Anne's Creative Team
"Miss Jessica" DeShong
Host of our Wiggle Warrior® Program
Jessica is a GRAMMY®-nominated American musician and actress. Born into a culturally diverse military family of Korean, African and Caucasian influences, she has had the pleasure of exploring many different cultures her entire life. This lifelong experience has enabled her to be skilled and adaptable within the entertainment industry. Jessica is the creator of the YouTube kids channel "Miss Jessica’s World" which helps kids foster a love of learning through music, movement and cultural exploration.
Youtube: www.youtube.com/missjessicasworld
Instagram: www.youtube.com/missjessicasworld
Website: www.jessicadeshong.com
ANMP
Animation & Illustration
ANMP is a group of talented artists in Europe who have collectively worked on a variety of well known films: Maleficent (Disney), Loki (Marvel), Wonder Woman 1984 (Warner Bros), The Lion King (Disney), and The Witches (Warner Bros). With Anne serving as Art Director, ANMP masterfully brought our character designs to life!
Special thanks to Song Na for the detailed character designs of our human and cat characters!
Kari Yacawych
Elementary School Education Specialist
Kari has been a teacher for the past 27 years. She spent the first 20 years of her teaching experience as a classroom teacher for first, second, and fourth grade. For the past seven years, she has been the Library Media Specialist at Sunnyside Elementary School. Kari has a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education with a Concentration in Psychology and a Master of Science in Education. Kari started working on our content in 2020 and has played an integral part (along with her kids!) in planning out the Wiggle Warrior® program.
Zoe Dao-Kroeker
AR App Developer
Zoe is a recent graduate in Interactive Arts & Technology from Simon Fraser University. She discovered her passion for children and technology while helping at-risk youth during an after school program. This led her to research social-emotional impacts of technology on children through the Tangible Embodied Child-Computer Interaction Lab. From there, she moved into kids technology, working for Kinzoo on a joint venture with Anne, which later led to the development of her own app which she has generously shared with our organization!
Tess Morrison
Voice Artist
Tess is a writer, teacher, and empath who has been doing intuitive readings for over 30 years. Having befriended her fear many moons ago, she now guides others through deep emotional waters and life transitions. During the pandemic, Anne spent much time talking with Tess and realized her voice was the perfect intonation and pitch to calmly narrate our videos. As Voice Artist and also Board Chair, Tess has donated much of her time and talent to our organization!
Student Leadership Team
Mike Cicarella, Narrator
Bailey Horton, Editor
Zoe Schwab, Outreach
Blog Contributors
Miss Olivia
Look for the Good Ambassador
If you check out our blog, you'll notice that some of our posts are written by a cartoon character named, "Miss Olivia." Miss Olivia's teaching tips and parenting insights are actually written by a variety of people on our team. We thought Miss Olivia might be a fun way to present our content in a more personal way, so we hope you like her posts!
Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW
AEDP Psychoanalyst & Author
Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, is the author of the award-winning book, It’s Not Always Depression, which is based on her work as a therapist. Hilary received her BA in biochemistry from Wesleyan University and an MSW from Fordham University. She is a certified psychoanalyst and AEDP psychotherapist and supervisor, and has published articles in The New York Times, Time, Oprah, and other major media outlets. Her blog "The Change Triangle" is read worldwide. Hilary is the co-developer of the Emotions Education 101 Curriculum and Turnkey Program which you can learn about on her website. She is the inspiration behind our Wiggle Warrior® Training!
Brooklyn Raney
Trusted Adult Expert, Author & Guest Blogger
Brooklyn is the Founder and Lead Trainer of One Trusted Adult, an organization that provides programming for educators, professionals working with youth, parents and guardians, and young people, to ensure that every young person has at least one trusted adult. She is the founder and director of the Girls' Leadership Camp, a group that hosts a one-week summer camp for middle school girls, as well as one-day boosts and leadership conferences. She is also a co-founder of Generation Change, a nonprofit that seeks to embolden youth to be empathetic and compassionate change makers through cross-generational mentorship. Website: www.onetrustedadult.com
A Lot of Research Went into Our Concepts
Our Look for the Good® Campaign is Inspired by the "Broaden & Build" Theory
The Broaden and Build Theory was first proposed by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson (one of our advisors!) as a way to address the lack of research on positive emotions and the greater emphasis on negative ones. Rather than arguing that positive emotions should replace negative emotions, Dr. Fredrickson argues that both positive and negative emotions are necessary to build resilience. The idea is that positive emotions like gratitude can build internal resources to cope with negative emotions, making people more resilient and flexible.