The Team

Prior to her current role, Guimel was the Program Director for Wayside’s Framingham Family Networks and worked for the Department of Children and Family Services in Compton, California. Guimel’s current role allows her to utilize her experience as a social worker while maximizing her organizational and analytical strengths. Guimel sees the position of Vice President of People and Culture and Chief Diversity Officer as an opportunity to expand upon and broaden culture, fortify communication among staff, boost staff morale, empower staff to consider their career development and prioritize and streamline process efficiencies across Wayside. 

Guimel is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) and a Society of Human Resources Management Senior Certified Professional. In 2019 she was awarded the Elizabeth Funk Emerging Leaders Award from the Association of Behavioral Health for her work embedding equity and inclusion across the agency. In 2022 she was awarded the Edna Smith Health Equity Award by Metrowest Health Foundation. In 2020 and 2023 she was named to the 50 Most Influential Business People of Color list by Newton-Needham Metrowest Regional Chamber. She speaks fluent Portuguese and lives in Natick with her wife and son.

As Wayside’s Director of Training & Equity Culture for 20 years, Amy has explored the intricate dynamics of power, oppression, and anti-racism. Her work has focused on underserved populations, with a special focus on youth who use substances, individuals impacted by trauma, and LGBTQ+ youth.

As a seasoned Family Therapist residing in Rhode Island, Amy enjoys drinking endless cups of coffee, spending time with her artist wife, her teen kids, and menagerie of beloved pets. They endeavor to be the most fun multiracial, queerest, anti-racist family on the block.

Daniela provides outpatient therapy to children and adolescents. Before deciding to go back to school to get her master’s degree, she worked in the administrative realm of healthcare services, from private to nonprofit. After having her first two daughters, Daniela became dedicated to the geriatric field and became a hospice volunteer while working at Walden Behavioral in the inpatient unit for psychiatric needs and eating disorders, which created a need in her to work with children, adolescents, and families.

Daniela started her career at Wayside as an in-home therapist and outpatient clinician, where she dedicated her expertise in cultural and ethnic considerations to help Latino families explore ways they could understand and bring their own trauma to the forefront of treatment. At Wayside, she has taken on initiatives around diversity, equity, and inclusion and is most interested in having courageous conversations about our society’s mental health, inequalities, racism, sexism, and diverse cultures. Daniela speaks fluent Spanish and lives in Framingham with her high school sweetheart husband and three biracial daughters, surrounded by food, books, and music all day long.

Tanisha Wilson, LMHC (she/her), a Boston native, discovered her calling to be a therapist at a young age. She pursued psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where her involvement in the Nuance program in the multicultural dorm opened her eyes to the beauty of diverse coexistence. This experience, along with a serendipitous meeting with a fellow woman-of-color psychology major, led to the founding of the pioneering Delta Xi Phi Multicultural Sorority Inc. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The sorority endures today, promoting friendship, sisterhood, multicultural awareness, community service, and the advancement of women in higher education.
Tanisha is a multifaceted professional with over a decade of experience at Wayside Youth and Family Support Network. Her passion lies in supervision and in-home therapy, and she actively contributes to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees at both the Waltham site and “All Wayside.” As a Courageous Conversations Champion and Rainbow Champion, Tanisha’s personal mission is to foster empathy, validate diverse perspectives, and encourage the authentic expression of one’s whole self.

In 2017, Tanisha co-founded and later led the People of Color Association (POCA) at the Waltham site, expanding its influence throughout Wayside. Her efforts provided crucial support and validation for people of color working in the mental health field, especially during the challenges of the 2020 pandemic. Currently, Tanisha continues her support through training initiatives for current and new agency hires and at the Wayside Equity Training Center.

Residing in Malden, MA, with her young adult son on the Autism Spectrum, Tanisha finds solace in crocheting, savoring good food, cherishing good company, and dancing to music in the comfort of her home—a means to navigate the delicate balance between work and life’s demands.

Penny has been at Wayside since 2003, first working as a residential counselor in what was then known as the Edgell Road Program. Dedicated to young people, Penny initially worked with Boys & Girls Clubs and volunteered as a youth basketball coach. For Penny, the work has always been about engaging in healthy activities and projects with youth focusing on empowerment and pro-social community behaviors. Wayside was a natural transition to continue this work on a larger scale with young people who have a wide range of presentations and needs.

In her current role, Penny oversees Campus Day Programs, Admissions, Nursing, Department of Early Education and Care requirements, staff training as, well as Agency Risk and Compliance. In addition, Penny has been a trainer in Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for the last 15 years. This training focuses on engaging in safe and respectful ways to interact and de-escalate young people with an emphasis on empowering them and recognizing their needs from a variety of different backgrounds and mental/behavioral health presentations. The impact of racial trauma, oppression, and systemic racism is an integral part of these trainings. The Courageous Conversations that occur within and after them are invaluable to further advance the care of the youth and staff involved.

