin left the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2012 to work in college access at the school district level. She left her job to run as a candidate for State Superintendent and was the first Black woman to run for any state office in Washington state, a race she lost by a mere 1%.
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Trauma-informed,
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Dr. Mollie Monahan
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I always thought of myself as a "good white" person. After all, I did my best to be kind to everyone. I never thought I participated in racism until my first Black supervisor called me out on some stuff I had no idea I was doing.
I was 18 years old. I was shocked. I got defensive... but when I had enough time to calm down, apologize and reflect, I wondered...
What else do I need to know about everyday racism, that I don't even know I don't know?
An imperfect question, for sure, but that's where I started. It was one that leads to some answers and action and even more questions.
That's where the building blocks for LOVE KIDS started coming together.
It is everything I wish someone had taught me before college, career, and kids.
It is 20+ years of my learning - showing up, messing up, being called out and in, and figuring out how to do better - distilled down into 8 weeks of essential knowledge and skills.
That process, for me, is ongoing. It is the most humanizing, humbling, and deeply joyful experience I've ever had.
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Trauma-informed,
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Dr. Jen Self
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Dr. Jen Self, LICSW (they/them) is the CEO/Founder of Brick 13, a Critical Equity Educational Consulting and Coaching LLC. They are also a part-time Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work, and have coached, educated, and developed leaders across industries, from non-profits to government to corporate.
Jen credits their early experiences as a gender outlaw and time playing Pac-12 basketball for Cal as the impetuses for their life’s dedication to intersectional racial and gender justice. Dr. Self is a
visionary, an outcast, an innovator, a community builder, a chameleon, a connector of ideas and people, a musical theater nerd, a continual learner, a co-host of the podcast All the Things-PNW (Spotify), a creator, a parent, a pro-femme space advocate, a partner, a survivor of many things, always a radical truth-teller, and even on a good day, continually shaking off the teachings of White supremacy.
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Coaching Specialties:-Emotional Intelligence & Leadership
-Promotion Readiness & Transition
-Emergent Strategy & Consent-Driven Decision-Making
-LGBTQI+ Leadership Development
-Navigating the Corporate Space with Authenticity
-Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (JEDI) Executive Leadership
-Executive Leadership Confidence
Subject Area Expertise:-Emotional intelligence
-Effective influencing
-Leading for innovation
-High-performing teams
-Learning & development strategy & program management:
*Program & curriculum audit & review
*Design, development, and facilitation of live workshop content
-Building equitable organizations:
*Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal, and Internalized privilege & oppression
*Anti-racism & Anti-Blackness
*Gender & Sexuality
*Intersectionality
*Trauma & Mental Health
*Organizational auditing
*Interpretive & qualitative research
-Higher education leadership:
*JEDI for higher education
*Mentoring for students
*Higher education policy leadership
*Curriculum auditing
-Backgrounds in corporate, nonprofit, & academic sectors
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AFFILIATES
Érica González Jones
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"Quisieron enterrarnos, no sabían que éramos semillas." "They tried to bury us, they didn't know we were seeds."
As a Black~Indigenous~Chicana who also has Grandmothers from Ireland, England, and Spain, Érica (ella/she) holds the experience of being a healer that is always healing, an educator that is always learning, a water seeking-cloud watching-tree hugging- amateur mushroom foraging (mycelium is amazing!) nerd. Beginning the journey of being an educator while in school herself, she entered into the field of education to be the educator she needed that she never had/saw. Having many years advocating for students, families, and colleagues, she is deeply committed to disrupting systems of oppression while radically dreaming towards liberation.
A self-described autodidact, she enjoys all things personal development and community building. Committed to creating space for folx to show up as authentically as they can, she often uses storytelling to hold such spaces. She holds a passion for reclamation and reconnecting work in that authenticity. Being Social Justice minded she incorporates JEDI practices into her work and learning.
Working at Puget Sound ESD to diversify educator pathways, with a focus on retention of Educators of Color in the Puget Sound region and beyond, she fully believes in the cultural community wealth and abundance that is innate in Educators of Color. This wealth not only benefits students of color, but all students.
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Trauma-informed,
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erica.gonzalezjones@equity.institute
Bawaajigekwe Boulley
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Trauma-informed,
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Fran Davidson
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I identify as white, European Canadian of Irish and English descent, and use she/her pronouns, am cis-gendered. I learned racism growing up in my community and extended family - it was explicit. I didn't begin to understand the correlation between racism and unearned white privilege 'til much later. This is my work: challenging white privilege, internalized white superiority, and systems of white supremacy that are the spine of this country. These individual, cultural and institutional expressions of racism are toxic to all children and must be dismantled for the healthy growth and development of all.
In 2002, the Praxis Institute for Early Childhood Education (“Praxis-ECE” or “Praxis”) grew out of the vision of a core group of early childhood/elementary educators and activists in Seattle (many of whom have been associated with Pacific Oaks College Northwest). The educators wanted to create a college and a demonstration lab, which also served as a school for children, focused on social change, social justice, cultural relevancy, leadership, and empowerment.
We want to create a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual teaching and learning community that is:
-Developmentally appropriate for children
-Professionally relevant to the adults who touch their lives
-Racially and economically accessible
Especially to those children and adults who have the fewest resources when it comes to navigating and negotiating our educational systems.
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Trauma-informed,
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Cory Gann
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Cory is “Papa” to granddaughter Harlow and step-grandchildren Lily and Henry. While teaching adult preservice teachers, writing about literacy, and serving as co-chair of Praxis are all part of his linked in profile, it’s being with kids that does the trick. Cory is professor emeritus at Central Washington University, and he taught in the early childhood program for years and years. He is one of the early members of the Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Leadership Group and he was a task force member for the first edition of Anti-Bias Curriculum: Empowering Young Children. His book on Literacy, Key Words: Reclaiming Children’s Precious Vocabulary was published in May 2018.
In 2002, the Praxis Institute for Early Childhood Education (“Praxis-ECE” or “Praxis”) grew out of the vision of a core group of early childhood/elementary educators and activists in Seattle (many of whom have been associated with Pacific Oaks College Northwest). The educators wanted to create a college and a demonstration lab, which also served as a school for children, focused on social change, social justice, cultural relevancy, leadership, and empowerment.
We want to create a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual teaching and learning community that is:
-Developmentally appropriate for children
-Professionally relevant to the adults who touch their lives
-Racially and economically accessible
Especially to those children and adults who have the fewest resources when it comes to navigating and negotiating our educational systems.
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Trauma-informed,
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Liz Cruz
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Liz Cruz (she/they) is the Founder & Principal of Liz Cruz Consulting. Prior to leading her practice, Liz spent over 10 years in the corporate space (retail and technology) as a coach, leadership development program leader, and organizational effectiveness consultant. You’ll find Liz coaching individuals and teams, facilitating, nerding out about EQ, or ruminating on wholehearted leadership over a cup of (decaf) coffee. Liz enjoys working with a diverse mix of clients; a special area of focus is Queer (LGBTQ+) leadership development.
Liz’s approach is informed by her deeply held belief that each of us is inherently brilliant, and that the best solutions to our leadership challenges are found in our deep knowledge of ourselves. She is an eternal optimist, a queer leadership fanatic, a frequent teller of not-that-funny jokes, a lifelong artist (current love: watercolor), relentlessly curious, a deep empath, and despite all outward appearances, definitely an introvert.
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Coaching Specialties:
-Emotional Intelligence & Leadership-Promotion Readiness & Transition
-Emergent Strategy & Consent-Driven Decision-Making
-LGBTQI+ Leadership Development
-Navigating the Corporate Space with Authenticity
-Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (JEDI) Executive Leadership
-Executive Leadership Confidence
Subject Area Expertise:
-Emotional intelligence-Effective influencing
-Leading for innovation
-High-performing teams
-Learning & development strategy & program management:
*Program & curriculum audit & review
*Design, development, and facilitation of live workshop content
-Building equitable organizations:
*Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal, and Internalized privilege & oppression
*Anti-racism & Anti-Blackness
*Gender & Sexuality
*Intersectionality
*Trauma & Mental Health
*Organizational auditing
*Interpretive & qualitative research
-Higher education leadership:
*JEDI for higher education
*Mentoring for students
*Higher education policy leadership
*Curriculum auditing
-Backgrounds in corporate, nonprofit, & academic sectors
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Sebrena Burr
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Trauma-informed,
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Bonita Lee
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Bonita is a community connector who has worked with schools and non-profits for over 20 years. She focuses on individual, student, and family access through empowerment.
Bonita is a systematic disruptor to oppressive systems that prohibit equal access to marginalized groups. She is passionate about connecting the Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) community to opportunities and resources that can be embedded in the family’s fabric for generations. Her background in Global Studies, with a focus on marginalized groups throughout history, has fueled her passion for equity and inclusion.
Bonita believes communities can thrive through mutual respect, understanding, empathy, and collective partnerships. In her current position as a Family and Community Partnership Coordinator, she works with students, community members, schools, and local agencies to foster active advocacy. She helps develop and design outreach programming that engages diverse groups of individuals in community-based partnerships while bringing community members together.
Bonita’s passion for equity and inclusion has led her to serve on the district equity team and as an active member of her building’s Equity Steering Committee. She created the People of Color Group (POC) in her building to help provide a safe space for BIPOC staff members to connect authentically and collectively, with the goal of fostering staff retention.
Bonita served on the Advisory Committee to the African American Study Group for Washington State. The committee’s responsibility was to review the curriculum materials currently available and recommend ways to integrate African American History into all history classes grades 7-12. The committee was also compelled to recommend the professional development required to implement African American History in 7-12 grade classrooms. Prior to her work in schools, Bonita worked as a Behavioral Health Social Worker in corporate America, which caused her to develop a passion for reducing barriers to all forms of mental health treatment. Her passion for working with people who struggle with substance use disorder (SUD) and behavioral health (BH) disorders is fueled by hope and advocacy. Her professional career, which spans education, nonprofit, and behavior health, continues to be the driving force for her commitment to excellence in connecting community and individuals to equity and mutual respect.
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Trauma-informed,
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Delbert Richardson
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Delbert Richardson is the Founder and Curator of the American History Traveling Museum: The Unspoken Truths. The Museum chronicles the rich history of Africans in Africa prior to American Chattel Slavery, the experiences and impact of American Chattel Slavery and of the Jim Crow Era, while also detailing the many contributions African Americans have had on scientific, cultural, and technological inventions/innovations in the U.S. and the world.
The Museum’s mission is to re-educate learners of all ages, in a manner that leads to self- restoration and community healing, with the eventual goal of implementing its teachings into school curricula, institutions, and organizations committed to cultural competence and social justice.
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Trauma-informed,
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The Unspoken Truths