OUR TEAM

Each team member brings a deep knowledge of not only  communities, but of systems, and how both are intricately woven. We are a diverse evaluators of color team, each bringing a unique lens of technical expertise, and experience across a wide spectrum of fields at local, state, and national levels and experiential wisdom (See below for team member bios). At all times our work is culturally responsive with a focus on equity, to ensure contextually and culturally-centered validity and rigor. Underlying the culturally responsive and equity-focused evaluation framework is a commitment to using a transformative justice approach, an approach that seeks to encourage healing, justice, and accountability for harm, while also transforming the ongoing social conditions that allowed the harm to occur, to prevent further and/or future harms.

Underlying the culturally responsive and equity-focused evaluation framework is a commitment to using a transformative justice approach, an approach that seeks to encourage healing, and justice.

OUR SERVICES

Katrina L. Bledsoe, Ph.D.

Senior Advisor
katrinabledsoe@slp4i.com

Katrina L. Bledsoe, Ph.D. is an international leader in cultural contexts, cultural responsiveness in evaluation, and theory-driven evaluation in community-based settings.  She has published extensively on the practice of cultural responsiveness and equity in the conduct of evaluation within communities (please see Bledsoe’s article on community-based evaluation).  In addition, she has led evaluation projects utilizing a multi-method approach for federal agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and has worked with foundations such as The Robert Wood Johnson and Annie E. Casey Foundations, and community-organizations such as Johnson C. Smith University’s Smith Institute. Katrina is a mixed methodologist by training and in practice and specializes in quasi-experimental and mixed-method designs. Her expertise is in community-based education, health and mental health and social services program evaluation, applied social psychology and cultural responsiveness, and equity in cultural contexts. Dr. Bledsoe served a three-year term on the Board of Directors was a member of the task force that developed AEA’s Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation and is the lead of the AEA Graduate Education Diversity Internship Evaluation Workgroup.

Leon D. Caldwell, Ph.D.

Senior Advisor
leoncaldwell@slp4i.com

Leon D. Caldwell, Ph.D., is nationally regarded as a leading thinker of equitable evaluation in Philanthropy and communities.  As a public health practitioner, counseling psychologist, Leon has led local and national efforts to improve the evaluation capacity of community-based organizations working in the areas of mental health, violence prevention, Men and Boys color health disparities, adolescent health, health system equity, and inclusion.  He has facilitated evaluation capacity-building workshops in underrepresented communities nationally and internationally most notably sponsored by RWJF, Kellogg Foundation, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and Association for Black Foundation Executives (ABFE).  Dr. Caldwell is the author and theorist behind the concept of “Braided Alignment” as well as several publications that seek to address the implementation of equitable and justice practices in research and evaluation in communities. Specifically, he has specialized in developmental evaluations as appropriate for practice-based social innovations.  He has conducted quasi-experimental, qualitative, and mixed methods studies in a variety of community settings. He was a lead author in Beyond Plight: Defining Pathways to Optimal Development for Black Men and Boys Across the Life Course and The City Leaders Compass to the My Brother’s Keeper Landscape both published in 2017.

Blanca Flor Guillén-Woods, M.A.

Managing Partner
blancagw@slp4i.com

Blanca Flor Guillén-Woods, M.A. has been involved with several aspects of applied research and evaluation including management of multi-site and multi-year projects for non-profit organizations working with communities of color.  Her experience includes research design, fieldwork, public opinion polling, conducting focus groups, facilitation of community meetings, as well as quantitative and qualitative data analyses.  She has conducted quasi-experimental and mixed methods research studies and program evaluations related to education, youth services, civic engagement, health prevention, and intervention for over 20 years through the lens of diversity and inclusion. She has been invited to participate in a series of discussions specific to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in education, serves as a Mentor in the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) program and is an Advancing Collaborative Evaluation (ACE) network member. Her work for the past several years with Latino Decisions has focused on providing Latinx populations a stronger voice and impact on national and statewide policies ranging from Health Care Policies to Immigration Reform efforts. Her work with Strategic Learning Partners focuses on culturally responsive and equitable evaluation.

Christy Peterson, M.A.

christypeterson@slp4i.com

Christy Peterson is the Chief Operations Officer and Executive Coordinator of Strategic Learning Partners for Innovation. She ensures that we optimize our company’s operating capabilities and create effective measurement tools to gauge the effectiveness of internal and external processes. She spearheads the development, communication, and implementation of effective growth strategies and processes. For over 10  years, she has served as a Project Coordinator for the University of Memphis where she oversees training and data programs related to administering national evaluation studies and projects.  Those duties involve intervention research, translating basic science, and other forms of data into applied skills and points of intervention. She also fills the role of Associate Director for the Center for the Advancement of Youth Development. In this role she is responsible for creating, organizing, and maintaining datasets, conducting statistical analyses, assisting with development of study designs for evaluation components  of  projects.