Meet the Speakers
Karlin James Tichenor, PhD
Dr. Karlin James Tichenor believes in positively impacting the lives of others, namely marginalized communities, in social emotional and psychological wellness. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, he graduated from Pike High School and received his undergraduate degree from Denison University in Communication Arts with a minor in Psychology. During his tenure at Denison University, he founded the Boys to Men Mentoring Program in a local school district. He received his Master of the Arts degree, with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy from Michigan State University in 2011 and his doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Couple and Family Therapy in 2016. Dr. Tichenor is a clinical scholar. As a researcher, he has investigated the Promoting Academic Success Program (PAS) for minority males and the efficacy of this program on the matriculation of these students from high school and post-secondary education. He has also worked with the FirstSchools Intervention, a project focusing on diminishing the ethnic/racial achievement gap between majority and minority youth through the development of partnerships between program staff, families, and schools in Michigan. Over the years, Dr. Tichenor has worked in the Lansing School District in Lansing, Michigan as the developer and Director of the Behavior Intervention Monitor Program, as a Student Services Specialist, and the Director of Project Prevent— a federally funded grant to increase school-based and community-based mental health services for students and families. Additionally, he has performed as the director of the Academic Intergenerational Mentoring Program (AIM High) through the City of Lansing and the department of University Outreach and Engagement at Michigan State University, the Coordinator of the Culturally Responsive Positive Behavior Intervention Support (CRPBIS) initiative, the Director of the Student Support Specialist Program, the Executive Director and Associate Superintendent for the Lansing School District, a Fixed Term Assistant Professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and an Adjunct Professor at Siena Heights University in the Mental Health Counseling Program. Dr. Tichenor currently serves as the Director of Social Emotional Health at the Indiana Youth Institute, the founder and CEO of Karlin J & Associates consulting firm, an Adjunct Professor at Butler University, an Adjunct Professor at Abilene Christian University - Dallas, and the senior partner and co-founder of Family Links, a social services agency. He is the a loving father and proud husband. He believes in the benefit of community collaboration, the power of education and positive role models for youth development, and the importance of family unity.
Dr. Karen Treisman, ME
Dr Karen Treisman, MBE, is a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist who has worked in the National Health System and children’s services for several years. Karen has worked cross-culturally in both Africa and Asia with groups ranging from former child soldiers to survivors of the Rwandan Genocide. She is the author of 12 books, including the bestselling book, “The Therapeutic Treasure Box”, 4 sets of therapeutic card decks, and 6 therapeutic soft cuddly toys. Karen has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, parenting, adversity (ACE’s) and attachment, and works clinically using a range of therapeutic approaches with families, systems, and children in or on the edge of care, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, and adopted children. Karen specializes in supporting organizations and systems to move towards becoming and sustaining adversity,culturally and, trauma-informed, infused, and responsive practice. This work focuses on creating meaningful and multi-layered cultural and paradigm shift across whole systems.
Rick Bowman, MA, Clinical Psycology
Rick, along with his wife, Doris, partners with organizations, agencies, communities and systems to provide training, coaching, consultation and support to staff serving children, youth and adults who struggle as a result of trauma, developmental differences, or mental health challenges. Rick brings a broad background that includes leadership positions in the United States military, business, mental health and education. Rick has functioned as a clinical consultant for mental health clinics and human service agencies, as well as large companies/organizations such as the National Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Alyeska Pipeline Corporation (made up of companies such as Exxon-Mobile and British Petroleum). Rick has also provided teaching and consultation internationally in countries such as Russia, Cuba, and Jamaica. Rick has been employed in positions such as Clinical Psychologist, Program Director, Community College Professor, Assistant Principal, Alternative School Director, Student Services Director, and Assistant Executive Director of a non-profit organization providing educational services to students with the most severe behavioral and emotional challenges.
Doris Bowman, M.S. Education/Special Education
Doris has taught, trained, coached and volunteered with organizations in Cuba, Jamaica and Guatemala. Doris spent a decade as a private business owner of a commercial fishing business in Alaska, and has since run programs for children and youth with chronic significantly challenging behavior, as well as those with a variety of mental health diagnoses. She has worked as a Behavior Consultant, Trainer and Coach in the areas of Trauma-Informed Practices, Resilience Practices for adults and youth, Behavior Intervention, and the Collaborative Problem Solving Approach.
