About Us

Board Members

Robbyn Peters Bennett

Robbyn Peters Bennett, LPC, CMHS is a psychotherapist, educator, and child advocate who specializes in the treatment of mental health problems due to early abuse and neglect. She has served as Clinical Director of Catholic Community Services Residential Treatment Center in Bellingham, WA where she was privileged as a Child Mental Health Specialist. She also served as Clinical Director for Presbyterian Hospital’s inpatient psychiatric program in Albuquerque, NM. She has worked extensively with families involved with child protective services, the foster care system and adoption support. Her therapeutic modality is grounded in depth psychology having trained with the North Pacific Institute for Analytical Psychology. She is also Phase II certified in the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT), a neurodevelopmentally informed assessment process useful in working with traumatized children through the Child Trauma Academy.

The neurodevelopmental model opened her eyes to the central significance of lower brain dysregulation on functioning and prognosis. She was able to recognize the need for educating parents on a neurodevelopmentally-informed parenting model that is born from and inextricably aligned with the principles of nonviolence. Robbyn then became a certified trainer in Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting.

Robbyn lectures nationally on the topic of trauma and the effects of harsh punishment and practical ways to help children who suffer from chronic dysregulation. In her TED talk, she addresses the long-term effects of spanking and other forms of domestic violence on long-term health. Her life’s work is aimed at ending child abuse and all forms of violence against children. She is the founder of StopSpanking.org, a non-profit dedicated to educating the public on the dangers of spanking and on positive parenting alternatives. She is VP, with the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, an organization dedicated to banning spanking in the US. READ MORE…

Amy Bryant

Amy C. Bryant, EdS, LPC specializes in holistic psychotherapy and healing modalities, violence and abuse prevention, conflict resolution, and peaceful parenting. She provides local and online psychotherapy and hypnotherapy groups, dating and domestic violence education, professional consultations, and continuing education training for professionals.

Amy is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC006053), National Board Certified Counselor (NBCC), certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and a member of the American Counseling Association, with additional training in violence, abuse and trauma, conflict resolution, positive parenting for parents and teachers, hypnotherapy, and curriculum development.

She earned her Masters of Science and Specialist in Education degrees in professional counseling with a focus on children and adolescents. Her training included work in an acute residential psychiatric hospital working with adolescent boys on the behaviorally aggressive and sexual offender units. After completing training in 2004, she continued working with children, adolescents and families facing everyday and acute challenges at home, at school, and in the community, including ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, family conflict, schools stress, and more. Over the past 14 years she’s completed additional training in trauma-informed holistic healing modalities, including hypnotherapy(and here), Safe & Sound Protocol, EFT and more.

As co-founder of ParentingBeyondPunishment.org she writes about ways to move out of the reward-punishment parenting paradigm and how to connect with kids through play.

Amy lives and plays with her husband and daughter in Atlanta, GA.

Yolanda Williams

Yolanda Williams is a single mom of one amazing toddler and a conscious parenting coach. She founded the amazing podcast Parenting Decolonized!

Yolanda founded her show on a single vision… to help black parents raise emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually liberated children.

Yolanda is on a mission to help Black parents form deeper, more intentional relationships with their children and raise the next generation of liberated, free-thinkers who won’t be afraid to use their voices to impact change. She connects with amazing guests every week on her podcast! She wants to help change the black family narratives for generations to come. She discusses how to decolonize your parenting by resisting old narratives, reclaiming ancestral ways of parenting, and how to become a more mindful, conscious parent. You can join her every other Thursday for conversations that educates, motivates, and empowers parents to reimagine what it looks like to raise liberated and carefree black children.

Leslie P. Arreola-Hillenbrand

Leslie Priscilla Arreola-Hillenbrand is a first generation non-Black Chicana mother to three biracial children ages 8, 2, and 1. She is a descendant of Indigenous Tarahumara Rarámuri and Spanish lineages who has resided on occupied Tongva and Acjachemen land, also known as Orange County, CA, all of her life.

Leslie is the founder of Latinx Parenting, a bilingual organization rooted in children’s rights, social and racial justice and antiracism, the individual and collective practice of nonviolence and reparenting, intergenerational and ancestral healing, cultural sustenance, and the active decolonization of oppressive practices in our families. They offer family education and support that is culturally responsive to and for the Latinx community and its allies, trauma-informed, and centered on strengths and advocacy.

Leslie founded this bilingual organization and movement intententionally rooted in children’s rights, social and racial justice, the individual and collective practice of nonviolence and reparenting, intergenerational and ancestral healing, cultural sustenance, and the active decolonization of oppressive practices in our families.

Formerly an early childhood teacher and 1:1 behavioral coach, Leslie has worked with children and families for over 13 years. She has a dual degree in Child Development & Family Studies as well as Family Life Education from CSULB, and attended the Masters in Social Work program at Cal State Fullerton before pausing to focus on her babies and the Latinx Parenting movement.

She is trained as a facilitator in various parent education curricula including Trauma-Informed Nonviolent Parenting, Positive Discipline, Supporting Fatherhood Involvement (SFI), Community Parent Education (C.O.P.E) and others. She has facilitated groups in both Spanish and English for hundreds of parents in schools, transitional homes, teen shelters, drug rehabilitation centers, and family resource centers throughout Orange County, CA.

Over the years, Leslie has long worked within mental health agencies in positions serving as Interim Director of Parent Education for the Child Abuse Prevention Center in Orange County, Youth & Professional Programs Manager for NAMI Orange County, and as a Consultant for the Dads Matter Program of Children’s Bureau.

