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Meet Our Students
 Wilma
Vance
Wilma Vance has been a foster and adoptive parent (parenting over 80 children) for the last 13 years. This experience has been enhanced with the opportunity to train foster, adoptive and kinship families for the local department of social services and a private therapeutic foster care agency. She has 7 children, one biological, two step-children, four adopted children, and is also now a grandparent. She lives in the southwestern part of Virginia.
Wilma has been very active on the state level with FACES of Virginia Families, the states foster, adoptive and kinship association and the Child Welfare Advisory Committee.
She is currently teaching tele-parenting classes and is a parent co-trainer for local departments of social services. These experiences have validated the need of support being made available for all families.
As her children have grown so has her desire to help children and families. In the beginning the focus was on children and over time the realization that real change will only take place when connection is made with the parents. Today’s society does not provide the role models that most need to help them on their parenting journey, so parent coaching has become a main focus for her. With her youngest children now into their teen years it is the time to begin this journey.
Blessing and peace to all.
 Lesa
Day
Lesa Day has been coaching families in the private sector for nearly 20 years. Prior to that she was a social worker specializing in working with disabled adults. Lesa has coached individuals in areas of time management, leadership, and personal development, but her heart is for impacting the next generation. Lesa considers Atlanta, Ga her home, but travels extensively to meet the needs of her clients throughout the U.S.
Lesa Day's top selling book
"How to Get Your Child to Say, Yes! I Can! & I Will!" is an
Award-Winning Finalist in the Parenting/Family category of the National Best
Books 2008 Awards, sponsored by USA Book News.
The book is getting rave reviews in helping others set up the nurturing structure necessary for our children to become responsible, respectful individuals. Parents, teachers and nannies have found her teaching and techniques to be simple to implement and seen results in a very short period of time.
For more information visit www.yesIcanandIwill.com.
Shannon Kohler
My name is Shannon Kohler. I am 51 years old and have two sons with my husband of 23 years, Greg. Greg works at the top of Alaska on the North Slope for Conoco-Phillips as a production operator. He is up there for two weeks and home for two weeks. We have built our own home here but are ready to sell it and move to a warmer climate, probably near where our younger son will be playing baseball and going to college. The older son should be finishing college at ASU in Arizona next year. He will be 23 this summer and is married….no grandchildren, they are not at all ready for kids! Our other son is 16 and is a junior in high school here in Soldotna Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula. He is very involved in basketball and baseball and due to my nature and the team’s needs, I usually end up being the team mom, secretary and/or manager. The Peninsula has no cities but several medium size towns. We live on 2 ½ acres on a lake. It is amazingly beautiful in the summer but cold, dark and dreary in the winter.
I have an AAS in Early Childhood Education and CDA in Home Visiting. I have worked with special needs children and their families for about 12 years in various ways and with several different agencies. I did home visiting modeling parenting, providing education and case management for 4 years for Early Intervention serving families with special needs children. I have worked for Parents Inc. As Parents Anonymous parent group facilitator providing group meetings. I currently work in the school district for the Kenaitze Indian Tribe with children that have definite emotional differences (often special needs also)and need extra support to navigate the school system to be successful. I work in their ever evolving summer program, also.
I am involved in this coaching program so that I can have my own business doing what I do naturally but having autonomy and much more freedom to be an advocate for parents and children. I need the personal space and my own time to encourage parents to be their own advocates without working for another agency.
I am looking forward to applying my learning from the Academy to my personal parenting as well as developing a coaching/consulting practice that integrates my business and parent coaching experiences.
Shannon can be reached at smkohler@gci.net.
Tina Sanchez-Wright, LCSW
I am a licensed clinical social worker and have been working in various areas of the social service field for over twenty years, including mental health, adoption, foster care, juvenile court, hospice and international aid. After working with families referred by the Department of Child and Family Services along with the court system, I noticed many gaps in services which ultimately became a barrier to success for some families. In order to fill the gaps as well as build and strengthen families in my community, I recently started my own agency. Adoptions & Family Support Network Inc. provides family services, counseling, parenting, adoption and foster care services.
I've learned that just providing parenting information is not enough for many people. I believe that parent coaching is an opportunity to help families learn and experience a better connection with their children offering the possibility of improved relationships as well as a strengthened family unit. Currently, Adoptions & Family Support Network, Inc., services all of northwest Indiana. Expansion to the Chicagoland area is being planned for the near future. Please visit my website at adoptionandfamily.com or email me at adoptionandfamily@att.net for more information.
