Attachment Parenting International's Resource Advisory Council (RAC)
Attachment Parenting International's Resource Advisory Council (RAC) members are friends, supporters, and advocates for API in their communities. These members range from professionals in the field of attachment to professionals that shine in their communities but who are not necessarily linked to parent education. The RAC meets yearly for fellowship, updates on API's progress, and brainstorming in a variety of areas, including development and marketing.
Raffi Cavoukian
Troubadour
RaffiNews.com
Raffi Cavoukian, founder of Child Honouring, is a renaissance man known to millions simply as Raffi: a renowned Canadian troubadour, record producer, systems thinker, author, entrepreneur, and ecology advocate, once called "the most popular children's singer in the English-speaking world" (Washington Post).
President of Troubadour Music, among the most successful independent record labels, Raffi was a pioneer in music for children and families: his CDs, tapes, videos, and DVDs have sold over 14 million copies in Canada and the US, and his books, more than 3 million copies. A generation saw him in concert and grew up singing "Down by the Bay" and Raffi's signature song "Baby Beluga." "Beluga grads" often tell him that they're now raising their own kids with his songs.
In his three-decade career, Raffi has refused all commercial endorsement offers, and his triple-bottom-line company has never directly advertised or marketed to children. Raffi has now become a "global troubadour," lecturing and networking to help create a viable future: a restorative, child-friendly world for ourselves and for those to come. His original philosophy, Child Honouring, is gaining support among eminent thinkers as a holistic organizing principle for a culture of peace. His Covenant for Honouring Children is widely circulated among child development, education, ecological economics, and environmental health circles.
Raffi has published Child Honouring: How to Turn This World Around, Resisto Dancing: Songs of Compassionate Revolution, and Raffi Renaissance. With these works, Raffi Cavoukian comes to the world stage as a catalyst for change at a defining point in human history - with an idea whose time has come.
Beth Nielsen Chapman
Singer-Songwriter
bethnielsenchapman.com
Renowned for her pure, powerful songwriting and clear voice, Beth Nielsen Chapman has become one of the most distinctive portrayers of resilience and human vulnerability with an astoundingly diverse and extensive array of songwriting credits.
She has penned hits and written tunes for some very prominent artists whose styles span country, pop, folk, blues, and jazz, such as Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Neil Diamond, Trisha Yearwood, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Bette Midler, Andy Bey, and Ute Lempter, including the Grammy-nominated, ground-breaking smash for Faith Hill's "This Kiss," (Chapman/Roboff/Lerner).
Chapman's songs have also been featured on numerous television shows and movies. Throughout her career, Beth has been in demand as a teacher of workshops on creativity, songwriting, grief, and healing through art. The combination of her life experience and her guided tours through the unconscious provide a unique, inspiring approach to the creative process.
Barbara Clinton, MSW
Director, Center for Health Services
Vanderbilt University
Barbara Clinton is director of the Center for Health Services. Clinton supports community health efforts and links disadvantaged groups to the university's resources. Clinton was founding director of the Center's award-winning Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker program, which mobilizes women in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and West Virginia to implement local child development programs. This program was recently honored by the World Health Organization.
Clinton serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the Vanderbilt University Schools of Medicine and Nursing. She has served as an advisor to former Vice President Al Gore, as well as to the Tennessee Commission on Aging, the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, the Appalachian Rural Science Initiative of the National Science Foundation, and several private foundations.
Her work has been recognized with the Families Count Award of the Annie E Casey Foundation and the Oscar van Leer award. She was recently honored with the Mary Jane Werthan Award of Vanderbilt University for her "inspiring and visionary impact on the lives of women at Vanderbilt and beyond."
Bill Corbett, CPE
Author & President of Cooperative Kids
Bill Corbett is the author of the "Love, Limits, and Lessons" program and President of Cooperative Kids. He provides parent education courses and training for parents and professionals and certifies instructors around the globe to teach the material.
Bill is a professional speaker and writer whose syndicated column on discipline appears in parenting publications in many states across the country. He has three grown children and two grandchildren and lives with his wife Elizabeth in Enfield, Connecticut.
Mary Elizabeth Curtner-Smith, PhD, CFLE
Associate Professor, University of Alabama
Dr. Mary Elizabeth Curtner-Smith received her PhD from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in Child Development and Family Relations with a doctoral minor in Psychology. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies where she serves as co-coordinator of the Developmental Science concentration in the Psychology PhD program.
Her primary research focuses on how parent-child relationships influence children's development, especially children's peer aggression and social competence.
