Development Action works with REALLY skilled people
Kathleen Manion – child welfare programme design, social work practice and community research and evaluation
Kathleen heads up Manion Research and has spent the last twenty years working within social and community services, specializing in the fields of research and evaluation. Her diverse experience has included research in various countries and settings, working at both a national ministerial level and also at the grassroots.
Kathleen is passionate about supporting children and young people to reach their full potential, and demonstrates this focus during consultation on policy and programme development, relevant research and evaluation techniques and promoting quality community and social work practice.
Kathleen’s skills include academic and layman’s writing and editing, teaching and curriculum development. She is also knowledgeable and experienced in a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and community engagement processes and has a PhD. in International Social Work from the University of East London (UK). Kathleen lectures across a variety of social work, conflict resolution and international law subjects and is Associate Faculty at both Royal Roads University and Vancouver Island University.
Visit Kathleen’s Linkedin page or email her.
Alvaro Moreno – human rights, monitoring and evaluation, education
Over 25 years of experience in the research, planning, management and evaluation of social and community change projects and programs, both in Canada and Overseas. Areas of experience include participatory research, inclusive planning and evaluation, human rights, democratic development, social and community economic development, community education, diversity awareness and anti-racism education.
Visit Alvaro’s Linkedin page or email him.
Val Cortes – group leadership development, arts-based group facilitation, and conflict resolution training
Valeria Cortés is a Leadership Educator and Trainer at Tlatoa Consulting. Val helps organizations achieve their goals through a range of activities: strategic planning, programme design, leadership development, conflict resolution, group facilitation, and “training for trainers” programs.
Val focuses on arts-based adult learning, and she likes to create inclusive, diverse spaces that enable creative cross-cultural communication. She integrates systems thinking into all her work, and these systemic considerations often provide the key insights to the problems she addresses.
One of Val’s core experiences is in the area of student leadership development. She has designed, facilitated, and coordinated student leadership programs in México, the United States, and Canada, and has supported service-learning programs and facilitated leadership development initiatives for over fifteen years. Val has an M.A. and a M.Ed. for her work in this area.
Visit Valeria’s Linkedin page or email her.
Patricia Galaczy – organizational development, leadership education and professional facilitation
Patricia Galaczy is a Leadership Educator at The Art of Dialogue, and is dedicated to providing customized professional training and development, facilitation, keynote presentations and organizational development solutions to leaders across industry.
Patricia facilitates organizational dialogue and learning via a comprehensive, experiential and participatory suite of short, non-credit courses designed to broaden understanding and development of skills in: Self-Development, Leadership, Mindfulness, Group Consultation Process, Organizational Dialogue, Interpersonal Communications, Team-Building, Performance Management, Project Management, Critical Thinking, Creativity and Change Processes.
Since she first began leading groups in 2000, she has relied heavily upon an interdisciplinary and participatory approach to her design and delivery of curriculum; drawing upon first-hand experience and the most recent research and practice in the fields of Leadership, Organizational Development, Mindfulness, Adult Education, Business, Arts and Cognitive Science to deliver a customized and contemporary educational experience for all learners.
Visit Patricia’s Linkedin page or email her.
Carla Funk – leadership, capacity building, strategic planning, and board governance
With a passion for finding ways to enhance information flows and creating learning organizations, Carla Funk has a particular interest in leadership, capacity building, strategic planning, and board governance.
She has worked with diverse nonprofits for over 30 years. In B.C. she was on staff with, or consulted with, environmental, health research, children’s health, and First Nations organizations. She started her career in a famine in Ethiopia, later working on food security issues in Zimbabwe, and had an education focus in Switzerland.
Carla holds a doctorate from Royal Roads University (2016), studying what makes nonprofits tick (organizational management) and how donor decisions influence nonprofits (philanthropy). She recently completed a Mitacs-funded research partnership with Development Action, translating her doctoral research into leadership skills workshops.
Visit Carla’s Linkedin page or email her.