Facilitation Team

The Afterschool for All Technical Assistance Collaborative is a collective effort by Youth Worker Collective, Be the Change Consulting, and Playworks to offer high quality professional development to the after-school field.

Jeremy Lansing, Playworks

Front-line Learning Academy
jlansing@playworksusa.org

Playworks is a national nonprofit organization that supports learning by providing safe, healthy and inclusive play and physical activity to schools at recess and throughout the entire school day. With more time on school playgrounds than any other organization in the country, no other organization matches our experience transforming play and recess into tools to support learning.

Community Training Program Manager Jeremy Lansing began as an Early Childhood Intervention Specialist for a child abuse and neglect prevention program in Oregon, and prior to Playworks, taught high school English in Israel. Playworks is a wonderful blend of all of Jeremy’s passions; physical activity, healthy community building, fun, and a chance to engage youth workers from all walks of life.

Alex Pratt, Playworks

Front-line Learning Academy
apratt@playworksusa.org

After studying studio art and sociology at New York University, Alexandra Pratt has traveled, volunteered and worked in Alaska, New Zealand, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Columbia.  Finding herself at home in Oakland, CA she continues to examine the relationships between locals, foreigners, outsiders, insiders and most importantly, the places where we all overlap.

Alex joined the Playworks Team in the fall of 2008.  She and her training comrades are playing hard to promote a healthy and inclusive culture, abound with physical activity and play.  Focusing on project coordination and graphic design, she hopes to lend her skills and creative spirit to the development of healthy and expressive communities.

Jason Wyman, Youth Worker: Collective

Learning Circles for Site Coordinators
jason@ywcollective.org

Youth Worker: Collective is a community of Bay Area youth workers dedicated to personal & professional development. We define youth worker as any professional who works with or for young people.  We maximize youth worker’s individual and collective intentionality, connectedness, and innovation to create replicable, self-sustaining models that promote project-based learning, equal and equitable exchange of resources, and creative, accountable risk-taking to realize our vision: many youth workers in many settings for many years. Our work is project-based, values-driven, worker-centered and volunteer-run.

Jason Wyman has been in the field of youth development for over 15 years. He started by supporting a youth philanthropy program in Minneapolis Unified School District and worked his way up to become the Educational Program Director at the OMI/Excelsior Beacon Center where he brought school, youth, and community together to address the academic, civic, and mental health needs of the student population. From there he launched into supporting the next generation of youth workers by creating trainings, resources, and networking opportunities through Beacon Academy, the Afterschool Corps, and the Youth Worker: Collective. He worked as the Director of School-Community Relations at Excelsior Middle School and directed the Change! Program, the community engagement program at EMS. Jason has been involved with the Youth Worker: Collective since 2003, and he is excited to be the first staff of the Youth Worker: Collective. When he is not advocating for youth and families, Jason enjoys cooking, reading, and hanging out with his husband.

Sangita Kumar, Be the Change Consulting

S.E.E.D. Program
Sangita@bethechangeconsulting.com
510-684-2357

Be the Change Consulting provides high quality learning experiences for youth-serving organizations to reach their creative potential.   Through training, coaching, and consulting we translate the youth development framework into strategies and systems.  In order for youth to reach healthy, productive adulthood they need heroic adults and safe spaces to explore who they want to become.  Be the Change Consulting focuses on experiential learning through an intentional process that connects core values to tangible outcomes, while allowing participants to explore a variety of personal expression platforms.

Sangita Kumar is a results-based organizational development consultant and a skilled trainer dedicated to the empowerment of individuals and our communities. Her work over the past 8 years has allowed her to interact with a wide variety of organizations in the  non-profit sector in the US and internationally.

Sangita’s experience with these organizations ranges from running after-school programs, program design & coordination, training & development, systems-design, and strategic planning.  As a young Asian-Indian woman growing up in America, she has always been especially sensitive to issues of language-acquisition, code switching between an Indian and American culture, and cultural paradigms.  Her interest in personal development work stems directly from her personal experience in overcoming many challenges of language and internalized limiting messages to find personal fulfillment.  She is passionate about creating high quality learning experiences for the young people who need them most.