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Staffing Biographies
 vicki abadesco! is an expert educator and program consultant with over 15 years of leadership work with schools and organizations throughout the United States and abroad. Her extensive work with a wide diversity of thousands of youth and adults allows her to have a constant pulse on what people need to be launched into lifelong success and growth.
Her expertise and training includes individual and group level counseling, conflict resolution, crisis intervention and accelerated learning techniques. She has written, created and produced several life skills curriculum manuals and activity card decks, including Leadership: Truth or Dare and Mentor Magic.
vicki! is also the developer for the companion curriculum to the College Life 101 internet radio talk show for students, distributed to First Year Experience educators from more than 50 schools across the nation.
 is a California credentialed teacher who has been working in education for over 16 years. He believes that educating the whole person and creating a safe environment are imperative to having successful learning experiences. In addition to his classroom teaching his educational accomplishments include directing student generated plays, training conflict resolution skills for youth and adults, conducting school wide assemblies on peace and creating practical curriculum.
As a teacher, Joseph is known for crafting nurturing and academically focused atmospheres for his students. As a teacher coach/mentor he is supportive and inspiring. In addition to his educational experience he has written, performed, and directed theater productions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
 Daniel is an award winning actor and musician from the Bay Area. His work in the arts branched out to teaching acting and directing plays for children a few years ago, and eventually led him to Soul Shoppe, where Daniel feels right at home. Daniel brings with him over twenty years experience, a boat-load of passion and a whole lotta love.
 Amy MacClain is a Bay Area Native whose extensive experience with youth includes substitute teaching, directing plays, leading youth camps, bilingual tutoring (Spanish/English), sports coaching and most recently parenting! As a mother and community leader, Amy co-founded a child care co-operative based on conscious intentional parenting, teaching toddlers how to express their feelings positively and listen to each other (yes! this is possible!) while providing a supportive environment for parents to explore how they were parented in an effort to create the most nurturing and educational space for the entire community. Amy has trained in conflict resolution, Re-Evaluation Counseling and social oppression work. She is also a singer/songwriter with 10 years performing experience. She is delighted to bring all of her experience together to lead powerful workshops and assemblies for schools.
 Heath is a poet, a monk, and a lover of life. Through his many experiences, he loves listening to the elders speak, and being around medicine people the most. Having been through dysfunction and abuse, he finds great value and peace in having broken the cycle, healing his own heart and soul, and in turn helping others to do the same.
He currently has his Master's degree in clinical psychology, and is at the end of completing his Ph.D. in the same field. He has worked with people clinically for over seven years in formats such as individual, group, family, and couples therapy, as well as having taught classes on stress reduction and meditation. He has also taught at the college level, and conducted numerous presentations for clients and colleagues on topics such as recovering from trauma, and finding spirituality.
In his free time, Heath loves to go to Native American and Sufi ceremonies, and enjoys learning about the deeper, more mysterious experiences of life by beholding all the many religions, and the people walking those different paths. He also is a student of Aikido.
Melanie Hopson
 Melanie has enjoyed a variety of positions in community organizations. For 20 years she has worked in school districts, summer and day camps, non-profits, the YMCA, and various ecumenical settings. Melanie is extremely skilled at creating systems and advancing great ideas. She’s one of those people who can’t help but be organized and detail-oriented.
Melanie has a masters degree in theology and loves going away on silent retreats to cultivate her faith. She teaches classes on topics such as the spiritual disciplines, and occasionally delivers a sermon at her church. She travels every chance she gets, and in 2005, she returned from a year of wandering solo around the world. Highlights included swimming with dolphins in New Zealand, being scrubbed in a Turkish bath in Istanbul, and successfully avoiding the tsunami in Thailand.
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