Meet the Dynamic Breakout Presenters
Robyn Gobbel, LMSW-Clinical
Speaker, Writer, Trainer and Consultant
Robyn Gobbel, LMSW-Clinical, loves coffee, P!NK, and everything about the brain. Once (recently!) her teenager went ballistic on her for getting ANOTHER (glitter!) coffee mug in the mail. Robyn loves cultivating deep, resonant connections with anyone who is up for it, as well as teaching anyone who will listen to harness the power of neuroscience so they can cultivate deep, resonant connections. What would change in the world if we could all do that? To see, be with, feel, and deeply know each other…and ourselves. Robyn thinks everything could change.
Ana Gomez, LPC
Psychotherapist, Author and Lecturer
Temple Grandin, PhD
Professor at Colorado State University
Temple Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed for handling livestock are used by many companies around the world. She has also been instrumental in implementing animal welfare auditing programs that are used by McDonalds, Wendy’s, Whole Foods, and other corporations. Temple has appeared on numerous TV shows such as 20/20 and Prime Time. Her books include: Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport and The Autistic Brain. Her books Animals in Translation and
Visual Thinking have been on the New York Times Bestseller List. Temple was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in September 2017 and in 2022 was named a Colorado State University Distinguished Professor.
Ann Leinfelder Grove, MSM
President & CEO Wellpoint Care Network, Milwaukee WI
Ann Leinfelder Grove has served Wellpoint Care Network (formerly SaintA) for close to 30 years in a number of senior leadership roles, including Executive Vice President and COO with oversight of all agency programs. She championed the program implementation of Wellpoint Care Network trauma informed care model, Seven Essential Ingredients (7ei) including in child welfare, where translational research has demonstrated improved outcomes through the use of 7ei-based, trauma informed program practice.
Ann is involved in Milwaukee community initiatives such as Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee (SWIM) and in Wisconsin Department of Children and Families discussions to create innovative solutions to support families. As CEO, Ann’s strategic vision has enhanced Wellpoint Care Network's partnerships in the community and advanced a culture of equity and inclusion at Wellpoint Care Network.
Tim Grove, MSM
Senior Consultant Wellpoint Care Network, Milwaukee WI
Tim Grove, MSSW, is the chief clinical officer at Wellpoint Care Network (formerly SaintA), a human services agency whose mission it is to facilitate equity, learning, healing and wellness for all. He has more than 20 years of professional experience in a variety of direct care and administrative positions including, in-home services, foster care, treatment foster care, residential treatment, child welfare, community based services, quality improvement and staff development.
Grove is the senior leader of trauma informed care (TIC) initiatives across all agency programs and as such was responsible for implementing Wellpoint Care Network's TIC philosophy and practices, including Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT). He created a TIC training curriculum centered around the Seven Essential Ingredients, or 7ei, of understanding and practicing TIC. Grove and his training team at Wellpoint Care Network have used the 7ei framework to train more than 50,000 people from diverse disciplines over the past 10 years.
He is a Mentor with the ChildTrauma Academy and a Master Trainer in Dr. Rob Anda and Laura Porter’s ACE Interface curriculum. Grove and the Wellpoint Care Network team’s work has been highlighted and published in a number of magazines, journals and newspapers. He was the lead project manager of a three-year research study on the effectiveness of 7ei in child welfare outcomes which demonstrated positive effect on creating placement stability and permanency for kids.
Grove is recognized nationally as a trauma informed care expert and was recently interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for a 60 Minutes segment on trauma and resilience.
Michelle Maikoetter
MA, NCC, LPC-S
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Texas, as well as a National Certified Counselor and a LPC-Supervisor.
For over 30 years, she has worked in a variety of settings with youth and families including domestic violence/sexual assault, juvenile justice, after school programming, and wilderness programming. The majority of her roles have been administrative positions and she feels the strongest connection serving in residential education settings and is passionate about ensuring leadership and programmatic systems are aligned.
Since 2007, Michelle has been a leader at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Texas, one of the largest nonprofit residential childcare facilities in the United States. Housed in the middle of the campus is a “special purpose” school - Boys Ranch Independent School District, educating K-12 students. She currently serves as their Chief Program Officer and has led the organization’s transformation from a behavioral modification program into a healing, trauma-informed community.