Penny has a registered therapy dog named Maximus that she brings to Wayside. She also volunteers at local mental health hospitals and libraries. When not out running, she enjoys working outside landscaping or gardening and creating homemade goodies from the harvest.

Cas Reyes (they/them) is a registered nurse and reiki practitioner currently providing in-home mental health nursing care and individual reiki sessions. Cas has over 12 years of experience working in human services providing direct care and respite care to young people with varied health needs. Through their combined knowledge of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, and their commitment to lifelong learning and personal healing, Cas hopes to empower others to find their own sources of wellness and create spaces where alternative measures of healing can be accessible to all. Recently Cas has taken on roles at Wayside as an equity advocate and trainer focused on creating brave spaces rooted in anti-oppression, anti-racism, and LGBTQIA2S+ affirming care.

For over nine years, Carlton has operated as a Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Strategic Consultant tasked with spearheaded institutional systems and procedures for Wayside Youth & Family Network. During this time, he has collaborated with the Director of People & Culture and the President/CEO to generate DEI policies and practices for a workforce of more than 450 employees.

Some key initiatives and successes include:

• Building and implementing the organization’s founding principles, creating five key strategic objectives while establishing matrices for all targets.
• Co-creating guidelines and curriculum for DEI introductory classes necessary for all new hires during employee orientation.
• Focusing on personnel commitment to onboard and support individuals aligned with the agency’s commitment to diversity, evidenced by annual survey results revealing findings of reduced bias and prejudice toward others.
• Improvement of 5% in recruiting people of color for managerial and supervisor roles in all management categories.

Pursuant to his career goals, professional experience, and desire to help others, Carlton launched Business Organization Resources to help businesses in various sectors seeking to prioritize DEI practices in the workplace. For over eight years, he has assisted companies in pursuing a more diverse and inclusive environment by adopting an anti-racism methodology. As such, he leads risk management endeavors by executing programs focused on detecting and eliminating systematic racism.

Some key initiatives and priorities include:

• Supporting corporations in creating and executing accountability key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor progression and results.
• Administering counseling services to teenagers, men, women, and couples, including trauma-informed counseling to enhance their quality of life.
• Coaching and developing managers to achieve and sustain improvement in performance to maximize program and organizational achievement.

Omkari L. Williams has worked as a political consultant and life coach for 30 years, with an emphasis on supporting activists who identify as introverted or highly sensitive. As a queer Black woman, she shares her own story of challenging injustice to empower others in making a difference in their communities. In addition to speaking to organizations around the country, she leads workshops and trainings and is host of the popular podcast, Stepping into Truth, where she interviews people doing activism in their own unique ways. To help people identify their own way of activism, she created the Activist Archetype Quiz ©. Williams was born and raised in Manhattan and now lives in western Massachusetts. She can be found at http://www.omkariwilliams.com.

Dr. Joyce McNickles, M.Ed and Ed.D (she/hers/her ) is a seasoned social justice educator and consultant with over three decades of experience in promoting cultural competency, racial equity, and inclusion across academic, corporate, and non-profit sectors. As the founder of McNickles & Associates, she specializes in coaching executive leadership, conducting staff training, and facilitating dialogues on diversity, including race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Currently serving as a Visiting Professor of Politics and Social Justice at Regis College, Dr. McNickles previously held a position as a Professor of Human Development and Human Services at Anna Maria College, where she taught courses on workplace diversity, social inequality, racial equity, multicultural education, and sociology. She has also contributed to business management textbooks on diversity and presented research on black identity development.
Dr. McNickles has made significant contributions to health equity, lecturing on Implicit Bias in Health Care and participating in the Institutional Review Board at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her involvement with the Worcester Partnership for Racial and Ethnic Health Equity and her breast cancer awareness workshops for African American women have earned her recognition as a Hometown Hero by Worcester Magazine in 2019.

Committed to community service, Dr. McNickles has received awards such as the Eleanor Hawley Award for Human Rights in 2016 and the YWCA’s Erskine Award in education in 2019. She has also been actively involved in organizations like the ACLU, the Massachusetts Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, and the YWCA of Central Massachusetts, where she co-founded the Racial Justice Task Force. Furthermore, she served on Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s Advisory Council on Racial Justice and Equity from 2016 to 2023.

Dr. McNickles holds a master’s degree in social justice from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a doctorate in adult education with a focus on social justice from National-Louis University.

