Meet Our Team

Anh (pronounced “Ang” like Ang Lee) is a licensed MFT.  During adolescence Anh experienced a mental health crisis that would carry onto Anh’s mid-20’s. Because of how various educators embodied a supportive and healing environment, Anh was able to graduate and pay the work forward of supporting students in educational settings through after-school program development, youth workforce development, and youth ministries across the California Bay Area.  Before joining the Trauma Transformed team, Anh worked as the senior clinician for school-based mental health services with youth in East Oakland alternative education where Anh co-developed the Trauma Awareness Group with students and fellow clinicians to provide support and healing for African American youth in urban school settings.

As a consumer provider, Anh does not “think outside the box” but instead has a “think as if there is no box and build that box as legally and ethically necessary to meet the need of design and implementation” type of approach to work. Anh now serves as the Assistant Director of Trauma Transformed and holds the voices of those most impacted at the center of Anh’s work.

Antoine is at heart a catalyst for learning and development, having done some form of individual or organizational capacity building for 20 years. In the past, he worked as a life coach, nonprofit consultant, facilitator, manager, and creative arts therapist. Antoine has great passion for helping others create trauma-informed systems and education settings.  His perpetual question is how to set up creative, responsive contexts where people can bring forth their best thinking and being. Antoine loves language and culture and has a goal to become conversant in seven languages before he retires.

Darryn is an Independent Training Consultant and Coach with a history of working in collaboration with child welfare professionals and other youth-serving professionals in the non-profit sector, providing training, facilitation, youth involved curricula development, in addition to technical assistance with program development, evaluation, strategic planning, administrative systems development, and volunteer management.

Francesca is a Northern California native who serves as the Trauma Informed Systems Implementation Coordinator. Francesca has worked at East Bay Agency for Children since 2013 and has experience in school-based settings with children, adolescents, and families. She understands what it means to be on the front lines of this work, and her perspective informs her approach to training and evaluation.

Francesca believes that healing happens best in community and is committed to supporting students and school staff to identify and share their healing strategies through the School Crisis Recovery & Renewal project.

Jen is a licensed MFT with an extensive background in community mental health and education programs, including leading trauma-informed special education and residential treatment and youth justice programs and directing multiple non-profit and county public health programs. In 2015, Jen had great honor to become founding Director of Trauma Transformed Center. Having her own lived experiences in systems and more than 15 years in the public health field, she is humbled and driven by the vision that school communities can recover from crisis, structural and collective trauma in ways that lead to even more healing, loving, and just school communities for all students.  

“I’m driven to honor the legacies of educators who believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. When I was 17 years old, I was in a residential treatment center and had only 15 credits. A teacher pushed me to take the GED and SAT and apply for early entrance to college. He opened doors for me I didn’t even know existed. His legacy drives my work toward the vision where all students feel seen, loved, and valued.”

Kristi Silva is a Senior Research Associate at CARS, where she serves as a field specialist and program evaluator. In her role as evaluator, Kristi is interested in how culturally responsive evaluation practices can support the vision of schools as a place of recovery and renewal for all.

As a professional who now serves communities like her own, Kristi brings a critical lived experience to the work. Her work in school crisis recovery and renewal is motivated by and dedicated to the memory of Eliseo Montano.

Leora Wolf-Prusan serves as the Project Director for the School Crisis Recovery & Renewal project and as the School Mental Health field director for the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC), in addition to many other facilitation projects. Previous roles include a national field director of a SAMHSA initiative (ReCAST) and technical assistance for the Student Mental Health Program for California’s Community Colleges, CalWORKs, and more.  With years of training and facilitating learning and community building in schools p-16, Wolf-Prusan is skilled in facilitation, human learning design, training, and coaching. Wolf-Prusan is dedicated to work focused on educator mental health, wellness, and trauma-informed approaches to education and operates through a framework in which public health, social work, and education intersect. Her research examined the impact of student death on teachers, what factors contribute to teachers building resiliency, and what supports teachers need from the school system in the event of a student homicide or other traumas. She received a BA in international relations and a BA in Spanish with a minor in Social & Ethnic Relations from the University of California, Davis; a teaching credential from Mills College; and an EdD in educational leadership from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her work in school crisis recovery and renewal is motivated by and dedicated to educators and youth who envision schools as a platform for community and connection.

Livia Rojas is the Project Manager for the School Crisis Recovery & Renewal project and for the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC). Livia’s work is at the intersection of public health, education, and technology. In previous roles, Livia supported national projects focused on digital skills building among adults, youth media arts education, and capacity building among public health practitioners. Years of designing training and distance learning opportunities for adults has strengthened Livia’s expertise in accessibility, communication design, project management, and community building.

Livia is committed to supporting students and school staff as they navigate healing strategies through the School Crisis Recovery & Renewal project. Livia’s school crisis recovery and renewal work is dedicated to Michelle Mignott.

Oriana Ides is the School Mental Health Training Specialist at CARS, who approaches healing the wounds of trauma and oppression as core elements of social justice.  She has worked with young people across life course from elementary school to college, and has served as teacher-leader, school counselor, classroom educator and program director.  She is committed to generating equity within school structures and policies by focusing on evidence-based mental health techniques and institutional design.

Her work to forge a more just world is motivated by and dedicated to Amilca Ysabel Mouton Fuentes.