together we are greater
Executive Director/Founder
Elliott comes from a bi-cultural, biracial background--with his father's line coming from Hispano ancestry in what is now New Mexico and his mother's people coming, originally, from the Mayflower. This internal crossroads of diversity and power was one of the sparks for his passion for his learning and work at an early age.
Elliott began his teaching career on the Navajo reservation in special education. He directed a school district transition program serving students with disabilities for 8 years and went on to direct the Human Rights Office for the City of Fort Collins.
“Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.”
~Shirley Chisolm
Co-Facilitator
Joshua S. Lee is a mental health professional and executive life coach. Licensed in the state of Maryland with more than 19 years of experience providing services to public schools, churches and other community-based organizations. He is owner of UMOJA Integrative Behavioral Health Systems, LLC, a behavioral health organization, specializing in working with social entrepreneurs and other professionals to assist them to observe their world differently leading to different results. Additionally, he has developed a powerfully effective, experiential coaching system called The Game Plan for Better Living©. Using the language and metaphor of sports, individuals, groups and organizations are coached to use their inherent strengths and resources to overcome their “opponents” in an action-based manner.
www.aramintavillage.org
www.thewelcomecircle.org
He is interested primarily in the intersection between psychodrama (a form of action-based group counseling), organizational culture and ontological coaching (shifting one’s way of being by observing how one observes) meet. For additional information, Joshua S. Lee can be reached at 443-588-5048 or joshua@thegameplan.biz See Website: UmojaHealth.com
He taught social justice classes at Naropa University for 6 years, and worked as a school principal both at a predominantly Latino elementary school, and at a progressive, experiential middle school. He founded The Sum in 2006 (www.thesum.org).
After James Fields drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville VA, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 40 others, Elliott moved to Charlottesville, in a camper. Here, he has started The Sum Study Center to support people and organizations to acheiving their deepest fulfillment through the power of our differences: race, sexual orientation, religion, class, gender, disability, culture, politics. He has partnered with the Heather Heyer Foundation to create a youth program called Heyer Voices (www.heyervoices.org). Elliott founded an intentional community that represents a cross-racial, multicultural, interfaith and queer collaboration called Araminta Village (www.aramintavillage.org). And he has established a faith community, and faith community model based on the "sacredness of welcome to all" called The Welcome Circle (www.thewelcomecircle.org).
He is currently working on two books: “The Power of our Differences” and “Sex and Social Justice.” In alignment with the Power of Difference Model which he developed in collaboration with Dr. Carla Sherrell, Elliott designed the Power of Difference Assessment (online), created the Power of Difference Video Project, and pioneered the online Power of Difference Online Certification.
