Our experienced instructors have helped first responders around the country stay safe and succeed in their critical roles.
Belinda Hoole
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Belinda has over 20 years experience developing custom solutions to transform culture and effect behavioral change. From designing award winning programs to combat school violence, to programs that reduced hospital workplace violence by 50% in a year, Belinda is committed to increasing mindfulness, collaboration and mutual respect in order to drive creativity, innovation and results. Belinda is a certified Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) Instructor. She has a personal daily mindfulness practice and has taught mindfulness and communication training for almost 20 years. Belinda also serves as a coach for Seth Godin’s altMBA program.
Fun fact: Belinda bought a truck and drove around 8 countries in Southern Africa for 5 months and then backpacked through Europe and Scandinavia for the remainder of the year. |
Juli Hendren
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Juli Hendren (she/her) is a teacher, producer, director, actor, and facilitator. She is a Professor in the Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of New Mexico. She is the director of Revo Inc, a non-profit arts organization based in Albuquerque that facilitates international cultural exchange programs promoting empathetic communication and peaceful conflict resolution. Juli was the Global Connectivity Manager for the Theatre Communications Group (NY), and she was a US representative for delegations to Cuba, Chile, Mexico, and Spain. Juli was the executive director of Tricklock Company (1993-2020) and the Revolutions International Theatre Festival (2001-2020.) Juli is a member of Theatre Without Borders (TWB) and co-created the TWB/Revo symposiums addressing solutions through art for communities in conflict. She is a graduate of UNM in performance and international producing and has trained at the Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation (Canada), Gardzienice Theatre Practices (Poland) and Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre (California) as well as hundreds of workshops and seminars around the world in community building and peace building through the arts. Juli is a long-time practitioner of yoga and an avid swimmer. She lives in downtown Albuquerque with her husband of 17 years.
Fun Fact: Juli once broke her foot as she was performing an acrobatic flip while on tour in Serbia and she finished the show without skipping a beat. |
Sheherazade Jafari, PhD
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As an educator, facilitator, researcher, and trainer, Sheherazade Jafari, PhD brings an equity lens to her work supporting organizations and communities in building inclusive cultures and in sustainably resolving and transforming conflict. Her background includes over two decades of practice and scholarship in international conflict resolution, community development, and gender equity within the civil society and education sectors. She has a particular interest in culturally rooted and faith-based peacebuilding, gender transformation and justice, and decolonizing approaches, and teaches at Georgetown University on related topics. Her recent publications include Religion and Gender Action Guide (United States Institute of Peace Press, 2023). She is chair of the board of the DC-based organization One Common Unity, and serves as awards chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA).
Fun fact: Sheherazade once played the role of an alien student in a science fiction B movie filmed in India. |
George Thompson, MD
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George S. Thompson, MD, FAPA is a child psychiatrist specializing in residential
treatment of traumatized youth and in polyvagal-informed crisis response. He trains individuals in skills and attitudes that cultivate compassionate, trustworthy relationships, for instance, between physicians and patients, therapists and clients, and parents and children. He also assists healthcare organizations to build emotionally safe, curious, coherent, and collaborative cultures. Dr. Thompson is medical director for two psychiatric residential programs in Kansas, psychiatrist for an innovative youth psychiatric urgent care center in Kansas City, and part of the team training mobile responders in Albuquerque’s Department of Community Safety. He teaches tools that nurture one’s personal responsibility, compassion, and service to others through the Avatar ® course. With Marilyn Sanders, George is author of Polyvagal Theory and the Developing Child: Systems of Care for Strengthening Kids, Families, and Communities. Another book, Working with Relational Trauma in Children’s Residential Care: A Guide to Using Dyadic Developmental Practice, which he wrote with Kim Golding and Edwina Grant, will be published in 2024. He is on faculty at the University of Kansas and University of Missouri-Kansas City Schools of Medicine. At Menninger and UMKC, he was Director of Psychiatry Residency Training. At UMKC, he directed the medical communications course and conducted award-winning research on medical professionalism. Fun fact: George taught elementary school for a year after graduating from medical school. He realized that was way harder than med school was! |
Joe Cassa
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Joe has taught hundreds of hours of classes for government, corporate, non-profit organizations and community groups including the Police Officers Standards and Training Association, Regis University, Colorado State Patrol Academy, Jefferson County Colorado Regional Training Academy, National Alliance of the Mentally Ill, County Sheriffs of Colorado, US Department of Justice and Police and Sheriff’s Departments around the country. Joe is the lead faculty member for the undergraduate and graduate conflict management program at Regis University.
Joe is a Colorado POST certified instructor holding a Master’s Degree, with honors, in Conflict Management along with a Master’s Certificate in Adult Development, Learning and Training. He also has a bachelor degrees in Criminal Justice and Biological Science with secondary education certification. |