Executive Board of Directors

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For more than 20 years, Steve has served the greater Orange County area in four prominent roles.

1. As a marriage and family therapist, Steve has been helping families collaborate and bond. He sees clients in private practice — In Touch Individual and Family Therapy — which is conveniently located on the property of our Heart for Kids, Coaching, Training & Therapy Center (H4K) in Tustin.  
2. As an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Vanguard University, Steve has gained widespread acceptance with his students. He teaches an extensive list of courses: Developmental Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Behavior Modification, Counseling Theories, and Psychology of the Family — to name a few.
3. In addition to those two roles, Steve is an Ordained Minister who helps Christian parents develop an integrated approach to raising children: one that’s down to earth, practical, and carefully grounded in two domains — theology and evidence-based findings on best parenting practices. He is the mentor that moms and dads call on to make their parenting style warmer, easier, and more effective.  
4. Steve is also the founder of In Touch Parenting, a company devoted to helping today’s busy parents calm the chaos, raise emotionally intelligent kids, and nurture families to thrive. His seminars are dedicated to helping parents feel more confident and competent in connecting with their children and managing their challenging behaviors.  

In addition to those roles of service, Steve loves working with organizations that take an evidence-based approach to help families thrive without stress, shouting, or fancy reward systems. 

Hence, he joined forces with HBCC because there is a parallel sense of passion for:

1) helping families thrive;

2) a commitment to evidence-based solutions that work!

Steve is Certified in Collaborative Problem Solving®(CPS), an evidence-based approach rooted and established in neuroscience. Research on the CPS approach shows improved parent/child relationships and develops positive skills in children when conventional behavior modification methods have not.

Even more, some of the best evidence from studies

and patient care data demonstrate that CPS produces

a significant reduction in symptoms of Oppositional

Defiance and parental anguish!  

Steve is now becoming trained to be a trainer in Collaborative Problem Solving from Think:Kids based at Massachusetts

General Hospital in Boston, MA.

Nowadays, he is laser focused on helping HBCC remain purpose-driven and conducting CPS training for parents and professionals at mental health organizations and schools.

When it’s time to play, Steve enjoys surfing and

mountain biking with friends and exploring life in

Southern California. He lives in South Orange County

with his wife and two sons. 

https://intouchparenting.com/ 

  Hillary is an entrepreneur, and her professional  background includes interior design, property development and management, as well as philanthropic pursuits.  

As a parent of a twice exceptional (2e) child that had behavioral challenges, she began using Collaborative Problem Solving®(CPS) after she and her husband took parenting courses at HBCC. Their family had tried many things to improve the difficult behaviors in the past without any success. This led her on a journey to become an advocate for the neurodiverse, 2e, and different learning children.  Hillary is currently working towards becoming certified through Think:Kids to teach other parents about CPS. 

Hillary has a flair for networking, an eye for detail, and a strong determination to help other parents of differently wired kids. She resides in Costa Mesa, CA with her husband and son and daughter. Her son attends 2e4Me Academy, which is a CPS based school, where she also serves as a board member and volunteer.

Ingrid came to the HBCC Advisory Board with more than 40 years of experience as an early childhood educator and child advocate. She taught preschool for 25 years at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano and served for many years as a CA Early Childhood Mentor Teacher, supporting student teachers’ practicum experience in her classroom. She was a Validator for NAEYC”s  (National Association for the Education of Young Children) accreditation process, evaluating early childhood centers in Orange County. In 2015 she was named one of 25 Outstanding Teachers of the Year in Orange County. She served as Pre-School Director at St. Margaret’s for 10 more years, establishing their Outdoor Classroom which was named in her honor when she retired in 2016. She is a member of the LA Episcopal Diocese ‘s Commission on Schools serving on accreditation teams and as acting as a consultant to early childhood programs in the Diocese.  

Ingrid has a bachelor’s degree in Drama and master’s degree in Human Development with an Early Childhood Specialization and holds a GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) Certificate as well as hundreds of hours of professional growth in the areas of learning styles, special needs, diversity, sensory integration, conflict resolution, brain research, early childhood curriculum and parent education.

As a “busy bee” herself as a child, often in “time-out” at school, she was determined that when she became a teacher, she would be one who celebrated individual differences, sought to understand rather than punish behavior and guide children to be their most confident, curious and happy selves. As an associate professor of Early Childhood Education at Saddleback College for 15 years she helped parents and teachers gain the understanding and skills necessary to do the same. She has led workshops and in-service trainings on positive child guidance strategies for parents and teachers locally, nationally and internationally.

She has been married since 1969 to her college sweetheart and they have two grown sons, both gifted and with learning differences (2e) which gave her a personal as well as professional perspective.

When Ingrid met Debra Ann Afarian and learned about Think:Kids and Collaborative Problem Solving, it was putting a name to her life’s work.

Her hobbies include traveling, antiquing, knitting, reading and watching “Jeopardy"!