Nik, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor from upstate New York, prefers No Pronouns or They/Them/Theirs. Since 2014, Nik has worked in Massachusetts, focusing on community-based mental health services for youth, families, and adults. Specializing in aiding individuals after crises and trauma, Nik actively engages in conversations about institutional trauma and discrimination and contributes to Wayside’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative, serving as a Courageous Conversations Champions member, facilitating staff training on the Validate, Challenge, Request (VCR) model. Additionally, Nik co-leads Wayside’s Rainbow Champions, providing LGBTQIA+ training within the organization. Nik is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and holds a role as a Program Director at Wayside. Nik can often be found with loved ones out in the woods, the ocean, or in a dojo practicing martial arts.

Master’s in Mental Health Counseling with a focus on Trauma from Cambridge College and specialization in psychological evaluation for immigration. Mental Health and Trauma Specialist, with in-depth training and multicultural experience. Specialist in Psychopathology and Diagnosis from the Catholic University of Brasília, where I also completed my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology.

I am dedicated to supporting immigrants and families aiming to strengthen relationships and promote mental health. As a trauma specialist, my focus includes identifying and intervening in traumas common among immigrants, integrating a multicultural approach and psychological skills to meet the specific needs of this community.

My approach does not only work in the clinical setting but promotes awareness in the community and other professionals lecturing about mental health, acculturation and acculturation trauma.

Jourdan Christopher is a multi-medium artist born in Detroit, Michigan. He studied Rhetorical Studies and Philosophy at Bates College, and currently lives in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Jourdan works turns moments into images of both fine art and social commentary. Focusing on race, class, gender & normality, involvement/community activism, & his own life experience, Jourdan creates visuals & narratives that place you before & within situations as though in the moment itself.

His photography and writing have been featured in the Boston Globe, Boston.com, and a number of other galleries and publications in Boston and beyond.

Lou (they/them) is a lived experience mental health specialist who works with parents and caregivers who are supporting youth with mental health struggles. Along with their own mental health struggles, they are the parent of four teens, three of which have struggled with mental health challenges of their own. Lou is a passionate advocate of LGBTQIA+ rights, disability rights, and mental health awareness.

Sara strives to make a difference within Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, starting with one deep conversation at a time. Sara Identifies as mixed race (Half Irish / half Chinese) and hopes to spread knowledge and awareness around mixed-race cultures. Sara loves to write poetry regarding Mental Health and the LGBTQ community topics. She believes that the way you choose to align your words for someone can go along way.

Amy Ebbeson, LCSW is the Director of Worcester ACTs (Addresses Childhood Trauma). She has master’s in clinical social work from Boston University and has worked in a variety of government and social service settings, including the Departments of Mental Health and Public Health.  She has been engaged in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming and anti-racism work for more than 25 years. She has taught Mental Health content to students at the undergraduate and graduate level at colleges including Worcester State, Springfield College, and the Wheelock College School of Social Work. She served as Chair for the Worcester County Commission on the Status of Women and was the 2018 recipient of the YWCA Erskine Award in Education, recognizing her commitment to eliminating racism and empowering women. She considers trauma to be the thread that connects all her work. She has a solid understanding of the trauma knowledge base but has recognized that learning from lived experience is very different from learning in the classroom. She launched Trauma Training Tuesday in 2019 to integrate learning from the heart and from the head. It is her hope that recognizing the impact of trauma will help us heal as individuals and that this will lead us to healing our communities. She is also a maker of bold necklaces, a mom, and a dog lover.

Rosalind Baker has worked at Wayside for over 20 years. She holds a Master of Public Administration from Framingham State University, Graduate Certificate in Public Health Studies from University of Lowell and is pursuing her Master of Public Health. She has been a Courageous Conversations Champion for the last 5 years recently joining the Wayside Equity and Training Center. Rosalind is involved in local and state politics and is the elected Affirmative Action Officer in her local Democratic City Committee. She is also a graduate of EMERGE Massachusetts, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of Democratic and Independent women leaders from diverse backgrounds in public office.

My name is AJ and I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. My experience is in working with at risk youth and supporting families to achieve emotional wellbeing. I identify as a Queer, Black-Indigenous nonbinary spirit. I enjoy writing poetry and using my neurodivergent lens to create a soft and welcoming world.

Based in Providence, RI, Jessie Justin is a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, educator, and certified personal coach/equity coach. As a transgender/gender non-binary, queer white person, Jessie dedicates themselves to helping communities become aware of and challenge systemic oppression and racial injustice. Jessie enjoys spending as much time outdoors as possible with their family, taking ceramics classes, and playing games.