Kathleen Macferran & Jared Finkelstein

Kathleen Macferran is a Certified Trainer and Assessor for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Owner Strength of Connection in Seattle, WA. MMus in Conducting, Western Washington University; BA, Whitworth University.

Kathleen holds a vision for a peaceful, just and sustainable world. She is committed to co-creating a world where peace replaces violence, love replaces hate, equity replaces inequity, and all people live meaningful lives. She has worked as a Certified Trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) since 2003, and as a CNVC Assessor since 2010 when she co-created a community-based path to certification.  Community system building and conflict transformation are passions of hers. 

Kathleen has worked internationally with individuals, community groups, businesses, schools, colleges, faith-based communities, hospitals, families, prison inmates, and correctional and law enforcement employees. She serves as a trainer for the Freedom Project of Seattle, WA, an organization that supports healing connection and restorative communities both inside and outside prison through the strategies of Nonviolent Communication, mindfulness, racial equity and anti-oppression. 

Kathleen offers trainings, facilitation, system building and mediation using practical skills that lead to reconciliation with ourselves, our loved ones and our communities. For over 30 years Kathleen has explored ways to restore harmony to communities including two decades as a music conductor and leader of a nonprofit organization, and seven years as a public school teacher. 

Kathleen is co-author with Jared Finkelstein of Choice: A Field Guide for Navigating the Polarization of Our World and Living Interdependently. She is the author of the children’s books How Giraffes Found Their Hearts and How Giraffes Got Their Ears, and conductor for Giraffe Tales a children’s CD setting those stories to music. Kathleen is the conductor on multiple Rainier Chamber Winds classical music recordings. Her website is www.StrengthofConnection.com where her two TEDx talks can be found.

Jared Finkelstein is a Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, CNVC.org 

Jared believes that in a connected world what’s essential is the quality of our connection. As a consultant and trainer he specializes in supporting people and communities to make choices that transform separation and misunderstanding into connection and collaboration. 

Jared is devoted to the idea of intergenerational interdependence. He works with organizations, schools, homes, faith-based communities, and camps, supporting people of all ages with the discipline of Nonviolent Communication used to illuminate and fine tune the qualities of connection in all our relationships, and for everyone’s benefit. 

A former filmmaker and media educator, Jared taught Media Literacy to youth in Poughkeepsie NY through the Children’s Media Project, as well as through the Summer Institute for the Gifted, The Randolph School, and the Poughkeepsie Day School before dedicating his time to disseminating skills and practices for conflict resolution and peace. 

Jared currently resides in Berkeley, California, where he spends his time scheduling workshops, practice groups, residential retreats and consultations with individuals and organizations. When he is not busy with all this, he daydreams ways of popularizing complex ideas into simple packages for general consumption, and plays role-playing games with his friends.