“I appreciate that along with sharing your useful tools and techniques, you have helped us engage with and learn from each other. Your style gives everyone ownership in the learning process.” – Child Systems Team Member Austin Independent School District

“You opened my eyes regarding the options that exist within Zoom for bringing experiential engagement and team-building methods online! Thank you for helping me create a positive learning community for my teams and engage them in meaningful reflection.”

“This is just what I needed! I put the entry activity, breakout group techniques, and dialogue sparking ideas to use with my college students right after the workshop ended!” 

“Jen was the most encouraging, inspiring instructor. I loved her enthusiasm for teaching!” – Participant from the University of Vermont/Vermont Agency of Education BEST Summer Institute

“Your presentation helped me to bridge another way to connect expressive arts therapy with the classroom in a meaningful and direct way. I really appreciated your insights and practice of constantly evaluating what would work best to facilitate the groups learning. Taking time to be aware of the type, timing, presentation and sequence of activities is actually one of the founding tenets of occupational therapy, and I admired your natural ease with this process. Your theory and practice come through as one in the same.”-Participant Pre-conference Learning and the Brain Conference, Boston

Thank you for taking the time to come to Colgate and educate our program staff and students. I was inspired with ease in which you guided our group- Abby Rowe, Director of Outdoor Education Colgate University

Jen kept us moving, talking, reflecting and engaged! Excellent workshop from beginning to end. We actually did the things she was sharing instead of her just telling us about them. – New England League of Middle Schools Workshop Participant

Jen – I enjoyed your workshop at the Mentoring Conference so much! Thank you making these concepts accessible and understandable to our attendees. And thank you for the “Conversation Starter” buttons – we used them at our retreat for our Young Professional Board. They asked if they could keep their buttons as mementos – seriously! It was perfect. Thanks again.
Jean Lahage Cohen Executive Director
Mentoring Partnerships of Long Island and New York

Jen is a dynamic and very authentic presenter/facilitator. I loved the practical application of the concepts and the links to brain research. This workshop has given us many useful tools and skills we can incorporate immediately into our trainings. This workshop really will help me to improve my training and is encouraging me to break out of the mold. Best training ever! -Child Welfare Education Trainer State of New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services

I appreciated your welcoming and authentic teaching style and positive energy. You made us feel like you had designed the workshop specifically for our program’s needs. I have been visiting your blog since the training and have a number of useful strategies and activities I will use in my group work. -Counselor Laraway Youth and Family Services Agency Staff Training

Jen knows her stuff. She is professional, prepared and engaging. She has a wide variety of life/work experiences to draw upon and was relaxed and clear in her points throughout the day. It was helpful to have the opportunity to try out each activity so that you have a clear understanding of how it works. I learned a ton of new activities to use in the classroom and when training other adults. I plan to use the strategies in my own classroom, in my advisory and in my mentor trainings for new teachers and their mentors. -Attendee Inspired Educator Workshop at the University of Vermont

I find Jen’s sessions eye opening, motivating, and rejuvenating. Your workshop lessons and experiences have helped me grow my soft skills dramatically. Your post cards and pins are an amazing tool that I utilize almost every time in my programs. I cant wait to learn new uses of these tools and also discover new ones. -Bill Thornton Illiniois State University

I wanted to write and say thank you for sharing your skills and energy with us at training! I really learned a lot from you, and am happy to say that our tween meetings that I ranted to you about are much smoother now. It’s taken time for them to adjust, and we are also changing our programming to give them more structure, and more power of choice. Tween Center Olympics are coming soon, and this will be a fun way to explore team and group dynamics. Loved your newsletter and blog, too! You have so many great resources, and I know others on our staff are benefiting from you work, too. Thanks again for sharing time and energy with us all! It was a super fun training, and very very valuable to my service, and life in general.
Jessica Jackson • AmeriCorps State Youth Outreach Coordinator
Essex CHIPS, Inc. and Teen Center

Friday’s workshop was really helpful to me professionally. I was grateful to receive/experiment with a variety of experiential education exercises and understand the importance of intentional sequencing, I most appreciated the challenge to incorporate experiential learning into all parts of my work, both big and small, from now on. I’m on to present a reflection during our staff meeting at my therapy internship site next week and am choosing to make it experiential – explaining the “why” to my colleagues with with several of your experiential education principles during the framing. I’m excited to continue growing in this work and sharing it with others! Thank you Jen. -Kathleen van Tiem Loyola University Chicago