Faculty
Natasha Aruliah, B.A., M.Ed. (Counseling Psychology). Natasha has worked as a counselor and therapist with a range of clients in a variety of settings both in Canada and the UK. Working with clients who experienced oppression and marginalization, and her own lived experiences led to her work in social justice focusing not only on internal change, but also external and systemic change. As an advocate, activist and change agent she has worked both within organizations, in the UK, Canada and internationally as well as independently, for over 20 years. She now works as a consultant and facilitator in all areas of diversity, social justice, equity, and inclusion.
She designs and facilitates programs in a variety of settings; community, education, healthcare, and business, as well as consulting on policy, implementation, organizational practices, structures and environments. In addition, she is on faculty and facilitates courses at UBC's Centre for Intercultural Communication and the Justice Institute of BC's Department of Counseling and Community Safety. She also continues her counseling work at an Aboriginal Healing centre.
Shakil Choudury is a highly-regarded trainer and consultant, having worked with organizations such as: Ontario Human Rights Commission, Canadian Race Relations Foundation, United World Colleges network, Toronto District School Board, South Asia Partnership, Youth Challenge International, BC Nurses Federation, and the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists. Shakil has designed and led various leadership programmes in Europe and Latin America to effectively tackle issues of integration, racism and community cohesion. His main area of focus these days is developing training and workplace materials and tools in support of the Government Racism-Free Workplace Strategy.
Ian Curtin M.T.C., Hon. B. Comm., DipC currently serves as Project Director for the Inner Activist and is a core faculty member of the Haven Institute, a Canadian residential training centre on the leading edge of personal and professional development. He is also President of IC Possibilities Consulting Inc., a Victoria based company specializing in facilitating organizational dialogues. He offers the right combination of understanding and meeting organizational requirements, balancing the needs and priorities of multiple stakeholders, and deftly navigating the group dynamics that are an integral part of any human initiative. He loves people and brings his compassion for his own frailties and those of others to every situation.
Annahid Dashtgard. With an extensive background as a leadership consultant, bodywork practitioner and social justice educator, Annahid is known as a powerful agent of change. Her specialty lies in impactful and transformative adult education, grounded in concepts of self-awareness, equity and social change. Simply put, she is a catalyst in helping people to connect more authentically to themselves, to each other and to the community at large. Annahid has over twelve years experience designing and coordinating programs at local, national and international levels, in government, education, non-profit and healthcare sectors. She uses an innovative and holistic philosophy that combines concrete leadership training with community responsibility and spiritual awareness. Also Annahid is the co-founder of Anima Leadership, a training and consulting company specializing in emotional/ social intelligence, diversity and anti-racism issues; and creating conflict-effective as well as inclusive organizations.
Julie Diamond, Ph.D. Dipl. PW, is a long-term colleague and student of Arnold Mindell, the founder of Process Work, or Process-oriented Psychology. She is one of the original group who helped found the Research Society for Process-oriented Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland, and later, the Process Work Center in Portland, Oregon. She helped develop the international training program in Process Work, and is the co-author of the Master of Arts Degree programs in Process Work and in Conflict Facilitation and Organizational Change. She wrote A Path Made by Walking: Process Work in Theory and Practice (2005) now widely used as a comprehensive text on Process Work theory and methods. Julie has over 20 years of experience helping create learning systems, developing leadership programs, and facilitating personal and organizational growth based on the deep democracy model. She is passionate about harvesting the learning and creativity implicit in the challenges people face, and in helping people bring their deepest selves into their work and life. She has a private coaching and consulting practice in Portland, Oregon, and serves as the Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Process Work Institute in Portland.
Camille Dumond is a community health worker, educator, and craftsperson who lives in northern Nova Scotia. She has used participatory action research to create change with grassroots community development organizations, and inside larger institutions on issues including economic justice, youth engagement, racism and health disparities. Currently, Camille works with the non-profit Tatamagouche Centre to develop programs which support communities to realize their vision of social justice, healing, personal and social transformation. She grows all her own vegetables, and loves to swim in lakes and learn new things.
Jean-Pierre Guilhaume mentored under Learning as Leadership’s founder Claire Nuer for 25 years. As a founding member and pillar in the organization since its inception, he has been an executive coach with LaL since 1999, moving from Paris, France, to the United States, to help expand LAL's work. Jean-Pierre's clients have ranged from organizations like NASA, NAVAIR, Shell Oil, as well as individuals, families and couples. He has a passion for building sustainable environments, whether it’s in addressing people’s relationships or with our planet's sustainability issues. He taught at Education Nationale in Paris from 1988-1999 after receiving his Masters in Education in 1988 from Université René Descartes (Paris V).
Kel Kelly has been a community organizer and facilitator for over forty years. He has been a mediator in private practice for the last 25 years. For the last decade, his practice has focused on large group facilitation and the mediation of multi-party disputes. Kel sees conflict as a catalyst for positive change, when the process is managed in an atmosphere of safety, respect and keen listening. He has been active in the British Columbia environmental movement "for a long time", with a particular focus on defending public access to and protection of BC's provincial parks. Kel is a senior coach with the Justice Institute of British Columbia and loves to teach conflict resolution skills.
Jackie Larkin has been a social justice activist 40 years: in the women's, labour and political action movements. In recent years she integrated a deep ecological perspective into her work. For nine years, Jackie has co-facilitated (with Maggie Zeigler) "Reconnecting to Life/The Work That Reconnects" Workshops which help us to explore our deepest feelings about our troubled world, to rediscover our capacity for joy and to re-create our human ecological relationship with all of life.
