we help connect hearts, minds & hands to effect meaningful change
Who We Are
Our team
Over 25 years of good hearts & passion
our story
Mike, Viviana, Jeff, Gin and Anna are good friends. In the spring of 2013, they met in a small room of a public library to dream and vision together on ways to create meaningful change within individuals, groups, and organizations in the areas of diversity, cultural competence, social justice and equity. After much dialogue and reflection, the friends planned a retreat to help connect their “hearts, minds and hands” in a unified vision of collaborative change. At the retreat, after a Talking Circle and collectively focusing, supporting, and sharing about the challenges in social justice work and change, each became deeply aware of their collective need to join together as a “community” in their work with communities. It was in that moment that the “Facilitating Awareness for Change & Equity (F.A.C.E) Consulting Collaborative” was born. Their vision is “to model a learning community that works together to promote ongoing intergenerational learning, awakening, interconnection, transformation, liberation, authenticity and humility in the seeking of ways to connect, sustain, respect and uphold the whole of the human family and the Earth through intentional and mindful community building in today’s diverse world”.
The F.A.C.E. TEAM
Viviana Aguilar, Mike Beebe, Jeff Birdsall, Anna Hansen and Ginlin Woo have individual consulting businesses and for over 25 years have used their good hearts and passion, knowledge and mindfulness, expertise and skills to help build and sustain communities. Through the creation of a consulting collaborative, they bring their diverse backgrounds, multi-leveled expertise, training and facilitating skills, national and international experience to the forefront in a down-to-earth compassionate approach for creating communal safe spaces for learning and growing in mindful, inclusive and intentional ways. As a team, they share a unified vision, and commitment to advance healthy and meaningful relationship building in today’s global communities, workplaces and earth.
Viviana Aguilar is a multicultural educator and trainer and former bilingual teacher for the California school system. Viviana has provided training and technical assistance on the national and international level for many systems including: the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Migrant Education, U.S. Department of Interior, Corporation for National and Community Service, University of Guam, Temple University’s Center for Intergenerational Studies, the Ministry of Education for the Republic of Palau, the Department of Education for Yap State, FSM, the Monterey County Office of Migrant Education. Viviana recently helped complete the preparation of Spanish language translations of training and orientation materials for national service volunteers. Of special interest to Viviana is multicultural children’s literature and the unlearning of ethnic, gender, class and age bias presented in instructional materials.
Viviana holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University, a teaching credential from Laverne University, and an M.A., Ed., from Antioch University Seattle.
mike beebe
Mike Beebe decided to take his passion for leadership development training and start Leadership for Change Consulting in 2004. Since then, he has worked with thousands of individuals and groups to help develop their leadership skills. Mike Beebe has also served as the Program Director for Penny Harvest Seattle/King County since September of 2004. Mike has over 20 years of experience managing youth & adult leadership programs and is passionate about partnering with young people to create positive social change. His experience includes managing JustServe AmeriCorps, a youth anti-violence program, TEEN LINK, a hotline for youth answered by youth, and serving on the Board of Directors for COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), a national organization advocating for the rights of GLBT families. In addition to his professional experience, he is a dedicated community volunteer. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Casa Verde, is a member of Social Justice Fund Northwest, and is a member of Homestead Community Land Trust.
Jeff Birdsall
Jeff Birdsall is an independent consultant, facilitator and trainer for national service programs, universities, and non-profits throughout the country. Jeff has worked for over twenty-five years as an experiential educator and program director in a variety of environmental learning communities and has directed two AmeriCorps programs, The Northwest Service Academy and The Youth Volunteer Corps, as well as co-founded a youth service program, The Wilderness Volunteer Corps. In addition to his on-going training and consulting work, Jeff serves as an adjunct faculty in Antioch University’s Leadership and Organizational Studies program as well as in Brown University’s Leadership Institute.
Jeff holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies: Service-Learning – Social Justice through Compassionate Action from Naropa University, where he helped to create a new service-learning center, and a B.S. in Environmental Education from Lesley University/Audubon Expedition Institute.
Contact Jeff by email, phone (206-354-1457) or LinkedIn.
Anna Hansen
Anna Hansen has worked and traveled throughout the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world doing the work she loves – helping to create, encourage and sustain compassion and care within a challenging environment while “growing” a life of meaning through the wonder of personal growth and discovery.
Her specialty areas include understanding and healing from trauma, historical trauma, grief work, personal development, shame and anger management. Anna Hansen is owner/President of the Future Focus Consulting Group and formed her company in 2005 to create teams of workers who go into communities and help create and sustain wellbeing and healing from the “inside out”. “The answers to community problems or issues are within the community — the answer is like a seed,” she states. “We just help create an environment for the seed to take root so it might blossom.” The healthy development of children requires a “field” of safety and protection so ‘they, too, might blossom’. This is the focus of Anna’s work — a healthy today for a healthy future. “We must join together now to make this happen. It is our children and then, their children who will sustain the compassionate healing and positive change we strive for today. It will take all people from the four sacred directions working together to create safe places for children to grow and thrive in today’s fast paced and rapidly changing world.”
Anna graduated from Seattle University in 1986 with a Master’s degree in Psychology and has begun post-MA specialization training for certification in existential analysis and logotherapy from the International Society for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, Vienna. Anna is a registered member of the shíshálh Band in British Columbia, the mother of six, grandmother of 14 and lives with her husband, Gary, on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Contact Anna by email.
Ginlin Woo
Ginlin Woo grew up in Seattle, served multiple terms of service as a VISTA volunteer in both Seattle, WA and Brooklyn, NY from 1968-1972, and has worked locally, nationally and internationally for the past 40 plus years in community development work. For more than twenty years, as an independent consultant, she has been retained as a trainer, facilitator, teacher, evaluator, advisor, volunteer, curriculum designer, project manager, board member, planner, coach and mentor. Since the late 60’s, she has worked for organizations as diverse as: the United Way of America, the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribal Community of Kingston, WA, the Pierce County SafeStreets Substance Abuse Prevention Campaign, the National Multicultural Institute (NMCI); the University of Washington’s Department of Women’s Studies, Honolulu Community College; the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education, Habitat for Humanity, the Ministry of Education for the Republic of Palau, NeighborWorks America, North Seattle Community College, the University of Guam, the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).
Recent accomplishments include helping to coach and facilitate: the development of the C.E.D.A.R. Project (intergenerational tribal youth-elder leadership development and substance abuse prevention project) for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribal Community; a Washington State community organizing curriculum for county coalitions and community leaders to address substance abuse and violence prevention throughout the State of Washington; the AmeriCorps*VISTA member Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) and Supervisors’ Orientation (SO) training nationally, and helping to design a community capacity building strategy for addressing historical trauma recovery for several Native American nations. For fun, Gin volunteers, cooks, enjoys sudoku, escapes from her old house repairs, reads, clams and travels with friends.
Formal schooling includes: 6 years as a street gang counselor in Brooklyn, NY; a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Washington; an M.S. in Educational Administration from New York City’s Bank Street College of Education; a fellowship in Urban Planning from M.I.T., and F.E.M.A. certification in Crisis Counseling.
Contact Ginlin by email or phone (206-271-7187).