 Giovanna Taormina, Executive Director
Giovanna Taormina, Executive Director, and Co-Founder, provides national training, materials, consultation, and technical assistance related to female responsive services to non-profit agencies, government, state supported programs, institutions, and systems that work with adolescent girls. She is a national consultant to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, has extensive experience in the development and implementation of program services for girls, and is recognized for her work in both the public and private sectors. She has co-developed a comprehensive, integrated, female-responsive model to address the risk factors and needs of adolescent girls in a format that is conducive to building on girls’ strengths and developing resiliency. She has a Bachelor’ s Degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and has 16 years combined experience in Organizational Development & Training, management, and sales. Her experience with facilitating Girls Circles with middle and high school girls in her community, and her own two daughters, dates back to 1995 and includes leading circles for girls in the San Francisco Juvenile Justice System. She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
E-mail: gtaormina@girlscircle.com | Phone: (707) 794-9477
 Beth Hossfeld, MFT, Associate Director
Beth Hossfeld, MFT, is a licensed marriage, family and child therapist in Mill Valley, CA, with a general practice and an emphasis on children, teens and their families. She is Co-Founder of Girls Circle Association, and co-author of the Girls Circle Facilitator Training Manual as well as many of the Girls Circle curricula. Additionally, Beth is a trainer and consultant on prevention and therapy groups for children. She facilitates an afterschool Girls Circle program through Bay Area Community Resources,
where she recently served as Clinical Director of a school-based mental health and substance abuse prevention project, as well as an outpatient adolescent treatment program. Beth continues to provide clinical supervision and training to mental health interns. Beth currently serves as a research coordinator for collaborative studies of the Girls Circle model with partnering organizations. She is married and the mother of three children.
E-mail: beth.hossfeld@gmail.com | Phone: (415) 388-0644
Kitty Tyrol, Senior Training Manager
Kitty Tyrol, Senior Training Manager for the Girls Circle Association has diverse experience in Youth Program Development, Staff Development & Training, and Quality Assurance. As a Consultant and Trainer for the State
of Connecticut Judicial Branch and Department of Children and Families Bureau of Juvenile Services; she trains Probation, Parole, and Detention staff, as well as community-based service providers in a wide array of evidence-based curricula and risk reduction approaches. Ms. Tyrol is a Certified Trainer of Reasoning & Rehabilitation 2r for the Cognitive Centre of Canada; and also trains Strength-Based Approach; Female Responsive Strategies; Motivational Interviewing; Cultural Competency; and Ethics and Boundaries in Social Service. She has authored several training and intervention curricula, including "Employment Services for Alternative Incarceration Centers." As co-founder of CT Girls Consortium and in serving various advisory committees; Ms. Tyrol is an advocate for gender equity and gender justice throughout social services - seeking collaborations and opportunities wherein the voices and experiences of girls and women influence change in service delivery models. She and her family live in Connecticut.
E-mail: ktyrol@girlscircle.com | Phone: (860) 874-2545
Shannon Alvarez, National Director of Business Development
Shannon Alvarez is the National Director of Business Development for the Girls Circle Association and has had her own management consulting firm for ten years. She currently speaks and trains nationally, specializing in women and the “Cycle of Power,” based on her published work. She builds infrastructure inside companies, generally in an expansion, growth or merging phases focusing on scalability, systemization and streamlining business processes. She specializes in building revenue divisions for her clientele on a national and global basis; including securing strategic partnerships, licensing partnerships, channel sales units, securing sales procedures, and specific accounts as well as all areas of marketing, customer service and product delivery. She has handled 5 training companies in various industries in the past 5 years, as well as authored and published both consumer books and corporate products. Finally, she has worked with girls and women in the Human Development and Social Service field for 13 years – from direct service, to training and consulting.
E-mail: salvarez@girlscircle.com | Phone: (760) 455-2253
Adjunct Trainers
Norrine L. Russell, Ph.D
Norrine L. Russell, Ph.D., is an adjunct trainer for the Girls Circle Association. She is currently the Executive Director for The Ophelia Project-Tampa Bay in Florida. Previous positions include Director of the Center for Girls at the YWCA of the City of New York, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota-Morris, and Director of the Morris Area Girls' Circle Program. She has a Ph.D. in Psychology with an emphasis on female development and education issues.
E-mail: norrine_russell@yahoo.com | Phone: (813) 224-9622 | Website: www.norrinerussell.com
Cosette Taillac, LCSW
Cosette Taillac is a licensed psychiatric social worker who has over 15 years of clinical experience specializing in work with children, adolescents and their families. She currently facilitates Girls Circles in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a trainer and curriculum writer for Girls’ Circle Association. She is also the Regional Clinical Coordinator for a Northern California program serving pregnant women with substance use problems. Cosette is married and the mother of two children in Albany, California.
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