Elaine Lin Hering is a facilitator, speaker, and writer.

She works with organizations and individuals to build skills in communication, collaboration, and conflict management. Elaine has worked on six continents and with a wide range of corporate, government, and nonprofit clients. 

She has trained mental health professionals, political officials, religious communities, and leaders at companies including American Express, Capital One, Google, Nike, Novartis, Shell, Pixar, and the Red Cross. 

Elaine is a former Managing Partner of Triad Consulting Group and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, specializing in dispute resolution, mediation, and negotiation.

You can learn more about Elaine and her book "Unlearning Silence" at www.elainelinhering.com!

Blickwedel, a VA VET Center counselor, fought valiantly to protect veterans, their families and counselors from the VA’s misguided, harmful and unethical clinical performance policies, which turned patients into numbers and severely compromised the mental health and welfare of both Veterans and the counselors who care for them. 

Despite enduring the unjust and toxic retaliation tactics inflicted on him by VA officials, Blickwedel marched steadfastly on, determined to expose and correct the callous abuse and misconduct perpetrated by VA management. 

**Content Warning** This episode mentions the occurrence of gun violence from a survivor's perspective and may be activating for some viewers and listeners.

Krista Hanley (she/her) is a writer, public speaker, artist, and safety programs facilitator. As a co-founder of the organization, We Are Safer Together, she is passionate about helping empower individuals and communities to gain effective strategies that foster safety, connection, and authenticity. She is an empathetic speaker and facilitator with a unique story about regaining her confidence and voice after surviving the Columbine High School Shooting. Her writing has been published in publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Memoir Magazine, and in the compilation, Stories Gathered at the Kitchen Table: A Collection of Women’s Memoirs. Krista's forthcoming memoir is focused on finding resilience and coming to terms with her trauma after surviving Columbine. She lives in Lakewood, CO.

On this episode of Disrupting the Dominoes, our CEO, Arlene Limas, chats with Deputy Librarian, Deb Sica. Together, they address the changing role of libraries in the scope of public service and the need for training and holistic approaches to preventing violence amidst the evolving landscape. 

Deb Sica currently serves as the Deputy Librarian for Alameda County Library, where her mission is to lead, create, and build optimal and responsive Library Services for all, regardless of socioeconomic barriers, by way of integrated access to shared materials, and to energetically pursue the development and advancement of an engaged and active Library Staff to build thriving and resilient populations.

Recently, PAVE announced their partnership with Alameda County Library to offer safety and de-escalation training to staff. PAVE Prevention has been working collaboratively with library administration to tailor a trauma-informed training program specifically designed for the unique challenges faced by library employees. The training will provide staff with the skills to de-escalate situations, identify personal boundaries, and navigate various real-life scenarios with empathy, cultural competency, and emotional intelligence.

In this episode, Arlene chats with Marie P. Anderson, modeling industry expert and founder of Boss Babe Models. 

Marie P. Anderson has recently been interviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine and featured on 60 Minutes Australia, 66 Minutes France, SKY TV United Kingdom, VICE TV America, and various podcasts. She is a model industry expert, author, public speaker, and founder of Boss Babe Models, with over three decades of experience managing fashion models with top modeling agencies around the globe.
At a young age, Marie’s family relocated to Cocoa Beach, Florida where her father was a NASA rocket scientist, and her mother was a community activist. Eventually, Marie would also assume a lifelong dedication to activism in the model industry seeking to empower young people to become socially conscious and responsible entrepreneurs.

Marie’s formative years were spent as a model where she laid down roots in Chicago. Marie catapulted us into the future of the model industry by scouting Cindy Crawford, who challenged the industry’s standard of beauty. Marie founded, built, and owned Aria Models before selling it to Ford Models in New York.

Marie has two sold-out, internationally published books called Model: The Complete Guide to Becoming a Professional Model and Model: The Complete Guide for Men and Women, as well as the audiobook, The Wizard of Editorial: How to Really Become a Successful Model.

Today, Marie resides in Chicago as a mother agent and travels to speaking engagements where she examines the complex and ever-changing model industry landscape. She holds a 2nd-degree black belt in Shidokan Karate through Chicago Fitness Center and teaches her models self-defense.

To contact Marie or learn more, visit @bossbabemodels on Instagram!

On the this episode of Disrupting the Dominoes, Arlene chats with Elliot Jones, MACRO Program Manager!

Originally from Oakland, California, Elliott Jones was raised in a family dedicated to social justice, civil service, and community outreach. He graduated from St. John’s University in 2008 and worked for William “Bill” Lynch Jr., NYC’s first black Deputy Mayor, developing a passion for the impact of public policy on people’s lives. Jones then worked for a decade in South Florida on common-sense gun reform, working closely with Moms Demand Action on Gun Sense in America, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Mothers Fighting for Justice. 

Jones has also worked toward the preservation of African American history with a number of projects in the Liberty City, Little Haiti, and Overtown neighborhoods of Miami, Florida. Since 2014 Jones’ philanthropy has focused on his grandmother’s foundation, The Dr. Maya Angelou Foundation, which provides scholarships to all students who aspire to attend historically black colleges and universities (HBCU’s). Jones returned to Oakland in 2019 in hopes of contributing to the tireless, brave work of grassroots organizations and changes agents who have always trailblazed the path of progress. 