A second but related area of research interest is in parents' disciplinary practices. Dr. Curtner-Smith teaches graduate courses in Parent-Child Interactions and Children of Divorce and is certified as a Family Life Educator by the National Council on Family Relations.
Kathy Diaz, BS Ed
Chief Financial Officer,
K and J Computing
CoreTec.us
Kathy Diaz is the Chief Financial Officer of K and J Computing, LLC, DBA Core Technologies. She has been a co-owner of the Informational Technology firm for the past 13 years.
Kathy is a founding member of Attachment Parenting International, has served on API's Board of Directors since 1997, and joined the Resource Advisory Council in 2006. She previously dedicated her time to Le Leche League International as an LLL Leader for eight years and has served on the Board of Directors for the Bah‡'’s of Nashville since 1988.
Kathy has wonderful experience with children as she has three of her own, ages 28, 25, and 23, and a beautiful seven-year-old granddaughter. All of her children were breastfed, two were birthed at home, and all were home schooled for six years.
Don Henry
Singer-Songwriter
DonHenry.com
Grammy Award winner Don Henry's songs have been recorded by legends like Ray Charles, Patti Page, and Conway Twitty, by country crooners like Gene Watson, John Conlee, and B.J. Thomas, and by young hit makers of today like Blake Shelton, Lonestar, and Kathy Mattea.
The wit and wisdom of Don's songs are widely renowned, whether it's campfire favorites, the hilarious "B.F.D." and biker lullaby "Harley," the wonderfully poignant tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., "Beautiful Fool," and, of course, the Grammy Award-winning country classic "Where've You Been."
In addition to a Grammy, Kathy Mattea's version of "Where've You Been" won Don (and co-writer Jon Vezner) "Song of the Year" honors from the Academy of Country Music, the Country Music Association, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International. "Where've You Been" was the first song to be awarded all four honors in the same year!
Don has recorded three albums so far: "Wild in the Backyard" (1991), "Live at The Bluebird" (2001), and "Flowers & Rockets" (2001).
Molly Henry
Molly Henry is a Certified Positive Discipline Associate and a Planned Parenthood-trained Sexuality Educator.
She is the Parent and Community Education Coordinator, Office Manager, and Human Growth and Development Guide at Abintra Montessori School in Nashville, Tennessee. Molly and her husband, Don, have two children who have thrived in an attachment-oriented home.
Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, PhD, IBCLC
Author
Dr. Kendall-Tackett is a health psychologist specializing in women's health and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She is a Research Associate at the Family Research Lab and an Affiliate Research Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Hampshire.
She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in both the Divisions of Health Psychology and Trauma Psychology. Dr. Kendall-Tackett is a La Leche League Leader, chair of the New Hampshire Breastfeeding Taskforce, and the Area Coordinator of Leaders for La Leche League of Maine and New Hampshire.
Dr. Kendall-Tackett is author of more than 160 journal articles, book chapters, and other publications, and author or editor of 16 books including The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood (Hale Publications, 2005), Depression in New Mothers (Haworth, 2005), and Breastfeeding Made Simple, co-authored with Nancy Mohrbacher (New Harbinger, 2005). She is on the editorial boards of the journals Child Abuse and Neglect, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, and the Journal of Human Lactation, and regularly reviews for 27 other journals in the fields of trauma, women's health, interpersonal violence, depression, and child development.
Dr. Kendall-Tackett received her bachelor's and master's degrees in Psychology from California State University, Chico, and a PhD from Brandeis University in Social and Developmental Psychology. She has won several awards, including the Outstanding Research Study Award from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and was named 2003 Distinguished Alumna, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, California State University, Chico.
Rod Kochtitsky, MDiv
RodK.net
A pastoral counselor and psychotherapist with more than 25 years of experience, Rod Kochtitzky (Kuh tit skee) specializes in counseling couples on marriage and relationship issues.
Rod serves couples seeking healing, growth, change, renewal, and enhancement of their relationships through his private counseling practice and through a series of workshops scheduled throughout the year.
Rod has been involved with API as either a board member or Advisory Board member since 1993. Please see Rod's Web site for more information.
Minda Lazarov
Minda Lazarov is a nutritionist whose professional career has spanned a variety of positions with government and private nonprofit organizations serving low income families.
She has served in several positions with the Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), including coordinator of the Tennessee Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance and Breastfeeding Promotion Programs and chair of a national committee to address the low rates of breastfeeding among women enrolled in WIC. Ms. Lazarov helped launch the U.S. Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) for the US Committee for UNICEF and Wellstart International. She also served as Director of the Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) Program for the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services form 1999 to 2006.
She is writing a book about her journey through numerous bouts of cancer and life lessons learned.