 Marlena Tsagaris
I have been married to my wonderful husband Van for 25 years, and we have three beautiful children--Teo age 21, Chris age 20, and Zoe age 18. My concerns as a mother have always been to foster confidence in my children, to honor and respect them for who they are, encourage them to speak their truth, to bond closely with each other, and to be in tune with their hearts. I have worked in the fields of real estate management, photography, nursing, and have been very active in my community, serving in all ranks of the PTA and athletic booster club. I am also a Reiki practitioner, and have explored many different forms of artistic expression, from creating sculptures out of tin cans, to drawing, painting and collage. You might say I’m the quintessential “Jill–of-all-trades”! Each endeavor in itself, however, never fully satisfied me. There was always something missing. I am certainly, above all, a “people person”, and my personality has always brought me close to others.
In my photography practice, I take pride in developing a close rapport with my subjects and producing intimate portraits. Connecting with individuals and helping them feel at ease, has brought me great satisfaction in my life, from leading others in the pursuit of goals to making it a more cheerful and friendly place for recovering hospitalized patients. I have taken care of many people in my life, including an elderly aunt, who lived with me for the last 3 of her 100 years. It is in taking care of people and being a support to them that I have always found my greatest joy and satisfaction, thus the opportunity of being a parent coach has inspired me greatly and feels like ‘IT’.
It is my hope that the opportunity to assist parents in connecting more deeply with their children will channel my natural abilities into a fulfilling practice, and most importantly, help me and Van to become even better parents, and one day, nurturing grandparents! I am very grateful for this opportunity and look forward to learning and sharing.
Melissa Hager
Melissa is a native South Carolinian,
originally from Florence, SC. She attending college at Covenant College, a small Presbyterian Liberal Arts college on Lookout Mountain, TN and completed her Bachelor degree in International Studies at the University of Tennessee, in Chattanooga, TN. Her love for studying cultures and the societies we build around those cultures, particularly non-western cultures, led her to the non-profit sector. Her work has been focused on assistance to the underserved of not only the far off places, but in her own community. She has worked with fundraising & grant writing, as well as organizational development, micro-business building and educational programs for entrepreneurs in developing countries. She later went on to complete a Master's Degree in Public Administration, which has added insight to the systems that public services work within and how to be successful in those networks.
As life has moved on and she now plays the role of mother and wife, her interests are focused more on youth and families. Her biggest aim is to equip parents with the needed tools to relate and connect with their children in a meaningful way so that they can be most successful in guiding their children through the tides of life. She is currently developing a program to guide youth through a journey of exploring the meaning of healthy relationships, boundaries, and discernment within our relationships. Her Parent Coaching career will focus on not only the relationship within the family members, but the relationships that extend beyond the family into society.
Melissa enjoys playing her violin, camping and other outings with her family. She is very thankful for the many blessings God has provided in her life, even those that were disguised in hardship. Her life's journey has taught her much about faith and
perseverance and the basic need we all have for family and connection. Her hope is to support families as they travel to wholeness.
Kathleen Barnett, RN, MSN
Kathleen has been a registered nurse for 28 years, graduating from Medical College of Virginia School of Nursing in 1980, and then receiving her Master’s Degree in Nursing from the University of Virginia in 1984, specializing in Emergency and Trauma. She is currently the pain management clinical specialist at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where she has worked since 1992. She is a member of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Committee at TMH, and has been a student of complementary and integrative therapies that can improve health and promote healing.
Kathleen is an instructor for the Upgrade Center in Tallahassee, where she teaches parenting and human-relations courses in the Tallahassee community. She is certified to teach the renowned “Understanding Yourself and Others” course, and is also Director of Redirecting Children’s Behavior—Tallahassee. She is married to Dr. Lonnie Draper and has two teenagers, Robert and Julia.
Marcia Hall
Marcia Hall, who was born and raised in Wisconsin, is currently living in the city of Milwaukee. She has been a Certified Professional Nanny for 12 years and absolutely loves being a Nanny. She graduated from the English Nanny and Governess School in 1997 and has worked as a CPN since then. She has experience with children from 4 days old through their teen years. Marcia has also worked with special needs children, stayed with children when their mom and dad needed to be away for weeks at a time and woken up with newborns to feed them in the middle of the night. She has helped families who needed some extra help to transition their older children to new siblings and helped instruct families struggling with discipline and behavioral issues.
To Marcia, children represent the simplicity she wishes we all could still posses. She believes that all children are gifted in a different ways and the best way to see them grow is to find their specific gifts and encourage the children in those. She loves to help children find their talents and help them excel in those talents. She believes that children are so much more than just our future; they are our link to the past and our foundation for the here and now.
