Tracy Deans
Treasurer
For the past 14 years, Tracy has worked with some of North America’s most diverse non-profit and charitable organizations, supporting them to grow and pursue strategic opportunities that directly meet their business aspirations.
Tracy’s experience in the sector led her to create Bamboo Consulting and Business Development (Bamboo), an organization steeped in supporting businesses focused on resiliency, integrity and aspirational growth.
Specializing in business development, Tracy’s core skills are planning, fundraising, relationship building, collaborating, facilitating conversations, and developing and implementing recruitment strategies. She invests time and effort into understanding the strengths and challenges of an organization by actively listening, curious inquiry and fostering deep connections.
Giselle Jones, RSW, LCSW, CMF
Giselle Jones, RSW, LCSW, CMF is a practicing psychotherapist. Following a career as a performer and in youth education, Giselle achieved her Masters of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and completed her post-grad licensure (LCSW) in California. She has served in Los Angeles as a staff therapist for children and adolescents at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, for adults at The Center For Healthy Sex and, for the last nine years, in private practice. Giselle is a former board member of the California Society for Clinical Social Work.
With a passion for the intersection of creativity and social justice, Giselle formerly served as the first Director of Education for the non-profit youth poetry organization, Get Lit-Words Ignite. Beyond youth education and clinical social work, Giselle has used her creativity to collaboratively train both police recruits and medical students to safely and sensitively engage with members of the communities they are intended to serve.
A trained Hatha Yoga Instructor, Giselle is incredibly passionate about integrating body-mind wellness, and received her Certification in Mindfulness Facilitation in 2015 from UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. She enjoys implementing mindfulness practices in her therapeutic work, has conducted several lectures and workshops on related topics, including the integration of mindfulness and intimacy.
Dianne Riehl
Dianne Riehl is a Global Education Consultant who has a Masters of Arts in Early Childhood Studies and has thirty years of national and international experience leading governments and school boards in early years policies, programs and professional development. Dianne has lead work in various roles including teaching, administrator in the Toronto District School Board and as an Education and Student Achievement Officer at the Ontario Ministry of Education. While at the Ministry of Education Dianne planned, oversaw and led the provincial vision and implementation for Full-Day Kindergarten. She directed and provided expert advice to government and worked alongside school districts as they created their strategic and business plans which directly connected to her authorship of the program document and professional learning plan to lead implementation and professional learning across the province. As an innovative leader, she is driven by a relentless curiosity and commitment to a process of making meaning of how, what and why students learn resulting in the co-creation of inclusive, responsive education that serve all learners.
Dianne led the gathering of multi-jurisdictional evidence from learning initiatives and forecasted the need for dynamic professional learning resources. She collaborated with Ministry colleagues, superintendents, principals and classroom educators to create and design content of videos, curriculum documents, and webcasts as well as delivering the professional learning to support implementation. Publications include Virtual Learning Series for Principals, K-2 Connections Digital Paper, The Full-Day Early Learning-Kindergarten Program, What Principals Need to Know About… Making Thinking and Learning Visible, Inquiry Learning Stance K-12, and Re-Imagining Literacy and Numeracy Throughout the Day Dianne also served as a Vice Principal in the Toronto District School Board. In that role as in all the others she envision a collective transformed view of thinking and learning that leans into the complexity and differences in student’s thinking and learning. A vision resulting in a more equitable process to “future ready” students while honouring who they are now.
Sandra Smith
Secretary
Sandra is a passionate supporter of the arts, particularly regarding the importance of the arts in child development. She spent her career as an elementary school teacher, music specialist and principal in the Scarborough and Toronto public school boards. She was co-founder and assistant conductor of the nationally acclaimed All-Scarborough Children’s Orff music ensemble.
As a longtime inhabitant of Scarborough’s Kingston/Galloway/Orton Park community, she was a founding member of the board of directors for The Reading Partnership, a successful literacy program for children of low-income families living in that community.
Because of her family’s histories leaving the USA to come to Ontario as British Loyalists and also as freedom seekers through the Underground Railroad, Sandra has often been invited to share these histories with various organizations. She has been a member of the Ontario Black History Society’s museum committee and presently heads the planning team for the Blackhurst Cultural Centre’s Seniors’ association. She holds a BA and Masters of Education from U of T.
Shequita Thompson-Reid
Interim Chair
Shequita Thompson-Reid has been working at the intersections of community development and equity for over 15 years. Currently, she brings with her expertise within the fields of Program Development, Youth Engagement, Capacity Building, Housing, Violence Prevention, Conflict Mediation and Equity.
She is well versed in working from practices rooted in decolonization and Anti Oppression frameworks.
Shequita has worked successfully across various organizations to lead and support a range of broad band and high impact outcomes to achieve the desired goals at multi-level and multi- sectoral non profit and government spaces.
Shequita has developed, led and facilitated training and education on Conflict Mediation, Violence Prevention, Equity and Anti-Oppression to name a few. She also excels in coaching and professional development for individuals, executives and organizations looking to engage in change management processes.
In her past-time Shequita Co-founded a grassroots program, Words of Wisdom. This program used books as a catalyst towards having deeper conversations into intergenerational trauma, identity, equity and healthy relationships. In 2015, she traveled to Ghana to participate in a knowledge exchange with young women and girls globally, and developed collaborative strategies to end gender-based violence. She holds an Honors BA from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Sociology and Gender Studies.
Shequita was on the original Youth Advisory Committee for Kick Start Arts – she is pleased to return as a Board Member.
“I am, because we are” – Ubuntu, African Proverb