Doris has had the pleasure of co-authoring the second in a series of children’s books with her daughter, Maritsa, entitled Going to School is Easy Now, which followed the first in the series, Going to Bed is Easy Now, available in English and Spanish. The EASY NOW Series™ is designed to meet the needs of typically developing children, as well as those with ADD/ADHD, autism spectrum disorder and other disabilities. Future books in the Easy Now Series™ will address tangible challenges such as Sharing with Friends is Easy Now, and not-so-tangible challenges such as Solving Problems is Easy Now and Changing Plans is Easy Now. (www.easynowbooks.com)
Denise Moody, MSW, LICSW
As an educator, therapist and school administrator, Denise has discovered that the work that gives her purpose is to support passionate educators in transforming schools to support the needs of all students and families, without burning themselves out in the process. Denise brings her unique perspective as an experienced therapist and school administrator to your event to shed light on how our actions as adults can create connections, heal and be the everyday magic that will transform students’ lives. Denise has an undergraduate degree in Social Work from Winona State University and Masters of Social Work from the University of St. Thomas/College of St. Catherine’s. She also attended the University of Minnesota with a focus area of educational leadership and is licensed as a Director of Special Education. She is a Director of Student Services for a mid-sized district in Minnesota. She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and has a private practice providing psychotherapy to adolescents and adults. In her personal life, she lives in small-town Minnesota and is doing her best to raise four kids with her husband, who is also an educator. She spends her free time reading, collecting vintage pottery, restoring her 130 year-old Victorian home and getting on the lake in Northern Minnesota, weather permitting.
Katie Raher, PhD
Katie is the Founder and CEO of Constant Love and Learning and helps soul-led educators and mental health professionals cultivate social emotional learning and well-being within themselves, the children they serve, and their larger systems, so they can sustainably create impact without sacrificing their health, happiness, and wholeness. After her own physical and mental health crash and burn, and evidence-based and intuitive journey back to well-being, Dr. Raher realized that well-being practices that nourish the whole educator – social, emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and professional – are the foundation of being able to effectively support children’s resilience and learning and thus the most important kind of professional development there is. Since starting Constant Love and Learning in 2019, she has supported thousands of educators from across the globe through her educator well-being programs, social emotional learning workshops, consulting and coaching, and fun and simple handouts. Dr. Raher is also an award-winning teacher turned School Psychologist and a Kimochis Certified Trainer. During her 20 years in the field of education, she has been an advocate for educational equity for students and has led several school- and district-wide initiatives to expand and improve the use of evidence-based practices at the systems level, including the use of multi-tiered systems of support, social emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, positive behavioral interventions and supports, Section 504 implementation, student success teams, and early childhood mental health consultation and behavioral wellness. She has also supported large-scale and federally-funded research projects, and taught college courses, presented, and published in areas related to child development and instruction. Dr. Raher holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Development from UC San Diego, a Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley, and a California credential in School Psychology. She is also married to a high school math teacher, mama to two highly sensitive kids who are her greatest teachers, a Brené Brown groupie, and a big fan of dance parties in the kitchen.
Julia Bantimba
Julia earned her MS in occupational therapy at Boston University’s Sargent College and has been practicing as a licensed occupational therapist since 2013. Currently, Julia works for Seneca Family of Agencies as the trauma informed and healing centered services specialist for their non-public school programs. Until recently she was the assistant director of Maya Angelou Academy and Building Blocks Preschool where she oversaw the therapeutic preschool program. In her current role Julia provides support to staff through modeling strategies with students, clinical consultation, trainings to the multidisciplinary team of staff and consultation to administrative teams to ensure policies and procedures are culturally relevant, trauma informed and healing focused. In addition to her work at Seneca, Julia is a faculty mentor in the UC-Davis Napa Infant Parent Mental Health Fellowship in Napa, CA. Prior to coming to Seneca, Julia worked for A Better Way, Inc. in Oakland, CA providing direct therapy for children birth through adolescence, who have extensive trauma and/or are involved in the child welfare system, and who have difficulty with sensory and emotional regulation. Julia’s consultation and trainings in the community focus on the ways in which early childhood trauma impacts the development and function of the sensory system, highlighting the ways in which providers of any discipline can utilize sensory-based strategies to promote regulation in their clients. Julia is a certified Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics trainer, faculty mentor and presenter and graduate of the UC Davis-Napa Infant Parent Mental Health Fellowship and is trained in multiple therapeutic models. She has completed certification in: Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT Phase I and II) and the Neurosequential Model of Reflection, Attachment, Regulation and Competency Model (ARC), the Newborn Behavior Observation (NBO), Fussy Baby Level 1, NCAST Feeding Scale, and various Cultural Humility trainings including train-the-trainer. In 2020, Julia was awarded the Bruce Perry Spirit of the Child Award for her outstanding work on behalf of young children by the Parent-Infant Child Institute in Napa, CA. Though early childhood mental health and education is her passion, she can also be found on hiking trails around the Bay Area for solo hikes or day trips with her person and pup!
