Tatyana Fertelmeyster, MA, LCPC
Tatyana Fertelmeyster is founder and principal of Connecting Differences, LLC a boutique consulting company offering leadership development and team building services to organizations committed to diversity. Connecting Differences partners with Bridge to Belong, LLC to provide a broad variety of services under the umbrella of Collective Healing Support Facilitation, Training, and Consulting.
A bi-cultural and bi-lingual Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Tatyana shares her professional time between intercultural/diversity consulting, coaching, and counseling. Tatyana is certified in the Trauma Memory Solution Technique and Humanistic Neuro-Linguistic Psychology approach to coaching individuals, couples, and groups/teams impacted by trauma.
Tatyana came to the United States as a refugee from the former Soviet Union. Her experience includes working in refugee resettlement, providing counseling and supportive services to English-speaking and Russian-speaking clients, and training professionals nationwide on cultural competence at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC), as well as in mental health and social services. Tatyana earned two Master of Arts degrees: in Journalism from Moscow State University (Russia) and in Guidance and Counseling from Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago, USA).
Bruce St. Thomas, Ed.D., ATR-BC
For four decades, Dr. Bruce St. Thomas, a child psychologist and art therapist, has dedicated his career to navigating the complexities of intergenerational and collective trauma within diverse communities. His expertise includes counseling during the Vietnam War, where he engaged in field-based trauma work, supporting children who lost parents on 9/11, and aiding families resettling from war, persecution, and intergenerational poverty. As a co-founder of the Intercultural Peer Support Program (IPSP) at the Center for Grieving Children in Portland, Maine, he continues to demonstrate a commitment to fostering collective healing environments. Together with Marie Sheffield, they have cultivated research and program development in the field of intercultural collective healing. Bruce is an educator and an accomplished author, with works such as "Empowering Children Through Art and Expression: Culturally Sensitive Ways of Healing Trauma and Grief" (2007). He is a co-author, with Marie Sheffield, of the upcoming book "Collective Trauma and Human Suffering: Energizing systemic change through collective healing action" (2024). His innovative programs, journal publications and various contributions to four additional books reflect his unwavering dedication to promoting cultural humility and collective well-being.
Marie Sheffield, MA, LCPC
Marie Sheffield, a seasoned counselor and art therapist, is a leading figure in collective trauma, specializing in intercultural communication, complex loss, mass trauma, and collective healing. With two decades of experience as an intercultural team leader at the Center for Grieving Children's Intercultural Peer Support Program, she co-facilitated the Intercultural Advisory Council (IAC). With the IAC, Marie co-produced documentary films and community conversations to raise awareness of collective trauma and healing. Having served and supported over one thousand children, she co-created an effective training curriculum for facilitator training, as well as co-produced, with program participants and artists, two music albums, art projects and a children’s book all expressing the experiences and needs from the voice of children. Under her leadership, the program received multiple awards, including the Human and Civil Rights award from the Maine Department of Education.
For nine years, Marie and Bruce were mental health consultants for America’s Camp, and collaborated on large community art projects, supporting hundreds of children who lost a parent on 9/11. Their recent co-authored book reflects their commitment to impactful collective healing work. As co-founders of Bridge to Belong consulting group, Marie and Bruce continue their efforts in diverse settings, including Maine’s healthcare, school systems, and non-profit organizations, as well as initiatives with the diaspora of Northern Ethiopia and Portland’s Health Equity Team.