Strategies Staff

Leda Albright, a Training Specialist and Sustainability coach with Strategies, works out of the Anaheim office of the Children's Bureau. Her major statewide responsibilities include training on FRC Core, Peer Review, and Community Development and writing articles for the quarterly newsletter.

Leda served as Executive Director of a family resource center in Orange County for 9 years. She worked closely with the parent advisory committee and foster/adoptive families. Leda has extensive experience with collaboration among community and county agencies. She participated in the development of a multi-agency web-based data system. Concurrently, she was a program counselor for a social and recreational program for the developmentally disabled population, assisting in the planning, design, and supervision of special events.

Leda does volunteer work in Ensenada, Mexico and travels as often as she can.

She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of San Francisco in Human Relations and Organizational Behavior.

Leda works in Strategies' Southern California office. 

Phyllis Avilla is a Project Specialist who brings 17 years of teaching experience in the California Public School system to her position.  She is well known for her highly interactive and enthusiastic trainings in Home Visiting Essentials, Home Visiting Next Steps, and FRC Core Training.

Prior to her position with Strategies, Phyllis was Manager of the Tehama County Rape Crisis Intervention, providing the following services to clients:

• Court accompaniment and advocacy
• Facilitated Adults Molested As Children Support groups (AMAC) 
• Facilitated Crisis Line training

Phyllis has also acted as Resource Developer and Family Advocate for Tehama County Head Start, as well as Program Manager for Red Bluff and Corning Family Resource Centers (Northern Valley Catholic Social Service). Phyllis is a graduate of California State University, Chico with majors in Psychology and Education.  She also holds an Associate of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies from University of California Davis.

Phyllis works in Strategies' Northern California office. 

As a Strategies Project Specialist, Ms. Benitez has provided training and technical assistance in topic areas such as Youth Development, Parent Involvement, Case Management, Public/Private Partnerships, Domestic Violence and Home Visiting.  Ms. Benitez is also a statewide FRC coach in the Sustainability Project.

Her professional experience includes working with youth and families in school based mental health programs as well as community development programs.  Ms. Benitez directed a grass roots family resource center in the Pasadena area that was awarded the James Irvine CORAL (Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning) funding grant. Through Ms. Benitez's leadership, community parents were trained to become active leaders in their children's education.

In addition, Ms. Benitez developed a "Teen Leadership Institute" for FRC youth that provided a variety of supports that addressed the 40 developmental assets that support youth to become healthy, responsible and productive adults.

Magdalena is bicultural, bilingual in Spanish and received her Masters in Social Welfare from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999.

Magdalena works in Strategies' Southern California office.

Candace J. Carroll is a trainer/coach with Strategies, providing technical assistance and training to public and private nonprofit organizations and partnerships that strengthen families and communities. Her areas of expertise are coaching and facilitation in various components of sustainability–assessments, vision/mission/leadership, building allies and champions, fund development planning, results-based accountability, management and organizational infrastructure, and board leadership and development. She also has expertise in community organizing and development.

Candace served for six years as tribal administrator for a small California tribe, supporting its transition from an organization with small, primarily grant-funded programs to an organization with casino and private enterprise revenues supporting multiple programs, including building the organizational capacity required to meet that growth.

Candace also was director of a Community Partnership program for eight years, developing, organizing, and facilitating several networks and local coalitions of agency and community representatives to improve the quality of life in local communities.

Candace works in Strategies' Northern California office.

Belinda works at the Strategies Central Regional office as the Data & Training Support Assistant.  Her first position at Interface Children & Family Services (Strategies Central Region Host Agency) was as receptionist at the administration office with being cross trained in 211 our Information and Resource Dept. which assists those in our counties who are in need of food, shelter, legal issues, domestic violence, suicide callers,  etc.  At the end of her first year, she was asked to help close down a program called, Cresiendo y Apriendo con Amor, which was funded by First 5, to help teen parents with parenting, health issues with their children, resources, school, etc.  When that ended, she moved into Domestic Violence, oh and what an experience that was!  The clients we had, she was able to take them through TRO process and advocate for them in a court setting, “Keep the Peace” process and helping out in the Shelter, driving children to school, their parents to various types of appointments, etc., receptionist at ICFS’s Williams office, dealing with youth in the juvenile system, and was at Fourth & B office doing the same thing, then moved to Quality Assurance, which dealt with billing and lots of data entry, general office work…

Belinda is proud to be part of the Strategies Central Region office.

Samantha Florey is a Training Specialist with the Strategies' Region 3 office at the Children's Bureau in Anaheim. A Strategies staff member since early 2005, Samantha received her Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of San Diego. Upon completion of the masters program, Samantha transitioned into a Family Resource Center coordinator position for a Healthy Start program in San Diego.   She spent several years supervising front-line family support workers, conducting student growth groups, running an after school program & facilitating parent education programs.

Samantha has a strong knowledge of family support work and uses that knowledge to train on topics such as Case Management, Home Visiting and Youth Development. She works closely with numerous family support programs & collaboratives in San Diego and Imperial Counties. In her spare time, Samantha enjoys volunteering with Special Olympics and breast cancer research organizations.

Samantha works in Strategies' Southern California office.

Mr. Guillean is currently the Regional Director of Strategies Region 3.

