About Us
Creating Connection
Carmen Paterson-Payne and Connie Herman have been working together for two decades to train people (from across Canada, and internationally) to become confident, participant-centred, and strengths-based facilitators. Together they have co-led an initiative to adapt a national parenting program to be offered virtually. This work was highlighted in a World Health Organization (WHO) report. Their partnership has led them to start Creating Connection, an initiative to offer high quality, experiential learning opportunities for professionals to develop effective facilitation skills to support others. As their name suggests, Carmen and Connie are passionate about creating meaningful connections through a head, heart, hand approach to facilitation.
Carmen Paterson-Payne
Carmen Paterson-Payne is an adult educator, early childhood educator, program master trainer, mentor, program developer and older adult learning facilitator. She has worked for many years in secondary education and community family support. Using these skills, she travelled to Viet Nam to help UNICEF develop a training program in their holistic early childhood and positive parenting program. Carmen has many years of experience working with diverse communities and believes that respecting values and using an inclusive strengths-based participant-centred approach to facilitation is key to empowering learning.
Connie Herman
Connie Herman is an adult educator, master trainer, and program coordinator. Her degrees include a Bachelor of Arts and Science, Bachelor of Social Work, and a Master of Education, specializing in Educational Leadership in Learning. She has extensive training and experience in a wide variety of courses and programs, including Crisis Intervention, Self-Reg, Kids Have Stress Too, Positive Discipline, Mental Health, At Risk to Resilient, Opening Doors to Difficult Conversations and Nobody's Perfect. Connie has offered trainings, resource development, and support to service providers in various capacities for over thirty years.