Kathleen Macferran

Certified Trainer and Assessor for the Center for Nonviolent Communication

Kathleen Macferran 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. Since 2003, she has served as a workshop facilitator for the Freedom Project of Seattle, WA, an organization that supports healing and restoration inside and outside prisons through Nonviolent Communication, mindfulness, racial equity, and anti-oppression.
 
Kathleen travels internationally, offering facilitation, system building, and conflict transformation using practical skills that lead to reconciliation with ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. She has worked with individuals, community groups, businesses, schools, colleges, faith-based communities, hospitals, families, prison inmates, and correctional and law enforcement employees.

Prior to her work with nonviolence, Kathleen spent much of her life bringing harmony to communities through music, including two decades as a classical music conductor and leader of a nonprofit organization, and seven years as a public school music 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 TEDx talks, books, and music can be found.