Prior to Strategies, Mr. Guillean served as the Associate Director of the United Way Kellogg Training & Consulting Center (KTCC), a center that trained board of directors and staffs of nonprofit organizations in sound management and leadership practice.

Prior to KTCC, Mr. Guillean served as the Director of Youth Services for A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE, a nationally recognized prejudice reduction project sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League. In this effort Mr. Guillean conducted over 250 prejudice reduction and diversity trainings for preschool, after school, teen and parent programs.

His professional background also includes counseling adult and youth in the areas of child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, sexual victimization, male battering and anger management.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan and a Master's Degree in Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley.

Anthony works in Strategies' Southern California office.

Diane Hammon Kellegrew Ph.D. is the Central Regional Director.  Diane received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1994 and her BS degree in Occupational Therapy from San Jose State University in 1977.  Diane comes to the Strategies team following a 16 year career as faculty at the University of Southern California, Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy.  She entered the academic world after a busy career working with families and children with special needs, including those with mental health challenges.  She worked as a home visitor and provided services in group homes, community and hospital settings. This on-the-ground experience shaped her interest in training, including ways practitioners can best transfer new material to ‘messy’ real-life settings. While at USC, she led national efforts to develop evidence based practices and bring a research to practice perspective to those working with vulnerable families.  Diane is an advocate of FRCs and is excited to be part of Strategies efforts to provide a comprehensive approach to strengthening families.

Sarah Paige is the Data Specialist for Strategies Northern Region. She is, like many people in nonprofits, an “accidental techie” who quickly graduated from being the first person on staff to be able to produce any type of graphics to our local resource for all of our computer programs and logistical issues. Prior to her work with Strategies, she had a varied career including time spent as a Wildlife Rehabilitator, Vet Tech, Auto Mechanic, and the warehouse supervisor for Olivia Records and Cruises. In 1986, she was a community outreach specialist on the advance team for the walk across the United States known as the Great Peace March.

Ms. Rodriguez has a passion for and commitment to serve communities on an international and domestic level.  She has assisted survivors of trauma and at-risk children along with raising community awareness and response in order to promote a violence-free society.

Prior to joining Strategies, Ms. Rodriguez was the Education, Training, and Outreach program manager for Interface Children & Family Services. In this capacity, she designed and delivered hundreds of trainings to a wide range of community and governmental agencies to include staff in the District Attorney’s office, police departments, medical facilities, and faith-based organizations; as well as youth and students in higher education. She taught a court mandated parent education course, provided direct supervision for child abuse, domestic and teen dating violence program staff, contractors, and volunteers.

She is a nationally certified instructor for The Rape Aggression Defense System, a program of realistic self-defense tactics and techniques for women.

Ms. Rodriguez is a Strategies’ Project Specialist and member of the Prevention Initiative team. She is trilingual in English, Spanish and Portuguese and received her Bachelors of Art degree in Political Science with a minor in International Migration Studies from the University of California San Diego. 

Judi Sherman, MA, Ed., began her association with Strategies as a consultant in 2004 and is now staff Lead Technical Assistant Specialist. Prior to working as a consultant, Judi worked at Mountain Community Resources from 1996 to 2003 as Associate Director. Her responsibilities included program development, evaluation and management, as well as working closely with the board of directors in policy development and strategic planning. Judi represented the countywide family resource center network in community-wide collaboratives on issues such as service integration and evaluation.

Judi came to MCR from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where she was responsible for staff training and development, and became a trained facilitator. Earlier, she worked at Automatic Data Processing as Director of Customer Service, where she managed a payroll budget of $1.5 million. Judi started her career in Santa Barbara, CA as a special education teacher, earned her Masters Degree in education, then traveled extensively and established an import business.

Judi lives with her family in Ben Lomond, CA, and still loves to travel.

Judi works in Strategies' Central California office.

Alma Tovar, Project Assistant with Strategies Region 3, works out of the Anaheim office of Children's Bureau. Her major statewide responsibilities include accepting training registrations online and on the phone, maintaining accurate and up-to-date training filing system, negotiating contracts with hotels and other training locations, providing on-site logistical support to regional and statewide trainings, and participating in statewide project workgroups.

Prior to her position with Strategies, Alma worked as a Data Entry/Secretary for the Bridges for Newborn's program, a project of Children's' Bureau. While at Bridges for Newborns, Alma developed and implemented various organizational systems that are still in place. Alma has lived in Orange County for the past 27 years.

Alma has volunteered for an Orange County Hospice and Operation Gratitude, an organization that sends care packages to Military Serviceman.

Alma works in Strategies' Southern California office.

Rashida is in the Central Region as the Event Coordinator II. Rashida will lead our event coordination team and provide assistance with MOU and contract management. She has a BA degree from Paine College and a Masters Degree from the University of Colorado, Denver. Rashida has extensive experience as an event coordinator, including national event planning for a non-profit agency, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. This work included coordinating small local meetings to very large national events. Rashida managed the western region for the organization and is very familiar with the travel that can be involved with event coordination. Enterprise Community Partners provided event support for community capacity builders, including HUD. Rashida also worked as a program associate in both Denver and Dallas where she coordinated networking events, strategic relationships with donors and managed grant budgets. Rashida was employed as a Senior Administrative Assistant  at the Salvation Army in Ventura prior to joining Strategies.