Meet The Village

Adrian Klaphaak helps people find A Path That Fits – meaningful work that allows them to express their gifts. Adrian is the founder of A Path That Fits Inc., a progressive career and life coaching company based in San Francisco.

Adrian has been a Stepping Stones leader since 2006. He was fortunate to lead two groups that continued all the way through their high school graduation. He also served on the Board of Directors for one year.

Adrian received his coaching certificate from the Coaches Training Institute. He is a graduate of the Hakomi Somatic Psychology Comprehensive Program and a former business consultant. You can learn more about him and his work at www.APathThatFits.com.

Amy Biesemeyer, MFT has led groups with The Stepping Stones Project since 2004 and has worked with youth in therapeutic, educational and outdoor settings for fifteen years. In her work with youth, she enthusiastically supports them in discovering and expressing their authentic self, and in creating connections that are deeply fun and real. In her private practice as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, she sees youth both individually and in groups.  She has been trained as a Rites of Passage guide by The School of Lost Borders and guides Youth Quests with Wilderness Reflections.  Amy also is a practitioner of meditation and has taught the Teen Series at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She is a student of the Diamond Heart Approach, a graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies and a Wilderness First Responder.

Christopher “Otter” Moutenot, M.A. holds a degree in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Otter currently works as a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern at a residential program for boys aged 8-18, where he provides individual, family, and group psychotherapy.  Otter has more than ten years of experience working with young people in various contexts, as a camp counselor, the coordinator of a teen center, the director of an after-school program for middle-school youth, and a counselor at several residential treatment programs for adolescents.

His practices of mindfulness meditation, intentional community living, and wilderness immersion create the foundation of his ability to guide and support young people as they evolve in relationship to themselves, their communities, and the natural world.

Joshua Morrill, M.A., WFR, Backcountry Wilderness Guide. Josh has an M.A. in Therapeutic Psychology and now studies Philosophy and Integral Ecology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He loves to explore deeper relationship with youth and our earth in our era of great awakening. He wants youth to grow to find their voice in the new cosmologies available in our time.

Scott Fischer, MFA, MA holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in East-West Psychology as well as a Masters in Counseling Psychology with a focus in Somatic Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Scott worked with the California Pacific Medical Center where he offered emotional support to hospital patients and led groups based in Expressive Arts Therapy.  He is currently a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern (MFTi) at the Marina Counseling Center, and also teaches tennis in Marin County.  Before moving to California for graduate school, Scott taught tennis to teenagers in North Carolina for five years.  He has also led backpacking groups throughout the Yosemite Wilderness.   He believes that there exists a great deal of self-knowledge to be discovered through spending time in the wilderness with role models and peers.

Scott is an avid Ashtanga yogi, meditation practitioner, guitar player, and hiker.  He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, and hopes to pass down some of the wonderful lessons that his own male elders have graciously bestowed upon him.

Scott Davidson has a passion for wilderness, both surrounding and residing within us, and our ability to live fully in connection to the land.  As a long-time educator, designer and naturalist, he nurtures the genius in each of us, one relationship and curiosity at a time.

Scott is an experienced conservation biologist and has a BS in Plant Ecology from UC Santa Cruz.  He earned a permaculture design certificate through the Regenerative Design Institute and is a certified animal tracker with CyberTracker Conservation.  Scott currently manages the Organic School Lunch and Gleaning Program with Marin Organic, powerfully connecting kids to thriving soils each week.  He is a co-founder of the Marin County Tracking Club and Permaculture Marin.

Scott is overjoyed to live in the wild hills of Lagunitas, CA, where he loves holistically tracking mountain lions and songbirds.  Scott’s playful and wise presence and his sound commitment to his work for future generations radiates Aloha into everything he does.

Carlee Scheinfeld, MA, is a long time teacher and youth advocate. After working for nearly a decade as a middle school teacher and teacher-leader in the Oakland public schools, she came to know well the nature of the transition to adolescence and became increasingly aware that schools and communities were not providing young people with the tools they needed to take really good care of themselves. Carlee created expeditionary learning programs, initiating environmental awareness and earth philosophy programs in the schools where she taught. She worked to integrate restorative principles and emotional literacy curriculum into her classroom teaching. She began youth leadership programs to allow students support and guidance as they experimented with finding their purpose and taking action in their communities. She has also spent the last decade studying child development, trauma, and the circumstances needed to promote healing. While working to create classroom spaces which were safe for every child to learn, grow, and risk being exactly who they are, she began developing trainings for teachers and youth workers. She learned many of the principles of safe spaces through studying and participating in ceremony with spiritual leaders from North and South America and West Africa.

Carlee is a trained Waldorf teacher, has studied and participated in ceremony locally for the last ten years, and is currently training with the Center for Sacred Studies as well as with the Trauma Institute to become a certified somatic therapist to work with individuals suffering from PTSD.

Carlee’s loves include dance, poetry, birds, lots of time outdoors, great books, animals, and dreaming about and trying out new ways of improving the lives of our young people.

Katrina Zavalney is a change agent with a Masters in Organization Development, and BA in Education and Community Development. She has 14 years of experience in community building, youth work, facilitation, and sustainable event management. She is known as a connector and educator in the sustainability network at large, and for her can-do attitude. Katrina has a high level of enthusiasm and loves to find creative solutions to challenges.

