Whole Systems Learning

Eba Laye, President, and Project Director California Reducing Disparities Project.  Eba is a long-time resident of South Central, a licensed attorney since 1975, and an active member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.  She is a process improvement engineer, a community economic development consultant, and the innovator of a form of brain-based learning that targets the reframing of experience as a way of transformational androgogical learning for foster youth.  She is the President of Whole Systems Learning and the Director of the TRIBE Program.  She provides the visionary support, has the responsibility for keeping the team focused on the mission, is responsible for writing grants, and planning and development.  Together with a research team that includes the evaluator and a team of evaluators.  She is also the project director for the California Department of Public Health Office of Health Equity’s California Reducing Disparities Project, which is a statewide project funding 35 community-based organizations to evaluate community defined evidence practices for prevention and early intervention mental health programs.

Jalonn Harrison, Project Director, Training and Development, is responsible for the design and implementation of the peer leadership development program that hires program participants and trains them to provide both management and peer services, including delivering workshops.  He is also responsible for conducting, designing, and implementing workshops including Know Thyself as well as extended workshops in entrepreneurship, Mindshift, financial literacy, personal branding, customer service, computer literacy, job readiness.   Jalonn is a professional with over 3 years of progressive experience in counseling, case management, education, training coordination and job development, proactive development and coordination of employer relationships to enhance the social, educational, and vocational abilities of students.  His expertise includes job development, academic/vocational assessment, case management, project management, workshop facilitation, team building and leadership, event coordination and pre-employment and employment training.  He holds a BS in Psychology from Utah State University and is also employed as an AJCC INVEST Business Services Representative at America’s Job Center of California, Rancho Dominguez, CA, where he works with initiatives such as industry sector strategies, private-public partnerships and customized employment and talent management. He develops and conducts workshops, and has served as the Re-Entry navigator providing mentoring coaching and support for probationers and parolees.  Previously he worked as both Business Community Liaison, Career Transition Specialist, and School to Work Coordinator for the Los Angeles Job Corps Center, LA CA.

Jordan Trower, Program Manager TRIBE is a full time employee who is both an audio engineer and music studio manager, and operations manager.  His data management duties include conducting assessments and enrollment procedures, documenting and updating contact information, inputting daily Program Participant notes-One Minute Assessment for attendance on attendance spreadsheet, upload and send one-minutes to evaluator daily, maintaining filing system of select Participant documents, including case plans, and worksheets from workshops.  He takes and documents attendance for both workshops and youth workforce and INVEST TSE workers.  His program management duties include arranging for transportation, managing/coordinating daily activities and progress, and input on registration spreadsheet, coordinating college procedures, including applications, financial aid application and Horatio Alger Scholarship.  His facilities management duties include daily maintenance of facilities, setting up workshop classroom, arranging for and picking up food for workshops, maintaining supply of snacks, maintaining list and replenishment of supplies, maintaining equipment inventory, and labeling of each piece of equipment, and ensuring completion of minor repairs and maintenance, including exterior.

Dr. Daniel F.K. Sarpong is the Senior Evaluator with Whole Systems Learning.  He designs and implements the Evaluation Plan for the CDEP.  He also currently serves as the Director of the Center for Minority Health Disparities Research and Education at Xavier University in Louisiana, and an Associate Professor of Biostatistics.  Until recently, he was also the Associate Director of the RCMI Center for Environmental Health at Jackson State University, Jackson Mississippi, and Senior Biostatistician for Translational Research.  From 1988 to the present, he has been engaged in biostatistical work, as Primary and Co-Principal Investigator.  His honors include the Jackson State University Research Visionary Award in 1006, and the Endowed Teaching Fellowship through W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  From 1994 to Present, he has served as Chairperson of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s African American Researchers and Scholars Group.  He has worked on more than 17 NIH and related research grants, and has written over 70 publications, a book chapter, more than 10 published abstracts, and has made more than 80 conference presentations.  His skills range from statistical programming, computer applications, and his personal skills that include leadership ability and professional speaker and trainer, and describes himself as independent, diplomatic, enthusiastic, and intellectually aggressive.