In 2006, she left her 13-year job as Education Coordinator for the BC Nurses Union and continues to design and facilitate leadership development, strategic planning, facilitation skills and other courses. She works primarily with unions, community groups and in the health care sector.
France Laurendeau is the founding and current director of the Collège FTQ-Fonds, a senior leadership program of the Quebec Federation of Labor (FTQ). The Collège, now ten years old, is an intensive eight week training, which enhances the capacity of union staff and elected officers to influence social, political and economic change.
In the 1980’s, France worked as public policy researcher at the FTQ. In the early 1990’s, she took a leave from the FTQ to direct the Service aux Collectivités at the Université du Québec à Montréal, building research and training partnerships between the university and unions, women’s groups and community groups. In 1997, France returned to the FTQ and was asked to set up the Collège. Learning from this experience, France is now more concerned about mental health at work for union activists, strategic thinking, effective communication, conflict resolution and applied ethics.
Cathy McNally BSc, DipC is an accomplished and creative communication specialist with over 30 years' experience in management, training, consulting, and counselling. She and her husband Ernie McNally draw much of their teaching from their own relationship. In addition to leading Relationships and the numerous other programs she has facilitated since 1998, Cathy also has 20 years' experience with Satir-based approaches to personal growth.
Ernie McNally DipC has worked with people both personally and professionally for over 40 years. Ernie's natural ability to communicate with humour and heart make him a sought-after group leader and counsellor. He and his wife Cathy have been members of The Haven Institute Core Faculty since 1998, and during that time held a variety of management and committee positions. Cathy and Ernie are deeply committed to learning, living and loving through the experiences of their own relationship. Their diverse passions and interests have found them involved with groups and projects from Asia, Central America and the Canadian North; in fields such as environmental property development, responsive management structures and relational learning.
Parker Johnson has more than 20 years of experiences as a facilitator, trainer, and researcher in organizational change, diversity in the workplace, and intercultural communication. Parker also works with higher education institutions, profit and non-profit organizations focusing on facilitating leadership development, organizational change, engaging diversity, and creating inclusive and just communities. As a community activist, Parker has collaborated with community organizations to address concerns of youth and immigrant communities. His passion lies in working with people to live as a more compassionate, just, inclusive and responsible society.
Gary Reiss holds a Master's degree in Social Work from Washington University, a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies in Process-oriented Psychology and Conflict Resolution from Union Institute and University; and a Diploma in Process Oriented Psychology. He’s been in private practice in Oregon as a LCSW for over 30 years, and teaches worldwide as a Certified Process Oriented Psychology Trainer. Gary has been active for many years in the Middle-East peace group and facilitates conflict work in the Middle East; helping develop Process oriented family therapy and integrating shamanism, Taoism, Kabbalah, and other spiritual approaches into Process Work.
Penny Wassman is a certified trainer and one of 3 assessors for North/South America for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. One of the original founders of the BC Network for Compassionate Communication in British Columbia, Canada, Penny has offered trainings in the Nonviolent Communication process to people in Canada and in the USA since 1999. She has facilitated at several CNVC international sessions (IIT’s) and worked as an independent consultant and trainer in public venues as well as in organizations of all sizes. As mentor and advisor, Penny also offers individual NVC sessions to clients throughout North America.
Maggie Ziegler. The Reconnecting to Life process integrates Maggie's background and experience as a psychotherapist, educator, facilitator, and community activist. With thirty years professional experience as a psychotherapist in the traumatic stress and violence against women field, she locates healing for individuals within an understanding of the root causes of trauma and violence. Maggie has extensive experience delivering professional education training, developing training programs and providing clinical supervision and consultation services.
Her community involvement is local (Conservancy Board member) and global. Internationally, Maggie supports women victims of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In India she volunteered on a mental health project that trained local service providers in supporting traumatized tsunami survivors, and she has made multiple trips to Japan to deliver domestic violence intervention training. She currently is involved in supporting export zone factory workers in Kenya to bring HIV/AIDS education to their communities and is providing trauma support services to victims of violence in Rwanda.
Carole Levy (Inner Activist blog contributor) is an Executive Coach and facilitator, with extensive experience in the non-profit and academic sectors. Since 2001, Carole has taught clients at institutions such as EMCF, Ford Foundation, Bridgespan., and Harvard Business School to transform their relationships through forging more authentic communication. As the director of LaL’s creative department, she develops improvisational skits and humorous cartoons to illustrate LaL tools and concepts. Prior to working at LaL, she ran a multi-site optical retail organization in France. Carole earned her master’s degree from the Université Paris Sorbonne and did graduate studies in group facilitation and conflict resolution at the University of Tours in France. An avid cartoonist with a unique mixture of humor and depth, she explores the foibles of the human ego on her blog (LittleCarotte) and forthcoming book, The Bumpy Road to Collaboration.
Frank Quinby M.A. (Inner Activist blog contributor) maintains a psychotherapy practice, leads groups in Nonviolent Communication and co-owns a management consulting firm. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Contact Project. Over the years Frank has had a number of careers in counseling and group leading, management consulting, university research, the entertainment business and oceangoing sailboat manufacturing. For 23 years Frank has led a variety of groups facilitating personal growth and lifestyle education.
Dr. Martin Davidson (Inner Activist blog contributor) teaches Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Darden, and has served as the Faculty Leader for the Leadership and Diversity section. And he served two years as the Associate Dean and Chief Diversity Officer for the Darden School, where he is worked to create a more diverse and inclusive environment for faculty, administration, staff, and students.