“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
― Barack Obama
About the All Aboard Conductors Program
In a world where the very essence of humanity is in constant battle with an economic return, many people are suffering. This constant fight of people vs profits has caused pain and division, creating splintering and misalignment within our communities. Which is challenging our collective ability to design a future that allows for growth, healing and liberation for All.
Blooming Willow’s All Aboard Conductors Program was created to provide a space for BIPOC and white leaders committed to social change from around the world to gather, learn and reimagine communities where all people thrive. This five month offering provides an opportunity for students to grow, heal, challenge themselves, becoming partners in each other liberation as they build Healing Centered Coaching skills.
The All Aboard Conductors Program creates a Healing Centered Coaching space that invites students to stretch beyond the known as they learn to hold spaces of possibility for clients. This process in supported by Healing Centered Coaches that train students to facilitate Blooming Willow Coaching’s signature Healing Centered Coaching Model that supports clients to Pause, Ground, Align and Act while centering growth and healing.
Spring 2024 All Aboard Conductors Coach Certification Program
Dates: March 9, 2024 – July 27, 2024
Cost: $6,500
Location: Virtual
Students & Faculty: BIPOC Folks and White Folks Committed to Social Change for Communities of Color
Weekly Virtual Teleclass: All Saturday classes are from 9am-1pm PST and all Wednesday classes are from 4pm-6pm PST (see schedule below)
76 Hour International Coaching Federation Accredited Program Components:
20 - Hours of Reading, Practice Coaching, Portfolio Assignments and Video Reviews (Per Month)
20 - Live Virtual Learning Sessions (Five Half Day Sessions and Fifteen, 2 Hour Sessions - Please note that the first and last Half Day Session is Mandatory)
20 - Practice Coaching Hours Completed with Peers and Clients Outside of Class (4 Per Month)
10 - Mentor Sessions (5 one-one and 5 group)
5 - Coaching Portfolio Assignments (1 Per Month)
Pass the International Coach Federation Coach Knowledge Assessment with a score of 70% or higher
Pass the Healing Centered Coaching Oral Competency Assessment with a score of 70% or Higher
5 Month Virtual Program:
Spring Cohort 2023
Saturday, March 9th, 2024 - Half-Day Session 9 am - 1 pm PST (Mandatory Session)
Welcome to Healing Centered Coaching Core Competencies & Coach's Stand
Wednesday, March 13th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Asking Powerful Questions & Practicing Engaged Listening
Wednesday, March 20th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Curiosity, Interrupting & Acknowledgment
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Coaching Practice - Core Competencies Focus 1-7
Saturday, April 6th, 2024 - Half-Day Session 9 am - 1 pm PST
Healing Centered Coaching Mindset, Pausing & Supporting Safety
Wednesday, April 10th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Supporting Safety, Opening, Grounding & Expanding the Session
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Gathering and Clarifying the Clients Agenda
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Coaching Practice - Module 1&2 Competencies Focus: 3 Agenda's 1-16
Saturday, May 4th, 2024 - Half-Day Session 9 am - 1 pm PST
Exploring the 3 Agenda, Respecting the Client & Expanding the View
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Visioning, Metaphors & Analogies
Wednesday, May 15th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Inviting Play to Support Clarity
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Group Coaching Practice - Module 3-I Competencies Focus: Play 1-22
Saturday, June 1st, 2024 - Half-Day Session 9 am - 1 pm PST
Exploring Limiting Beliefs & The Internal Community
Wednesday, June 5th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Accessing Inner Wisdom and Power
Wednesday, June 12th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Supporting Pausing, Reflection and Meaning Making
Wednesday, June 19th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Group Coaching Practice - Module 3-II Competencies Focus 1-27
Wednesday, June 26th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Supporting Pausing and Identifying Goals for Action
Wednesday, July 10th, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Co-Designing Healing Centered North Star Goals & Accountability
Wednesday, July 17, 2024 4 pm - 6 pm PST
Group Closing Session
Saturday, July 27th, 2024 - GRADUATION DAY 9 am - 1 pm PST (Mandatory Session)
Community Celebration & Reflection + Teach Back
Max – 24 Participants
*Please note that students are able to miss and make-up 15 hours of the required virtual classes.
Program Cost: $6,500
Application Deadline: New Extended Deadline: Friday, February 3, 2024
Register for the All Aboard Conductors Cohort by November 24, 2023 for Early Bird Discount $500 Off Price
Students being considered for the program may be invited to participate in an interview with Conductors Alumni or Faculty prior to admission. We use a rolling admissions process for this cohort and the application pool will close once the cohort has been filled.
