Trainers
Nancy Kahn
Nancy is the Executive Director and founder of Mission Dignity, a youth-led Peer Education and College Resource Center in San Francisco's Mission District, and former board chair of Honoring Emancipated Youth (HEY), formerly the San Francisco Foster Care Initiative. As an adult biracial, transracial adoptee, of African American, Russian Jewish and Cherokee Indian heritage, Nancy has spent her lifetime focusing on the complexity of her own racial identity, needs for belonging and acceptance, the role of labels around identity and her longing for compassion and sensitivity and supportive communication around racial, cultural and class differences. As a graduate student at UC Berkeley's School of Social Welfare, she helped to support a program called the Cal Independent Scholars Program (CISP), modeled after the Guardian Scholars Program, in becoming institutionalized at the university. CISP, a year long support program for former foster youth attending as undergraduate and graduate students, addresses the specific needs of former foster youth attending college. Nancy currently teaches weekly NVC classes in the Bay Area as a collaborative trainer with BayNVC, and has been a trainer for the BayNVC Leadership Program and coordinator of the BayNVC Diversity Project. Her passion is bringing NVC to diverse settings, to communities of color, to youth and to under-represented groups. She concentrates her efforts on working with a variety of organizations, schools, community-based groups, in addition to individual work with families and couples, by leading organizational trainings, class series, private sessions and co-leading residential trainings. Nancy is a co founder of the BayNVC Diversity Project along with Jeyanthy Siva and Inbal Kashtan, which was developed to offer NVC trainings to people in diverse communities working towards social change and peace, as well as contributing to greater diversity within the local NVC community. BayNVC's Diversity Project currently supports people of color in becoming trainers and pursuing NVC certification, provides NVC training to diverse groups at reduced rates and/or at no cost, and develops special projects supporting people and groups to connect across barriers. Return to top.
Roxy Manning
Roxy has been lead organizer of the NVC and Diversity retreat as well as a trainer since its inception in 2007. Roxy first became interested in social change and diversity through her experiences navigating New York City's various subcultures as a young Afro-Caribbean immigrant. As part of her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Roxy earned a minor in Multicultural Issues in Psychology, examining the impact of structural racism on people's psychological functioning and the delivery of services to clients from underrepresented backgrounds. Roxy has provided workshops on culturally competent mental health care to direct service organizations in both North Carolina and California. Roxy has also offered NVC trainings, in residential retreats, practice groups, and workshops, since 2005. She is currently a co-trainer in the BayNVC North America NVC Leadership Program and also supports therapists learning how to integrate NVC into their clinical work at a monthly NVC Therapists' Clinic. Roxy works with individuals, couples and families to support them in better understanding each other, identifying shared values and creating strategies to better meet their needs. She is especially passionate about working with women and people of color; this continues an emphasis she has maintained since her pre-graduate work in a domestic violence program and in a maximum security prison for incarcerated youth. Roxy has co-authored two publications: the first Survival Guide for Ethnic Minority Students for the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students and a chapter on Nonviolent Communication in the second edition of Working for Peace: A Handbook of Practical Psychology. Roxy is delighted to contribute her talents to the conceptualization and organization of the Diversity Retreat because she believes that by supporting participants in "walking their talk" she is helping them to create the kind of world she wants her children to grow up in - a world where we are interdependent, where each person's uniqueness is celebrated and is seen as a contribution to the vital fabric of the whole. Return to top.
Kristin Masters
Kristin Masters is committed to creating a world that works for everyone. She has long been a group facilitator and diversity trainer, and loves helping groups find ways to move toward the goals of their good work more easily. She is currently engaged in learning, teaching and sharing compassionate communication, and is certified as an NVC trainer through CNVC. NVC came to Kristin via Jean Morrison early in their friendship and collaboration on the Alternatives to Violence Project at San Quentin Prison. NVC seemed like a smart addition to the conflict resolution work Kristin was already engaged in, and she incorporated it into staff trainings in her long time work as the director of the City’s community center. NVC took on more meaning when it saved her relationship from a harsh stuck place. She happily took on the role of board chair for NVCSantaCruz upon its formation, and never looked back. For nearly twenty years, Kristin has been a leader in diversity issues and believes that we can heal the hurts we’ve suffered in our domination society. She joined and led a local chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute, building community around fighting oppression. She anticipates great joy in the future of applying NVC to social change and healing. She also utilizes Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects – incorporating empowerment, mourning and action. “I am thrilled to join this venture of NVC and Diversity, as it joins two bodies of work that fuel my life and passion for justice: liberation work and compassionate communication.” “I anticipate contributing to the creation of a safe environment, one in which we choose to share, to heal, to learn from one other and to express what is alive in us as people who live in a world lacking the peace and justice we yearn for. I am a passionate advocate of creativity and justice, and I dream of a time when each person knows they are (watch out, here comes some evaluation words) beautiful, valuable, and that their contributions are important and well received.” Return to top.
Edmundo Norte
Edmundo Norte is a national consultant on issues of diversity, equity, and transformative leadership, and conducts experiential workshops on "A Human Development Approach to Transforming Power, Perceptions, and Society", an empathy-focused way of conducting anti-racist, social justice work. He leads seminars and teaches courses at San Jose State University's Department of Educational Leadership and for California State University East Bay's Master of Education in Urban Teacher Leadership program. In 2003 he began using Nonviolent Communication in his work on equity and multiculturalism, and he completed the Bay Area Center for Nonviolent Communication's North American Leadership Program in 2005. His work now integrates a balance of critical consciousness with compassionate interpersonal connection. This serves as the foundation for personal healing and social action that can transform the domination paradigm of our society as it manifests within our selves, in our relationships, and the institutions in which we operate. He holds a master's degree from Harvard University and has nearly completed his doctoral work there in the department of Human Development and Psychology. While his formal education is rooted in developmental psychology, professionally he has taught at every level of public education, from kindergarten to post-graduate programs. He acknowledges that his true life’s work is the joyful and heart-wrenching challenge of applying his knowledge, experience, and efforts to the developmentally responsible parenting of his two children—an ongoing labor of love. Return to top.