Lauren Ashbaugh PhD
Lauren Ashbaugh, Ph.D., is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist. Lauren received her undergraduate degree in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a student-athlete on the women's basketball team. She played professionally overseas for a year before returning to the United States to earn her Ph.D. in Clinical and School Psychology at the University of Virginia. Her doctoral training in Clinical and School Psychology at the University of Virginia provided rigorous training in psychoeducational assessment, school-based mental health assessment and intervention, empirically-based treatments (including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and training in research and methodology. As a research team member of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, she received training and trained others in school threat assessment and bullying interventions. Her dissertation examined early experiences of violence in adult male and female inmates in Ohio and Texas.Lauren worked at Boston University Medical Center, a major Trauma I hospital outpatient clinic in Boston, a therapeutic day school for adolescents, and a large public high school before moving back to Washington state in 2016. She served as the Site Training Director at BUMC and collaborated with the Boston Veteran's Administration Consortium in Clinical Psychology to train doctoral-level interns in psychology. Clinically, Lauren specializes in evidence-based prevention and intervention for children, teenagers, adults, and families who struggle with trauma, chronic stress, anxiety, depression, executive functioning, and/or behavioral challenges. She has expertise in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Triple P Positive Parenting Program, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for trauma, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Interpersonal Therapy for depression. Lauren lives in Tacoma with her family and their dog, Cyrus. She grew up swimming, skiing, riding horses, and playing basketball and volleyball. She still loves staying active, and she spends as much time as she can enjoying the incredible beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
Megan Gruis
Megan Gruis, Ed.S. is the Director of Implementation at CharacterStrong and a former public school educational leader. Megan served in public education for 20 years and feels fortunate to have served in a variety of K-12 settings as a paraprofessional, classroom facilitator, school counselor, administrative dean, interventionist, and leader of various district and site based implementation teams. Throughout these experiences, she found a passion for training, coaching and consulting around the implementation of systems frameworks. She served on the Minnesota State Implementation Team for PBIS in a variety of capacities for 10 years and has consulted with schools and districts across the country on the integrated educational design of social, emotional, and behavioral health programming. As a licensed school counselor and administrator, the work of supporting the development of the whole child by equipping the adults to deliver effective practices is truly her passion.
Clay Cook, PhD
Clayton Cook, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He believes that schools are the ideal setting to orchestrate and deliver a range of services that prevent, identify and/or treat social, emotional, and behavioral problems that serve as barriers to academic and life success. His specialty within school-based mental health is investigating practices that facilitate the implementation of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). His research focuses on helping practitioners (teachers, administrators, mental health providers) improve the delivery of school-based services to youth in schools, as demonstrated by a range of improved outcomes, including gains in academic achievement, improvements in social-emotional functioning, reductions in punitive disciplinary practices, and remediation of disparities for minority youth. Currently, funding from several agencies (Institute of Education Sciences, National Institute of Justice, and ) supports his research to investigate a range of topics, including (a) development of measures of the organizational context of schools that impact the uptake and use of evidence-based practices, (b) the impact of a strength-based intervention for middle school students who are at risk to engage in school violence, (c) conducting root cause analyses to develop specific plans to remediate African American male disproportionality, and (d) tailoring interventions to enhance the precision and effectiveness of interventions.
Jill Krautkremer
Jill Krautkremer is a School Psychologist in Forest Lake Area Schools. For 17 years, she was a building level school psychologist with a variety of roles in her building(s). In 2019 she began focusing on district wide behavioral support and over the last several years has expanded to supporting social emotional learning needs of both students and staff in the district, with a particular interest in building educator resilience as the first step in supporting student needs. After working for a year in a community of practice with the Minnesota Department of Education on Social Emotional Learning, Kelly and Jill recognized the importance of focusing on adult SEL and specifically building a more resilient team of educators within the district.
Amanda Burget
Amanda Burget earned a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Evangel University. She currently works in the Rochester, Minnesota school district as a Student Resiliency Specialist. She has served in this role for 3 years and has helped grow the TOPS (Teens Offering Peer Support) Program, which serves to provide mental health support to students through a wellness room and trained peer supporters. She also works to organize mental health educational activities for students and provide triage support to the school counselors and social workers. Amanda has enjoyed cultivating the growth of the TOPS program at Mayo High School and sharing the power of peer supporting. She looks forward to continued growth of the program at Mayo, in addition to programs being added in other local schools. Amanda has served in a variety of social work roles throughout her professional career. She has worked in the mental health sector as a service coordinator, but has spent a majority of her years working in the child welfare system. She worked as a foster care case manager in Missouri, overseeing numerous foster care cases and helping facilitate permanency for children and teens. She then worked in Michigan for the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange as a Match Support Program (MSP) Specialist, then served as the MSP Program Manager. During her time as supervisor, the MSP program grew in referrals and became an important service to many families in the process of adoption. Throughout her time in child welfare, Amanda learned much about trauma and supporting children, teens and their foster and adoptive families through their journey to permanency. In her free time, Amanda enjoys spending time with her husband and dog in the beautiful state parks of Minnesota.