Judy Gaines, MS is Executive Director of Human Service Specialist, Inc., a privately owned social service agency. She is trained as a Parent Training Facilitator in several curriculums, having trained more than 500 parents, and conducted many facilitator training workshops both in the United States and the United Kingdom for the Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families and Communities Program.

Judy is the former Director of a parent education program at Albany State University, a model program that targeted parenting services to teen parents, adoptive and foster parents, and single parents. Her background is in social work. She has experience as a Child Protective Service Worker, a Mental Health Counselor, and as a Medicaid provider-relations representative.

Judy has written and received several grants to provide various services to families throughout Georgia. She earned her Bachelors in Psychology and a Masters in Sociology with emphasis in Social Services. Judy lives in Albany, Georgia with her niece, Malendie and other family members.

Paul Nagle-McNaughton, MS has worked with individuals, families, and organizations to optimize individual potential, develop healthy families, and enhance organizational effectiveness. He has taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

His background is in counseling, training, personnel & business management, human relations, family systems, parent education, consulting, and organization development, with a special interest in supporting fathers in developing parenting skills.

Paul completed his Bachelors degree in Psychology at the University of Michigan and his Masters in Organization Development through the psychology department at Central Washington University. Paul is married and the father of two sons.

Neldine Edwards, BA is the founder and Executive Director of the We Can Make A Difference Parent Education Center. She is a Certified Parenting Instructor in several parent-training programs and a National Trainer for the Strengthening Multi Ethnic Families and Communities Program.

She has trained and/or co-trained over 100 instructors and 1,500 parents in a variety of culturally sensitive parent programs in three Michigan cities: Benton Harbor, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek.

Her 30-years of experience as a child & family therapist enables her to bring clinical insight and experience in working with families, services providers and organizations. She is accomplished in developing and implementing culturally relevant programs that educate, motivate, and inspire people to move towards positive change.

Neldine has received a number of awards including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Innovative Initiative Award for her outstanding and creative work in providing culturally specific parenting programs. Neldine lives in Michigan with her husband John.

Linda Reyes Songer, MSW was trained in 1993 as part of the piloting process for the Strengthening Program. She works with trusted-advocates in ethnically diverse communities to provide parent education classes. Since 1996, she serves as a clinical social worker in the Women’s Clinic & Children’s Teen Clinic, Family Medicine Clinic and International Medicine Clinic.

Linda wrote a multi-year grant providing Spanish-language parenting classes at Harborview Medical Center. She has provided consultation and technical assistance to projects at the University of Washington and for the Non-Profit Assistance Center and their “Making Connections School Readiness Project” focusing on refugee families.

She has supervised a number of facilitators in implementing the program and provided parent training with Cultural Mediators in Somali, Amharic, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Spanish and English languages. Linda has trained in Washington and California. In 1996, she earned a Masters in Social Work at the University of Washington.

Vicky Fitzgerald, BA has facilitated over 25 Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families and Communities groups since 2001. She has spread the training practice to several school sites and worked with grant support to facilitate Child Protection groups. Working across programs in her agency, she has trained and co-facilitated with 10 other staff members.

She is experienced in In-Home Parenting and teaches at risk families in the areas of child development, stress management, neglect, sexual abuse and special needs issues. Her skills include group facilitation, parent education, problem solving, family advocacy and working with diverse communities.

Vicky has a 20-year history as Family Service Provider with Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota.