Strategies Trainers

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. 

Geoffrey Biggs, M.A., has been a training specialist with Strategies since 2002. He has been a trainer for the FRC Core, Home Visiting, and Case Management trainings as well as the Family Support Training Series. Prior to joining Strategies, Geoff worked as the director of the Home Visiting programs at Interface Children Family Services in Ventura County. He also has an extensive background as a counselor at inpatient psychiatric hospitals. "I became involved in Family Support programs because they provide the opportunity to help children and families when their difficulties are much smaller than if we do nothing until a person is in so much difficulty that they need to be hospitalized."

Geoff is also the composer of the "Family Support Superhero" Song.

Geoff works in Strategies' Central 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.

Jodi Doane, Human Capital Advisor

Jodi Doane is a gifted writer, negotiator and advocate.  With more than twenty years’ experience serving clients and families in the social service industry, Ms. Doane has impacted the lives and helped shape the futures of thousands of young people and families.  In building community partnerships, Ms. Doane helps businesses work together to meet their needs and those of the neighbors they will serve. She has earned the respect of community leaders, elected officials, neighbors, and potential neighbors in those communities in which she works.

Ms. Doane is a leading voice in Illinois public policy for services to youth, and is a trusted advisor to many. She regularly provides testimony and/or counsel to members of the IL General Assembly on the impact that proposed legislation would have on Illinois’ most vulnerable youth and families. Her work has: helped to ensure that youth who leave the foster care system before they are ready to live on their own will have a safety net to return to, and services available to them; helped to create a Children’s Savings Account program for all children born in Illinois into homes earning below the poverty line; provided information to support new consumer protection legislation regarding utilities, for youth who are living on their own for the first time; rallied support and action for common-sense gun legislation in Illinois; contributed to legislative language and organizational policy to reduce and prevent discrimination against LGBTQ young people; and worked extensively, gathering support for legislation that funds Illinois’ foster care system at the actual cost of care level.

Empowering young people to believe they do have a voice and helping them to sophisticate it to bring about change has been especially rewarding.  From her guidance, young people have held audiences with statewide and regional officials running for office or holding office. She is a former chair of the Child Welfare League of America’s Midwest Region Public Policy Committee and a member of two statewide public policy committees.

She is an accomplished fundraiser, program developer, and business woman.   Her years of expertise in writing grant applications to government and private funders, as well as government contract applications, have allowed her to help organizations exceed their annual operational budget goals and to significantly expand their customer base.   She has helped individuals realize their dream of starting a non-profit organization and is humbled to have been named to the Board of Directors of the Women Only Self Defense Network, a new non-profit organization located in Riverdale, IL. She has been active on four organizational boards in Illinois.  Ms. Doane holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. 

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.

Sarah Frohock is a Prevention Project Specialist with Strategies, working within the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Initiative. Her primary roles within the initiative are training, technical assistance, and policy/systems activities.

Sarah has been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker since 2005. Prior to her work with Strategies, she was a Director of Foster Care Services, overseeing the programmatic and clinical operations of traditional, treatment, and transitional living foster care services within a non-profit setting. She has also worked in partnership with child welfare to facilitate strengths-based family team decision making processes with biological families of children in foster care. Sarah has worked extensively in the community around poverty, homelessness, and economic human rights issues and has taught social work at the university level. She has been a Certified Domestic Violence Counselor since 1998, and received a Master of Social Work from San Jose State University in 2000.

 Scott Graves, Senior Policy Analyst, California Budget Project

Scott Graves has worked for the California Budget Project since 2002, analyzing health, human services, child care, corrections, housing, and other issues at both the state and federal levels. Prior to joining the CBP, Scott worked as a researcher in Austin, Texas, for the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, Consumers Union, and the Public Policy Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. He also was a California executive fellow and worked as a reporter for newspapers in Arizona and California. Scott received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor's degree in government and journalism from California State University, Sacramento.

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.

Rick Pero is with Strategies Statewide Training and Technical Assistance team as a Project Specialist II, emphasizing family resource center sustainability. He has extensive experience training and presenting in a diversity of settings from rural county programs to national level private, nonprofit agencies. He has held several public sector positions, including supervising CalWORKS and “Workforce Investment Act” Case Managers. Rick has 15 years teaching experience in university, college, and high school positions. His practical experience includes work with the Federal Government and several management positions. After creating and running his own several-million dollar small business corporation, Rick went on to develop a successful consulting and coaching practice. His education combines a Business Administration / Finance degree with graduate work in Behavioral Sciences / Human Development. Rick holds several certifications in the fields of Emotional Intelligence, Consulting, Coaching, Banking, and Career Counseling.