In November of 2021, Jones was hired by the Oakland Fire Department as the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) Program Manager, with the goal of striving to deliver non-police, non-emergency alternative first response program that is unique to Oakland and delivering Empathy, Service and Community to all residents.

On this episode of Disrupting the Dominoes, Arlene chats with Dr. Christine DiBlasio and Nancy Keller, leaders of The Safety Team. The Safety Team, Inc., is a 501(c)3 Vermont nonprofit organization dedicated to the safety, empowerment, resiliency, and well-being of women. Part of their work is their revolutionary TESD program, which utilizes the fundamentals of Empowerment Self Defense and therapeutic healing practices as an integrated approach to healing and violence prevention. In this episode, they discuss the program and the importance of physical movement and somatics in providing a holistic approach to therapy and healing. In all of The Safety Team's program offerings, participants find their voice, learn practical skills, reclaim a sense of power and control, heal from trauma, develop resilience, and as a result, reduce their risk of assault. Dr. DiBlasio is a strong believer in empowering individuals through knowledge and skills. 

Christine DiBlasio, Ph.D. is the founder and director of Stone House Associates, a large outpatient mental health practice in Vermont. As a licensed psychologist, she has provided psychotherapy services for survivors of interpersonal violence, trauma, and sexual assault for over 30 years, and has mentored generations of college interns. Dr. DiBlasio is also the co-founder and president of The Safety Team, a non-profit organization whose mission is to prevent violence, foster resilience, heal trauma and build safe communities. Dr. DiBlasio was recently named USA Today’s Vermont's Woman of the Year in recognition of her innovative work in the field of trauma recovery for survivors of interpersonal or sexual violence. 

 Nancy Keller (she/her), MEd, CAS, is a licensed public school educator serving the children and families of a small urban school district in Vermont. With expertise in curriculum development and instruction, she has created classroom-based and school-wide programs for physical activity. These programs were designed to address the movement needs of those children who have experienced trauma and were built upon her background in the martial arts (4th-degree black belt in Kempo-Jujitsu and 2nd-degree purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu). Nancy is also a co-founder, board member, and lead instructor for The Safety Team, a non-profit organization whose mission is to prevent violence, foster resilience, heal trauma, and build safe communities. For over 20 years, she has offered after-school programs in the martial arts, as well as taught community-based workshops on empowerment self-defense (ESD) at colleges, middle and high schools, and other community settings. 

Thanks for tuning in to Disrupting the Dominoes: Season 2, Episode 2, featuring guest Anucha Browne!

 In this episode, Arlene and Anucha discuss the importance of women's collective power, energy, and voice in redefining the landscape of racial justice and the comprehensive acceptance of women in society and the workplace. They explore the complex relationship of women of color in positions of power and the shifting perspectives of their counterparts, and Anucha shares her personal experience with workplace violence and the societal response following the media coverage, along with her journey as an athlete, leader, and advocate for women of color in positions of power. 

Anucha currently serves as the Chief Impact Officer for Tides, where she leads the execution and implementation of strategic initiatives to advance their goal of shifting and strengthening the power of proximate leaders, communities of color, and other historically excluded groups who face systemic barriers.

Before joining Tides, Anucha was the chief advocacy and engagement officer at UNICEF USA, where she was responsible for managing strategy, engagement, advocacy, congressional relations, emergency response, and domestic programs. She pioneered domestic programs and grants in support of vulnerable children in the U.S. impacted by natural disasters, disease, and migration. She also launched UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Cities Initiative to build safer, more just, equitable, inclusive, and child-responsive cities around the world.

Previously, she served as the NCAA’s vice president of women’s basketball, where she set the strategic direction and oversaw the operation and management of its Division I, II, and III women’s basketball championships. She also acted as the organization’s regional, national, and international spokesperson and primary liaison to the women’s basketball committees and to 1,200 public and private colleges and universities on all matters related to the sport. Anucha has also held executive leadership positions at the University of Buffalo, the NBA, and IBM.

In this episode, our CEO Arlene Limas OLY, chats with Dr. Mary Clyde Pierce, Pediatric Emergency Physician at Lurie Children's Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University. Together they discuss violence as an environmental toxin, the adverse effects of violence on children and their genetics, and the future of genetics in the role of violence prevention. 

Dr. Pierce's research interest focuses primarily on children's injuries, emphasizing differentiating abusive from accidental trauma. Dr. Pierce collaborates with a multi-disciplinary lab with an emphasis on injury biomechanics. This lab combines the expertise of medicine and engineering and utilizes both a clinical and an experimental approach. Dr. Pierce's research focus is the development of injury plausibility models, including clinical decision rules, for differentiating abusive and accidental trauma in the young child that combines medical, social, biological, and engineering knowledge. Her interest is also in epigenetics, psychosocial risk factors, factors, ecological factors, and how child maltreatment confers health problems later in life. This collaborative work results in translational research that is guided by case-based studies with clinical, social, and basic science research, experiments, and modeling directly linked to pertinent clinical issues.

We are concluding this season of Disrupting The Dominoes with Jyoti Singh of Nellie's Shelter. 

Jyoti Singh is the Executive Director of Nellies, a Toronto-based shelter, education, and advocacy center for women. Nellie's completed a two-phase training offered by PAVE for both their staff and contacts within the community, empowering staff and spreading awareness. 

"I look forward to the day when we will not have a need for GBV shelters; I believe that the PAVE approach will get us one step closer to a world without gender-based violence." - Jyoti Singh