As a long-time member of the Neurosequential Network, Michelle was named their Director of Special Projects (aka “the Sheriff) and plays a leadership role in organizing, managing and facilitating collaboration in the Neurosequential Model (NM) across programs, particularly when there is a high concentration of programs in a geographical area or a high-volume, complex collaboration in a single location. Currently, her two major areas of focus are in Arizona and Texas. Michelle’s leadership in coordinating and communicating will be essential in optimizing the implementation and effectiveness of the NM as it expands in these settings.
Mathew Portell
Educator, Founder of Trauma Informed Educators Network and Paradigm Shift Education, Podcaster, International
Mathew Portell has dedicated over a decade to education in his role as a teacher, instructional coach, teacher mentor, and school administrator. He currently serves as executive principal of Fall-Hamilton Elementary, an innovative trauma-informed pilot school in Nashville, Tennessee, which was recently featured on Edutopia.
In 2008, he combined his passion for literacy and cycling and founded the double award-winning nonprofit Ride for Reading. The organization promotes literacy and healthy living through the distribution of books via bicycle to underserved children. Ride for Reading has donated nearly 500,000 books to children nationally.
Gabby Remole, LCSW
NLC-C, EP
Director of Equine Professionals at Gateway Family Services
Gabby earned her MSSW from The University of Texas at Austin. She is certified as both a clinician and equine professional in the trauma-focused equine assisted psychotherapy model, Natural Lifemanship. She is also a trainer for the model. She is trained, and pursuing certification, in EMDR. She has been practicing TF-EAP since 2013 and has had extensive experience in play, art and nature therapy. She has over a decade of experience working as an adoption caseworker.
Gabby employs a systems-based perspective to help children, teens & families who have experienced trauma. She prefers experiential therapy - including work with horses, art, music and nature - to traditional talk therapy, believing that movement and “doing” can often be more effective, particularly for children and adolescents.
She enjoys using humor, when appropriate, hoping that clients know that, while therapy can sometimes be really hard, it can also be fun.
Gabby was blessed to have been raised around horses. She loves that she is able to incorporate her connection with, and deep respect for, horses in her work.
Michael Remole
MA, LCPC, NCC, NLC-C, EP
CEO & Founder Gateway Family Services of Illinois & Rising Tide
Michael has over two decades of working with children and families in a variety of settings, including as a Multi-Systemic Therapist, Clinical Director, Children’s Pastor, Camp Counselor and speaker. After serving as a Children’s pastor, he went on to obtain his Master or Arts in Clinical Counseling from Ashland Theological Seminary. Following seminary, Michael worked at The Buckeye Ranch in Columbus Ohio as a Multi-Systemic Therapist, working with individuals 12-18 and their families. Michael left The Buckeye Ranch and founded Gateway Family Services of Illinois. Gateway Family Services provides trauma focused-equine assisted psychotherapy, EMDR, Equine Connected-EMDR, play, art, sand and nature based therapies. In addition to Gateway Family Services, Michael is currently the Executive Director of Hooves of Hope, a faith based mentoring program.
Michael is passionate about neuroscience and understanding the impact of trauma on the brain. Michael has completed the requirements for Phase II/TTT with the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics course taught by the leading trauma expert Bruce D. Perry MD, PhD, is currently a fellow with the U.C. Davis CPE Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship is also pursuing EMDRIA certification. Michael was a trainer for Natural Lifemanship, the model of therapy that incorporates the Neurosequential Model to understand human and horse brain development.
In Michael’s spare time he enjoys spending time with his wife, Gabby & their twin boys, Jonah & Levi, riding horses, photography, playing the piano & building projects.