George E. Davis

George Davis, MD is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who currently serves as the Director of Psychiatry for the New Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Families. This state department encompasses all essential state services for the children of New Mexico including early childhood development, child protection, and juvenile justice. Although Dr. Davis is located within the juvenile justice division, the department recognizes the causative links between early neglect, interruptions of care, and later delinquency, and, thus, he serves across the several divisions of child services. Dr. Davis also serves as a Fellow with the ChildTrauma Academy.

Dr. Davis earned his medical degree from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and completed his psychiatry residency and child fellowship at the University of New Mexico. He previously served there on the faculty at the School of Medicine as Residency Director and Division Director of the Child and Adolescent Division and continues to teach and supervise there on a limited basis as adjunct faculty. In addition to the University and State service, Dr. Davis previously worked for five years at the Indian Health Service, providing care for several of the pueblos and tribal hospitals and clinics in New Mexico.

His primary areas of interest and expertise are delinquency as an outcome of early neglect and abuse, extreme behavioral disorders in young children, psychopharmacology, and systems of care for severely disabled and under-served populations.

Lori Petro

Lori Petro is the founder of TEACH through Love and the creator of the Conscious Communication Cards. She is passionate advocate for the ethical treatment of children and specializes in helping parents and teachers learn to communicate without blame, shame, judgment, and guilt.

Lori has been working with children and families for over 20 years. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Temple University and has worked as a teacher in public and private schools in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. After a personal journey toward healing and self-awareness, Lori created TEACH through Love, an online educational resource with three goals – to build community, advocate for conscious parenting through media awareness campaigns, and offer classes and support to help parents become the calm, confident leaders they’ve always wanted to be.

Lori received additional training in parenting traumatized children from the Beyond Consequences Institute and is a BCI Certified Instructor. She developed the online training program, “Helping Kids Thrive Beyond Trauma,” for the Los Angeles County Office of Education – Department of Foster Youth Services, and regularly presents workshops, lectures, and professional development trainings on the topics of Conscious Parenting & Communication for universities and family service agencies nationwide.

Lori met Amy Bryant and Robbyn Peters Bennett online and first collaborated with them to promote Stop Shaming Kids, an anti-shaming of children campaign on Facebook. Since then, she joined as a board member to support the efforts of ending all forms of violence against children.

Stacie LeBlanc, JD

Stacie LeBlanc has been working in the child maltreatment field for more than 25 years as an attorney with a master’s degree in early childhood development. After 10 years of leading a successful child abuse felony prosecution program that reached a 94% conviction rate, founding the first children’s advocacy center in Louisiana, obtaining VOCA funding for extensive victim services including the first victim information and notification system, and founding a family violence program, she reached the conclusion that we are not going to incarcerate out of a problem of this magnitude and complexity. In 2000, Stacie was recruited by Children’s Hospital New Orleans to provide legal advocacy for other prosecutorial jurisdictions, improve forensic services, and provide community education. She lead two non-profit organizations for Children’s Hospital New Orleans. In 2000, she formed the Audrey Hepburn Children at Risk Evaluation (CARE) Center which last year provided forensic medical evaluations for more than 1500 children. After Hurricane Katrina, I also assumed the executive leadership of the New Orleans Children’s Advocacy Center, developing it into a fully accredited member of the National Children’s Alliance. In addition to managing the daily operations of both centers and creating an evidence-based response to maltreatment, she has thoroughly dedicated both personal and programmatic services to primary prevention of child maltreatment.

Stacie translated research findings about social norms regarding corporal punishment and designed two prevention programs as well as conducted elaborate motivational presentations on responding and preventing child maltreatment that ultimately provided training to more than 27,000 professionals and teens in the last four years. She analyzed the evaluation data and annually convene focus groups to review and enhance my program and presentation materials. One of these programs, Teens, Sex and the Law, that is focused on preventing child sexual abuse and sexting, allowed her fully realize the importance of primary prevention for child maltreatment and the need to address other forms of maltreatment as well, especially with young parents.

Stacie is trained in several evidence-based models including Child Advocacy Studies Training (CAST), Darkness to Light (facilitator), Safe and Together Domestic Violence, as well as multiple forensic interview training protocols (RADAR, NCAC, First Witness, RATAC, and NICHD). She has the legal, programmatic, and research expertise to design and implement extensive educational outreach programs that engage students, faculty, and professionals in child maltreatment prevention.

HISTORY

StopSpanking began with a dream of a world where children are respected, where children flourish in the safety of their parents’ warmth and protection, where children understand that violence is not something to endure, but something to resist, to stand up to, and condemn. A world where children possess the courage necessary to lead with moral conviction, because they were not forced to simply submit and comply in the face of authority. Rather, these children were supported by authority to respect themselves and others, to extend care to those in need, and stand up for what is right and what is good.

To that end, StopSpanking, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to ending corporal punishment of children. Our mission is to raise awareness of both parents and educators that spanking is violence and harms children. Spanking violates a child’s human right to be free from violence. There are strong Biblical arguments against the hitting of children. The research supports what we already know morally to be true, we should never hit children. The avalanche of research correlates spanking to a cascade of negative outcomes including increased aggression, mental illness, drug & alcohol abuse, and suicide, to name only a few.

We are seeking to advance a national campaign against spanking. As a professional community, many of us are unaware of the research and are failing to protect the public around this fundamental health concern. We know that spanking is the most prevalent risk factor for overt child abuse. Hitting children is on a continuum of violence against children, and is a gateway to criminal child abuse.

Our goal is to prevent child abuse by changing social acceptance of hitting children, and in doing so uplift the status of children in our country, and thereby uplift our status as a nation.