Rick works in Strategies' Northern California office. 

Daphne Quick-Abdullah, MSHS, has been a training specialist with Strategies since 1997. She has been a trainer for the California Peer Review Process, FRC Core Training, Tapestry, Self Care, High Performance Partnership, and Youth Development. Her most recent work with Strategies has included coordinating and facilitating regional and statewide projects in collaboration with nonprofit organizations and networks. Daphne spearheaded and supervised the production of the California Family Resource Center Videos. She also has an extensive background working with nonprofit organizations which includes community relations, volunteer coordinating, education, and program development and implementation, as well as direct services with children and families. “My passion for working with individuals and communities to support them in personal growth and social transformation is what lead me to the human services field.”

Daphne works in Strategies' Central California office.

Jennifer Rose has been working as an advocate & activist to end violence against women and children for over 15 years.  As the director of domestic violence services at the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center, Jennifer worked to build a program that provided both crisis intervention and long term advocacy and support for survivors and their families. In this role she also opened a supervised visitation center that was part of a national demonstration initiative funded through the Office of Violence Against Women.  A significant component of this program was working with a national learning community and the Family Violence Prevention Fund to create and implement creative strategies to engage abusive fathers in supervised visitation centers. Jennifer is currently working as a consultant, locally and nationally, to provide training and technical assistance on the issues of family violence, supervised visitation, oppression, community organizing, and LGBTQ issues.  She received her BA in Anthropology and Women’s Studies from Fort Lewis College and her MSW from San Jose State University.

Kathleen Shenk is the Northern Regional Director.  She brings extensive experience in the nonprofit sector and a long-standing passion for the health and well-being of individuals, children, and families. Under her leadership as an executive director in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years, her agency was recognized for its strong commitment to community development and collaborative projects and was a two-time recipient of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Community Fitness and Professional Excellence.

More recently, as the Deputy Director of KidsFirst (formerly the Placer Child Abuse Prevention Council), Kathleen had primary oversight of four community-based family resource centers working closely with Child Welfare Services and Differential Response. She developed, implemented, and evaluated a broad range of prevention oriented programs.  Kathleen’s experience also includes curriculum development and local, regional, and state training delivery. She has managed 5-6 significant collaborative projects annually and brings a philosophy of collaborative achievement to Strategies. Within the past year, Kathleen authored two research-to-practice papers for use in youth and addiction prevention programs.

Kirsti has been working in the field of Child and Youth Development for over twenty years and she has worked with a wide range of programs serving infants through school age children and their families.  Since her career beginnings with the YMCA, she has since worked with a variety of program types, including State and Federally funded child development programs, non-profit, private, faith based, and municipal programs as Program Director, Administrator, and Program Development Coordinator.  Kirsti is passionate about program quality planning and improvement and has worked with several programs through the NAEYC and NAA Accreditation process.  She has extensive knowledge of the Harmes Environment Rating Scale tool and conducts trainings, program observations and quality improvement plans using the tool throughout Ventura County.

Kirsti has been a trainer and facilitator in the Child Development field for the last 11 years and has trained with the following organizations:  the California Association for the Education of Young Children (CAEYC), the California School Age Consortium (CalSAC), the California Healthy Kids Resource Center (CHKRC), the National Afterschool Association (NAA), and Integriteach. She has presented a variety of topics at several State and National conferences.

Kirsti began her career as a Project Specialist with Strategies in the Central Region in December of 2010.  She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from San Jose State University in Recreation Administration.

Heath Wickline

Heath Wickline helps nonprofits tell their stories. He has spent the past decade helping his clients figure out who they need to be talking to, what to say, and how to do it with clarity, forcefulness, and style—all while staying within their budgets. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Heath worked as a Senior Account Manager at Underground Advertising. Before that, he served as Director of the SPIN Project, a nonprofit communications capacity-building organization. Over the years, he has worked with hundreds of nonprofit organizations, foundations, and government agencies across the country, including Just Detention International, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Earthjustice.
His work has ranged from creating communications plans and messaging strategies to managing advertising campaigns; producing publications, websites, and viral videos; and training nonprofit leaders in the essentials of effective communications.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Boston University and a Master’s in International Relations from San Francisco State University. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Erica, and their son, Emmet.