Conductors Faculty
Leslie Avant-Brown, MPA, MCC
Leslie Avant-Brown, MPA, MCC
CEO - Principal Owner
Leslie Avant-Brown, Conductor# 1, is an innovator, facilitator, coach and thought leader within movement work. Her relentless desire to fuel systems change in support of vulnerable communities has changed the fabric of this work. With her down to earth demeanor, she brings a unique mix of laughter, curiosity, healing, creativity and strategy to support conductors of change – those who are designing innovative strategies that benefit future generations. She believes that moving beyond traditional leadership approaches will revolutionize the way that people work and thrive. “I have dedicated my life to supporting communities to build trust, identify new leadership, increase diversity of voice and choice, incorporate growth and healing strategies and build sustainably. I do this because I know, what we plant today will bloom tomorrow”
In 2016, through a partnership with Beyond Emancipation, her CCRW Coaching Model (focused on foster and probation youth) received the notorious International Coaching Federation Prism Award Honorable Mention (Coming 2nd only to Coca-Cola Russia) for its innovative design supporting culture change. She went on to support the development of an ICF Accredited, Community Coaching Certification Program at Leadership that Works, the first of its kind. Through this pioneering effort, she certified over 100 coaches in this new community accreditation, radically shifting how communities are supported through coaching.
Leslie serves as CEO at her firm Blooming Willow Coaching, a culturally relevant, Healing Centered Coaching practice that allows her to partner with individuals, organizations and businesses. Her specialization areas include “all things” coaching including: one-on-one and group coaching, coaching facilitation, coach training, and designing sustainable coaching models that support growth and healing in communities.
Previously, she worked as the International Program Director for Leadership that Works, and supported the development, implementation and facilitation of cutting edge coaching programs that supported value-driven transformation in India, Europe and the United States.
Prior to earning her coaching certification Leslie worked in the nonprofit capacity building sector, supporting work that promoted social justice -- she has a background in leadership development and evaluation. “What brought me to the field of coaching was the idea of supporting deep change while aligning my strengths to support conductors of change.”
Leslie received her professional coaching certification through Leadership that Works and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Michigan. In her free time, Leslie enjoys finding new adventures, spending time with her wife, belly laughing, eating delicious food and of course creating!!
Anisha Desai
Anisha, Conductor# 2, has worked in organizations dedicated to movement support, educational equity and leadership development for two decades. She is a Facilitator, Strategist, Coach, and Worker-Owner at AORTA (Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance). Prior to AORTA, she served as Director of the New Leaders Initiative and Brower Youth Awards at Earth Island Institute in Berkeley, where she identified, honored and coached emerging youth environmental movement leaders. She shaped a long-standing program into one that was relevant, accessible and responsive to a new generation of activists committed to advancing creative and inclusive organizational models.
Anisha previously held director roles at Women of Color Resource Center in Oakland and at United for a Fair Economy in Boston. In addition to organizational management, she designed programs and curriculum and conducted popular education workshops.
Anisha approaches her work with a tenderness that comes from experiencing the often-rough edges of hierarchical nonprofit leadership structures and knows the gifts of pain, insight and metamorphosis that come with failing fabulously. She brings to AORTA a passion for supporting organizations to create cultures that value democratic participation, mentorship, healing, equity and justice.
Anisha is of Sri Lankan and Indian descent, raised with class privilege by two loving-hearted psychiatrist parents and a devoutly religious grandmother in a smallish town in Florida. Through lived experience with depression and anxiety, she holds those with mental illness in deep care and understanding. She is also a Life-Cycle Celebrant and founder of Radical Ceremony, crafting and officiating end of life ceremonies, weddings and other rites of passage. Anisha enjoys performing with her soul-line dancing team and is an occasional writer of stories on family, culture, and nostalgia.
Oseloka Idigbe, CPC
As a facilitator, organizational development consultant and coach, Ose, Conductor# 29 is passionate about developing leaders and bringing people together to connect, exchange ideas, and collaborate. During his career, he has supported strategy and leadership development at government agencies, organizations, and foundations in over 100 engagements across issue areas including health, education, housing, immigration and youth development.
As a consultant and facilitator, Oseloka works with nonprofit organizations in board development, planning, and risk management.
Before coming to Blooming Willow Coaching, Ose was part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa initiative, where he helped to develop strategies for private sector engagement.
Prior to his transition to the nonprofit sector, Ose worked as an analyst at Standard Bank of South Africa in Commercial Property Finance. He holds Flawless Consulting certification and Facilitative Leadership for Social Change accreditation, and is an International Coaching Federation certified coach.
Oseloka received his M.P.A. from New York University, as well as a B.A. in Philosophy from University College London and a L.L.P. from BPP Law School.
Stephanie Lowe (Liu), CPC
Stephanie, Conductor# 30, is a passionate leadership development practitioner, looking to spark personal and collective change from the inside out. She has designed and facilitated learning and development for over 15 years with a range of audiences from K-12 students to frontline program staff and coaches, to executive leaders in the public education and nonprofit sector.
She has spent the majority of her career leading program innovations and new possibilities at a large national nonprofit as a strategist, program designer, trainer, team leader, and internal coach and consultant to senior program leaders across the country.
