Hi, I’m Kim.
Facilitation Style
I seamlessly borrow from and incorporate a wide variety of trainings, approaches, and schools of thought, including:
Midwest Academy Organizing for Justice training (Parts I & II)
Children's Defense Fund policy advocacy training
Appreciative Inquiry
Frameworks Institute (strategic frame analysis)
Program evaluation (ORS Impact)
Margaret Wheatley's theory of organizational change
Ethnographic interviewing
Nonviolent Communication (CNVC)
My facilitation style is largely informed and guided by The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner.
Experience
I have over 35 years of experience doing meeting facilitation, strategic planning, leadership development, social action research, policy development, community organizing, advocacy and coalition-building. While I have an in-depth understanding of issues affecting early childhood and elementary education, I have a deep interest in all social and environmental issues facing us in the 21st century.
My career began in 1986 as Research Director for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, where I also received formal community organizing training through Midwest Academy. My policy and research skills were honed while Co-Director of the Child Care Division at the Connecticut Association for Human Services. I served as Coordinator of Vermont's early childhood coalition (Kids Are Priority One Coalition) for eleven years. One of my first projects as a consultant was oversight of the development of Vermont's Early Childhood Framework and Action Plan and organization of the Governor's Early Childhood Summit in 2013.
Other professional experiences helped me sharpen my program evaluation skills. These included six years doing ethnographic work for a federal demonstration project that became Early Head Start and for a related project overseen by the Harvard Family Research Project.
I speak Spanish and French fluently and have lived in Spain, Central America and Switzerland.
I served for 5 years as Chairperson of the Brookline-Newfane Joint School Board (Vermont) after serving as Newfane School Board Chair.
I live in southern Vermont with my husband. We have two adult children. In addition to teaching yoga, I enjoy skiing, writing poetry, and international travel.