Katrina has worked with youth many years as a camp counselor and creative arts director leading theater games at summer camps, led and created after school programs for middle school youth, assisted teachers in public and montessori schools, and served as a group leader for at-risk and homeless youth. Katrina has developed programs and curriculum for youth that incorporated art, community, and nature. She is very creative and loves to find ways to unlock the creative potential in others.

Locally, Katrina served as the co-chair of the Built Environment action team for the HOPE Collaboration in Oakland, CA, a large coalition of many organizations sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation Food and Fitness initiative. The program focused on disparate communities to provide access to affordable, healthy locally grown food, and opportunities to be physically active and play for creating vibrant communities.

Kelly Shannon, MSW is an educator at heart and has been pioneering her own small business offering programs to youth since September 2011. She has facilitated mindfulness yoga courses with ten groups of teens in the last year and is presently developing the Youth Mindfulness Yoga Program in Berkeley and expanding by offering series in SF, East Bay and the Peninsula Area. Kelly is certified in Integral Yoga Hatha 1, Hatha 2 and has three certificates with Youth & Teen Yoga.  Additionally, Kelly has three years of training in Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg and has a Masters in Social Work.

Kelly synergies all of the above bodies of work along with council, artistic expression and contemplative practices to support her integrated personal and professional path.  Kelly has been part of eight programs globally followed by living at an Integral Yoga Institute in New York City. Although Kelly is originally from the East Coast, she presently calls Berkeley, CA her home where she lives with the love of her life. Kelly’s preferred sweet treat is dark chocolate in moderation and she loves to paint using bright colors. Kelly brings this colorful sense of fun and creativity from her life into this precious and transformative work with youth.

Marielle Amrhein, MA, is an educator, activist and performing artist. She has worked extensively as a peace and justice educator in underserved SF and NYC public schools, and in slums and villages in North India and Nepal with the non-profit organizations Global Kids and the American India Foundation.  After spending years supporting youth-led human rights campaigns and using dance and theater to raise awareness about social issues, Marielle has shifted her focus to include mindfulness practices and wilderness education. She has led international service learning trips for teens, wilderness retreats for leadership development, and performance for social awareness trainings. She is an avid mountaineer making annual pilgrimages to the high peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, and aspires to bring girls to these mountains. Marielle’s work with youth focuses on the embodied experience of bridging creativity, social responsibility, stewardship of the earth, and cultural awareness for inner and outer leadership and liberation.

Marielle has a BA from Mount Holyoke College in Dance and Asian Philosophy and an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University in Peace Education. She has also trained in a variety of counseling and healing modalities. She is currently a Group Leader for the Interchange Counseling Institute, and on her way towards being a Wilderness First Responder.

Originally from New York, Marielle lives in Oakland with her beloved partner and finds joy dancing, hiking, biking, adventuring, cooking, learning new languages, and growing things in the garden. She feels like every part of her life is an experiment in activism and radical consciousness raising inside and out.

Skylar Wilson, MA, holds a master’s degree in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies.  He cofounded a non-profit organization dedicated to environmental education for sustainable development.  He has guided and educated youth in middle school, high school and college in topics ranging from ecology to self awareness for over six years.

Skylar has guided wilderness trips all over the world ranging from backpacking and canoeing expeditions to managing ecological restoration teams in damaged areas.  He has previously been certified in CPR, WFR, and with NOLS, and apprenticed a 10-Day Vision Quest.  He is a cultural ecologist and meditation teacher whose work centers on creating containers for transformation in which participants are welcomed to clarify and celebrate their co-creative role as human beings.  He is committed to the process of seeing and taking steps toward becoming one’s “most alive” vision in the world.  Skylar also enjoys surfing, rock climbing, playing guitar, and acting.

Michael Margolin graduated with a degree in Comparative Religion and spent a semester studying sustainability at a spiritual and ecological community in Southern India. After Graduating, he spent two years in Latin America exploring, studying, traveling and working. While in Latin America, he received a Spanish degree in Buenos Aires Argentina. After his studies, he felt a strong pull to get his hands dirty so he spent the next five years as a farm worker/educator throughout the US. His toolbox comes from trainings in The Work That Reconnects, Action Theater, Non-violent Communication, and Theater of the Oppressed. He is currently in  training to be a facilitator of Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) at Solano State Prison in Vacaville, CA with incarcerated men.

Michael loves to work with youth of all ages and socio-economic, cultural and racial backgrounds. He has worked with youth in sustainable farming, gardening, nutrition and theater. He is currently working as a ropes course guide for San Francisco State University. He finds the most joy in facilitating interactive, learning based theater games with youth. He is currently excited about facilitating Improvisation and Theater of The Oppressed and has done this in New York and Oakland. His hope is to aid in bringing down barriers of difference in our society, supporting youth in making compassionate and empowered decisions in their lives, and organizing to face all forms of oppression.

As a personal practice Michael studies African American culture, literature, history and politics, loves to get down on the dance floor, and plays basketball with a diversity of people at local parks. He also enjoys a personal meditation practice and frolicking in the forest.