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The Trainers

Leah & Peggy are thrilled to bring our decades of experience to support the vision and mission of Empathy for Everyone.

Leah Boyd

Leah Boyd is a certified trainer with the International Center for Nonviolent Communication and holds a BS in Education. She is a professional mediator, group facilitator, communication skills trainer & musician. With a diverse background including special education, human resources and professional music, Leah brings wide personal experience to her work.

For 10 years Leah worked in the field of special education as a teacher of students grades 7 – 12 with emotional and behavioral challenges. Leah created programs that fostered a sense of community and belonging, setting the conditions for her students to blossom academically and socially.

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For 15 years Leah helped grow her family’s trucking company from 12 to 65 employees in the capacity of office manager and then Human Resources Director. It was while immersed in this work she discovered and honed her skill and passion for assisting people to communicate effectively, work cooperatively, and manage conflict productively.

Leah has served as a mediator for the Maine Department of Education as well as the Maine District Court System. She has also served on the Board of Governors for the Maine Association of Mediators.

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Leah is also part of the musical duo, Peaceful Means, weaving together original songs and uplifting arrangements of choice covers. The duo combines vocals and accompanying piano, acoustic strings, and percussion to create music that inspires a consciousness of nonviolence.

Peggy Smith

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Peggy Smith is a certified trainer with the International Center for Nonviolent Communication, with over four decades of teaching experience, including 32 years as a teacher in Maine elementary and middle schools as both a classroom teacher and literacy specialist.

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For the past 9 years she has studied with Sarah Peyton integrating current Relational Neuroscience into her work.

Peggy offers trainings in a wide variety of venues including schools, businesses, cooperatives. She created and published a nonviolent communication curriculum, Courageous Communication, developed over five years with men coming out of incarceration.

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She is a co-founder of the Maine NVC Network.

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Peggy has facilitated international NVC work through Seeds of Peace International Camp, working with educators from the Middle East and South Asia.

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Peggy enjoys designing and implementing programs that support empathic thinking and communicating as part of systemic culture change. Her current curriculum, Helping Calm Strong Emotions, is the heart of Empathy For Everyone’s initial offering.

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