Marti Smith OTR/L,
Author, Speaker & TBRI Practitioner
Marti graduated from Indiana University in 1996. She is a TBRI Travis County Collaborative participant, and co-founder of Simple Sparrow Farm, a non-profit where she collaborates with Jamie Tanner, Simple Sparrow owner and president, to help heal individuals through farm related activities. Marti began her OT career at the Covered Bridge Special Education Co-op where she specialized in autism, handwriting, and creative adaptive equipment provided on a minimal budget. She currently specializes in sensory regulation as it relates to trauma and has helped develop the sensory portions of the CTA's NMT and TCU's TBRI education. She has completed additional certification and training in Interactive Metronone, Therapeutic Listening, Wilbarger Deep Pressure Protocol, Therapeutic massage, Floor Time, Vestibular Dysfunction, Reflex Integration, Picky Eating, Athletic Training, CISM, and Rescue Scuba Diving. She has been an international speaker since 2004, sharing her passion to help children in creative, fun, inexpensive, and simple therapeutic ways. She resides in Austin, Texas with her husband and two children. She enjoys traveling, nature, photography, quilting, and spending time at Simple Sparrow Farm.
Marti is a TBRI Practitioner certified in Therapeutic Listening, Interactive Metronome, CiSM, Athletic Training, and Massage Therapy.
Chelle Taylor BA (Hons) MPsych
Neurosequential Model Mentor, Director & Clinical Psychologist at Blossomtree Psychology
Chelle is Director and Clinical Psychologist at Blossomtree Psychology and a current mentor with the Neurosequential Network, a RSA with the UC Davis Infant Parent-Child Institute and was recently awarded the Spirit of Bruce D. Perry Award. Chelle and her Canine Co-Therapists Denver and Cally offer specialised trauma and attachment based interventions. Chelle has worked clinically with children and families who have experienced trauma and attachment disruption for over 23 years. Until November 2014 Chelle led Berry Street's Take Two program in its implementation and certification of NMT, including internal training and consultation. Together with Dr Perry, Chelle co-facilitated the Australasian NMT Case Based Training Series in 2012 and 2013. Chelle was awarded a Creswick Foundation Fellowship and in 2014 travelled to North America and Canada exploring neurodevelopmentally informed interventions for infants, children and adolescents. Chelle was the founding Clinical Team Leader of the Grampians Take Two team where she held roles of program leadership, staff supervision, and direct clinical consultation and client work with children and families experiencing trauma and attachment disruption for seven years. Chelle commenced her career in a remote rural community in Western Australia, as a Psychologist for Child Protection. In this role, Chelle worked with children and families from remote Central Western Australian Aboriginal Communities.
Phillip Tedeschi, LCSW MSSW
Clinical Professor, Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver
Founder and Director Emeritus, Institute for Human-Animal Connection, University of Denver Co-Director, Institute for Animal Sentience and Protection
Philip Tedeschi is the Co- Director – Institute for Animal Sentience and Protection and DirectorEmeritus and Founder of the Institute for Human-Animal Connection, a licensed clinical social worker, a clinical professor at the Graduate School of Social Work and an affiliated faculty with the University of Denver’s Animal Law Program. He teaches in the Human- Animal-Environmental Interaction Certificate for Master of Social Work students, examining the intricate relationship between people, domestic and wild animals, and the natural world. Tedeschi’s research, scholarship, teaching, and community practice work have focused on issues of social and interspecies justice, global perspectives of human-animal interactions, conservation social work and human ecology. He specializes in the bio-affiliative connection between people and animals, causes of maltreatment to people/non-human animals and the health promoting potential of human-animal and nature interaction.
Emily Wang PhD., R. Psych.
Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics Mentor
Senior Director, Clinical Advancement &
Trauma Informed Services
Dr. Wang is the Senior Director of Clinical Advancement and Trauma Informed Practice and NMT Site Supervisor at Hull Services, a Flagship Site with the Neurosequential Model Network. Dr. Wang is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) across all 27 programs at Hull. Her responsibilities include training, program development, clinical consultation and mentoring both within Hull and externally as requested. Dr. Wang is a Fellow of the Neurosequential Model Network, and is a specialist in Infant Parent Mental Health. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at University of Calgary and a Reflective Practitioner. Dr. Wang holds a Master’s of Science in Educational Psychology, a Master’s of Art and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology. She was responsible for the provincial training of the Neurosequential Model concepts and implementation in Alberta from April 2017-October 2018, and has been providing training extensively both in Canada and the United States. Her training in the NMT and the Infant Parent Mental Health Fellowship has had a significant impact on both her professional life as well as her personal life as a mother of two.