She also enjoys cultivating the voice and leadership of young people and young professionals through coaching and volunteer opportunities. She lives in Chicago with her husband Greg and two young children, Amina and Felix, and enjoys exploring all corners of the city with her family.
Shor Salkas, MPH, CPC
Shor Salkas (they/them), Conductor# 42 is a public health professional and healing-centered coach who is deeply committed to health equity and health justice as ways to create more healed and thriving communities. Through activism, organizing, coaching, training, consultation, and facilitation Shor works with groups and individuals to realize their strengths and fullest potential to create change in their lives, communities, and workplaces.
Shor has been working to promote social, racial, and gender justice through many projects and organizations like the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, Out in the Backyard, SHIFT Minnesota, the City of Minneapolis Transgender Equity Council, the Wisconsin Transgender Health Coalition, the Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute, and through public health and health equity coalition building across Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Shor is a first generation, white-assimilated Jewish, queer, trans non-binary, fat person who has called the occupied Dakota and Anishanabe land known as Minneapolis home for most of their adult life. Shor is a parent, partner, neighbor, community member, and artist. They love nature and being outside, growing gardens and plant friends, and their pets. All of their identities and experiences in life shape who they are and how they approach their work as coach and healer.
Michael Wise, PCC
Michael draws on his experiences as a queer man and cancer survivor to support clients to step into their bravery, authenticity and resilience. He brings an authentic, grounded and collaborative approach to his coaching, mentoring and training. That means being direct and speaking hard truths while also holding a warm, loving and playful energy. He’s passionate about social justice and fighting to make this world better for every one of us. Michael believes that starts with each one of us working on our own healing, development and growth and that then ripples out to the people in our lives and communities. He looks forward to learning about what you love and supporting you to have more of all of it.
Michael has partnered with individuals and communities to identify and creatively address their needs for over 25 years in the nonprofit sector. He’s been a counselor for LGBTQ teens, a community health educator, a youth program director at a large nonprofit, a professional coach, coach mentor and a coach trainer. He is a Certified Professional Coach (CPC), and received his training from the Leadership That Works Coaching for Transformation program, an International Coaching Federation (ICF) accredited program. Michael eventually became a faculty member there, and has taught coaching since 2017. He is credentialed as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) by the ICF, and also holds a Masters of Public Health (MPH) in Community Health Education from Hunter College.
When he’s not coaching, he loves game nights with his partner Jerome and their close friends, good coffee, reading fantasy and sci-fi books and watching horror movies. He’s also an unapologetic tennis fanatic!
Feedback Mentors
Nicky Avant-Brown, PCC
Like a rocket, Nicky's coaching is the vessel that clients access when a much broader perspective is required. From a more spacious point of view, clients get to see their full operating systems--the world and themselves in it. By observing from different angles clients are better positioned to see options, opportunities, limiting beliefs and the way forward.
For over 21 years, Nicky has been exploring the impact of our systems- and rule-based society on individuals. As a workshop facilitator, coaching trainer, department supervisor and program manager, she has designed empowerment curricula centered on internal capacity building, culture change, leadership and healing for organizations.
As a Professional Certified Coach (trained in Transformational Life Coaching and Healing Centered Community Coaching), Nicky considers herself to be an intuitive partner, a wise ally and a reflector of the space between what you didn't know then and what you do know now. She brings a sense of wonder and curiosity to every session.
Nicky's coaching opens space for traditional and non-traditional leaders to slow down and catch up to themselves, to explore needs, to envision success and to create fresh boundaries and agreements before taking brave steps forward.
DeShauna West-Anderson, MSW, PCC
Based out of the Bay Area, California, DeShauna received her Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, with additional coursework in Forensic Psychology. During this time, DeShauna also began working for a non-profit agency that contracts with Alameda County Social Services supporting foster youth with navigating self-sufficiency. After working in this field, she realized that the core of our problems and stress often correlate with symptoms in our bodies. Starting with self, she decided to challenge her mind, body and spiritual alignment by beginning an Ashtanga yoga practice. Also, she discovered life coaching, which quickly became an important tool in all clientcentered and leadership work. This allowed her connections with others to become more than just a mentorship, but a partnership in their goals.
Through self-discoveries in yoga and coaching, DeShauna resolved to deepen the mind/body connection and received her 250-hour Teacher Training Certification (Power Vinyasa & Yoga Sculpt). DeShauna also realizes that mastering the “self” is a lifelong path, yet the journey there is where meaningful experience happens. In June 2018, she became a certified transformational coach through Leadership that Works and uses somatic tools to support individuals with bringing their authentic selves to the surface. DeShauna will also earn her 300-hour Teacher Training (continued yoga education) in December 2021. Her ultimate goal is to create a connection with individuals throughout their personal journey, with the hopes of helping to empower them to reach their desired destinations. DeShauna believes “Health is a state of body and wellness is a state existence.”
During DeShauna’s spare time she enjoys spending time with her husband, daughter, animals (she has a dog, cat, gecko, fishes) and different species of plants as well as geodes.