Marcia is very active in her church. She works on the Leadership Team and with the Children’s Ministries and has done so for over 10 years. She is married and soon hopes to start a family. She and her husband are adopting a baby from the Milwaukee area and hope to bring her home soon!
Marcia’s decision to return to school and become a Certified Parent Coach with ACPI was an easy one. She has been helping friends and family with their parenting problems for the last 3 years. Over that time she has dreamed of becoming a parent consultant and is very excited to have found ACPI. There is much that she looks forward to learning about coaching and advising parents. She believes that her strengths in empathy, arranging and developing, will be an asset to her and her clients in the future. Marcia hopes to use the knowledge gained through the program to help parents to raise happy and well- balanced children so that they can reach their maximum potential. She also hopes to use her certification to educate the disadvantaged in her city.
 Shannon White
Shannon lives in Abbotsford, B.C. Canada, which is a one hour’s drive from Vancouver. She has always worked with children in one capacity or another. She was a swimming instructor & lifeguard for many years as well as a camp counselor. In both of these positions she received many requests to work with children who were considered “behaviorally challenged” by others. Shannon loved working with these children who she saw in a different light from those who had previously labeled them as such. Currently she works in Vancouver at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Child Psychiatry as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse. She has been working in this position since 2005. The families and children Shannon has worked with in Child Psychiatry come in for assessment and treatment of a wide range of social, mental health and learning challenges.
Shannon believes in looking primarily at a family and the child’s strengths and working from that point forward, not dwelling on the past. Although Shannon loves her work at the hospital, she does find there to be challenges when working within a health care system. After many requests by patient’s families to work in a consulting capacity, Shannon discovered the area of Parent Coaching. Parent Coaching and specifically the coaching style she has learned from ACPI; enable Shannon to use her unique approach and strength focused philosophy to empower parents to lead their families to outcomes they desire. Shannon looks forward to her continued studies with ACPI.
Shannon currently enjoys and looks forward to many more adventures with her husband Derek, her 15 year old step-son, her 3 year son and soon to arrive baby expected Feb. 5, 2009. Shannon can be reached at
happykidsolutions@gmail.com
 Susan
Love
Susan grew up as an “Army brat,” traveling frequently with her
family and learning to adapt quickly to new situations and new
people. As an adult she continued to crave change, working over the years as a paralegal, an actor, and a sales representative. When she began to feel a strong impulse to make a difference, Susan entered graduate school to become a psychotherapist. She worked happily in this field, treating adults, children and couples, until giving birth to her daughter Olivia in 1997. Susan had assumed she would continue her professional practice part-time, but found that she did not want to leave her little girl, so she closed her practice and became what she never expected to be—a stay-at-home mother.
When her daughter, Olivia, was ready for preschool, Susan enrolled her at Water’s Edge Waldorf School. Susan soon became very involved in the school and passionate about Waldorf education. She is currently finishing up Waldorf teacher training, with the goal of deepening her understanding of the pedagogy in order to better serve the school in her dual role of Enrollment Coordinator and Administrator.
In the course of her psychotherapy practice, as a parent, and in working with parents at the school, Susan has realized that there is a great need for educating and supporting parents so they can take care of their children in a joyful, connected way while still creating healthy rhythms and boundaries within which their children will thrive. She is looking forward to the ACPI training and to becoming a parent coach.
Susan and her family live in a cottage on a lake north of Chicago.
 Jodi
My name is Jodi. I graduated with a Doctorate in School-Child Clinical Psychology from Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology in 1999. I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Hofstra University and a duel Masters in Education and Special Education from New York University (1993). I currently live Long Island with my husband of almost 10 years and our three young children.
In the almost 10 years I have been working as a licensed psychologist, and for several years prior as a special education teacher, I have always worked with families whose children are identified as having “special needs.”
In my current job I run social skill/counseling groups for children 2 years of age through 6 years of age, conduct parent training programs for parents with children identified with an assortment of behavioral issues, and evaluate preschool children with a variety of educational, cognitive, and behavioral issues. However, it is my work with the parents that I find the most rewarding and challenging. While I find parents are able to utilize the modeling, “tips,” and the behavior management techniques I provide during the year long session, I find that there is little follow through or ability to generalize these techniques once the children are no longer getting services. It is my hope that through my classes and opportunities provided by the parent coaching academy that I will be more successful in helping families learn to appreciate one other for their strengths and weakness and therefore experience more sustained positive relationships.
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