“As a crisis center, it is in our fabric to listen with compassion, to not judge, to hold hope, and to believe in a better day. These practices form a foundation for our agency that was strengthened by Laurin’s gender diversity training with our staff. Laurin’s training  focused on developing  a culture of open communication which led to the deconstruction of the gender binary at our agency, an improved internal culture, and better service delivery to clients of all gender identities and expressions.”

 – Kim Mizuhara, Crisis Support Services of Alameda County

“As an educator it is my duty to offer as many perspectives and narratives to my kids. Ones that trigger new wonders and dialogue about topics that sometimes feel tricky. Laurin’s interaction with our community through her special read aloud and conversation really resonated with the kids. She was able to field so many curious questions about “boy and girl stuff”  in a kind and informative way. This experience helped us cultivate authentic conversation about uniqueness and differences.”

—Alison Lanza, 2nd Grade Teacher at CPE2, East Harlem

“Laurin’s work with Family Paths has made a significant difference in our approach to building a culturally responsive agency. She has helped move us toward system change in a manner that was supportive and compassionate, while challenging some of our assumptions. At the same time she gently guided us to a deeper understanding of our strengths and challenges. We also appreciate Laurin’s warmth and humor; in our work with her over the span of one year she made the exploration of multiculturalism both fun and meaningful.”

—Marcella Reeves, Executive Director, Family Paths, Inc.

“I was really pleased that we could begin having this discussion. I now feel emboldened to continue conversations like this every year to open all our minds to how people express gender in different ways and how we can show empathy and compassion toward others.”

– Aiko Keen, Second Grade Teacher, Bridges Academy, Oakland

“Laurin’s candid, creative, and deeply informed consulting approach has been instrumental in CompassPoint’s work to become more fully multicultural. Our partnership with her has resulted in meaningful improvements to how we work together as a staff as well as to how we serve the nonprofit community.  She helped our team look into diverse ways of defining leadership as we developed a program for next generation leaders of color. She worked with us to create a space for collaborative and self-reflective learning about one’s own leadership framework and its relationship to working within teams, organizations, networks, fields and the broader social system. She establishes an authentic place for learning and making our values visible.”

—Jeanne Bell, CEO, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services

“Laurin has contributed much to the well-being of the Alameda Health Consortium in our quest to strengthen our effectiveness as a team and improve communication among staff members. We hired Laurin to lead us through the challenging work of addressing issues of race, power and hierarchy in our organization. Laurin developed the workshop materials and facilitated the staff retreats. She exercised sound judgment, patience, integrity and respect. We are grateful to Laurin for providing us with the skills and structure so that we can continue this ongoing process on our own.”

—Lois Bailey Lindsey, Alameda Health Consortium

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