Brianna is a grad student and social worker based in unceded indigenous land known as Chicago. She lives with her wonderful partner and two hilarious hounds named Maurice and Blaise. She is passionate about care work, prison abolition, and puppies. In her free time, she likes to hike, stretch, nap, and read. Coaching style: Supportive and facilitative; you can expect many questions and opportunities for feeling/ reflection/ embodied observation.

Gaya is a dancer, organizer, bodyworker, and facilitator based on the contemporary and ancestral Anishinaabe homelands. Their work centers the remembrance and accessibility of our first medicines- love and water. Coaching style: my approach to coaching is inspired by an abolitionist org in minneapolis (repformn.org) that teaches folks to ‘love each other to the next step’. my hope is that coaching sessions feel like drinking a cup of tea- healing, transformative, a moment that is safe and strong to hold a pause.

Amanda  is continually learning how to nurture generative conflict, and deepen their own understanding of consent-based change-work. They endeavor to live life with integrity, kindness, and maximal fun. Amanda lives in the Northeast with their partner and dog. Coaching style: Pragmatic and grounded. They utilize questions to surface client wisdom, and are comfortable with messy and outside the box thinking.

rj is a Black cisgendered father and educator who fell in love with the pursuit of liberation through education after teaching high school math and then training teachers in public schools. He lives a nomadic lifestyle (currently in Maryland) with partner Kelli, twins Kai and Jordan, and pup Yadi. Coaching style: Facilitative and encouraging, serving as a partner in problem solving. rj specializes in coaching teachers, parents, and men who are unlearning patriarchy.

Thanh is a community health educator, organizer, plant tender, storyteller, and auntie rooted on Tovaangar (Tongva land). As a mixed, queer Indigenous person, Thanh seeks to foster new relationship models, address intergenerational trauma, and steward land-based relationships with communities across disaporas. Coaching Style: ‘Everything we want is on the other side of fear’ - is a guiding tenant to the sessions we will have. Guided questions that explore, open, and affirm specific questions and areas of confusion, and a space to workshop how we bring abstract/theories into our lives and practices.

Stas is a Queer, Nonbinary, Black-Italian based on Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne unceded lands in Denver, CO.  In addition to being a Co-Founder of Spring Up, Stas is also our “Imaginatrix” and Lead Curriculum Designer. Coaching Style: Untangling the patterns and root causes of challenges through storytelling, power analysis, and creative practices. Creatively designing accountable organizational systems and engaging, accessible curriculum. 

Leander is Spring Up’s mythematician and co-founder. He lives on Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne unceded lands in Denver, CO. Leander is a systems thinker and conflict strategist who enjoys supporting organizations in building shared power and decentralization. They also love supporting founders in organizational design. Leander is a European-American (white) transmasculine settler committed to learning and unlearning in the service of collective liberation. Coaching Style: Deep listening, asking questions, and supporting you in getting unstuck and finding clarity and a path forward.

shaïna is a Black, Haitian, queer artist and abolitionist living on Sisspahaw and Cheraw land in Greensboro, North Carolina with their spouse & house full of fur babies. They are a creative who is passionate about the transformative power of art, design, and the imaginative process. Shaïna uses their creative practice as a tool to access liberation through healing and resistance. Coaching Style:  Art forward, creative, & intentional. They look to foster a space for dreaming and imaginative thinking to use to birth meaningful design to your brand or org.

Kai is an educator, care laborer, and transformative justice practitioner who believes in the power of relationship building to move towards a liberatory future. Kai began their journey in restorative and transformative justice work in 2012 through the Family of Woodstock’s community accountability board. They have over a decade of experience providing social justice-informed education and accountability support. Through their work, Kai aims to offer people skills and tools to advocate for their self-determination. They believe that care labor is life-sustaining work in that it provides people the foundation on which to build a life that prioritizes their autonomy and a sense of connection. Kai brings the values of transformative justice into every aspect of their work — creating tangible ways to practice accountability, generative conflict, consent, and intentional communication as a life path. Kai's aim as a community care practitioner is to go at the pace of trust. As Erica R. Meiners states, “Do slow work in urgent times.”