Personal: 

  

     Kim M. Garrison is a Ph.D. candidate in the human development program at the University of Rochester (UR) in Rochester, NY and she works full time for MV Public Schools as their Behavioral Health Coordinator. She defines herself as a teacher, leader and researcher. Kim holds multiple Massachusetts certifications in areas for teaching and school leadership. Her research focuses on systems of wellbeing in organizations and the social structures that support these systems. Her leadership style is best defined as a blend of democratic, servant, and transformational leadership. She likes to see how teams can bring together their human and social capital to innovate and address real systems problems, but she isn't afraid to direct this work as needed.

     Most recently, Kim decided to bring her expertise and skills to a broader network of organizations by working as an independent evaluator and consultant on a contract basis, under the K/Val Consulting brand. 

     Kim lives with her family in Martha's Vineyard, MA, where she is raising her daughter with her husband and two dogs, running her own evaluation and consulting business, and living a full and joyful life.

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Education:

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     While studying and working at UR, her roles included program evaluator for the Center for Educational Reform and Professional Development and graduate teaching assistant in the Inclusion and Disabilities teacher preparation program at the Margaret Warner School of Education and Human Development. Before attending UR, Kim taught special education at the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School. Currently, Kim works as the Behavioral Health Coordinator for Martha's Vineyard Public Schools (MVYPS).

     In her current role at MVYPS, she supports the building of a multi-tiered system of care for comprehensive school mental health, as well as leading professional development for SEL and MH in schools. She has also led professional development with Walker Therapeutic & Education Programs, under a contract with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, on school-community partnerships and the use of data in MTSS and trauma-informed school planning.

     Kim is certified in multiple evidence-based education programs for which she offers professional development:

• Youth Mental Health First Aid,

• Adult Mental Health First Aid,

• Leader Effectiveness Training (L.E.T.), and

• Trauma-Informed Practices Training: School Communities [based on UCSF's HEART (Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools) framework]. 

She also can support the direct implementation/instruction of:

• teen Mental Health First Aid in schools, and

• STRONG (Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups) Curriculum.

• iDECIDE (Drug Education Curriculum: Intervention, Diversion, and Empowerment)

 

Research & Publication:

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     Kim’s research focuses on understanding how teacher and student wellbeing factors are related to school organizational climate; specifically, she investigates topics such as social-emotional learning, teacher collaboration, and teacher burnout. Kim's current role as Behavioral Health Coordinator also requires her to lead data collection, assessment, and analysis for ongoing projects and programs, and to coach teams on data-based decision making to increase school climate for staff, students, and families. She has been fundamental in the support of developing MVYPS' school climate cycle and the administration of the EDSCLS system-wide. She also supports the use of system-wide assessments on social-emotional learning.

     Kim has presented on her research at professional conferences for organizations such as:

• American Education and Research Association,

• American Evaluation Association,

• National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and

• the Society for the Study of Human Development.​

While at UR, she was the recipient of numerous awards to support her travel to present on her research. She also co-authored a chapter on the use of social network analysis in education ​that describes the theories and analytic methods associated with social network analysis (SNA), and considers the application of SNA in educational policy research (see Finnigan, Luengo, & Garrison, 2018). Kim conducted her independent research assistantship under the mentorship of Dr. Kara Finnigan using Chicago Public Schools data to look at the structural and systematic effects of principal mobility in its schools.

 

Program Evaluation:

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     In addition to the ongoing program evaluation that Kim conducts in her role at MVYPS, she has also worked with community organizations and school districts to evaluate their programs and policies as a part of the school improvement and strategic planning processes.

     Since her time at the Center for Educational Reform and Professional Development, where she contributed to numerous large-scale evaluations, Kim has independently supported evaluations and strategic planning in education, non-profit, and community organizations. In 2019, Kim guided the strategic planning process for Grace Episcopal Church, which has led to completing a large-scale capital improvement project for 'greening' the building. As a 2020 Martha's Vineyard Vision Fellow, Kim led a feasibility study for a School-based Health Center at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School, which is now being planned through a partnership with a local health organization. Also in 2020, Kim supported ACE MV, a local community education non-profit, in its design of a study on young persons' (ages16-26) education and workforce needs on MV. This project was a collaboration with the Rural Scholars program at UMass Chan Medical School and the Dukes County Health Council. In 2023, Kim helped to designed and implement a two-month long process for listening sessions and surveying that informed the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese search for a new bishop. 

     Kim has also been successful at transforming evaluation into funding. She has used evaluation of school mental health programming at MVYPS to secure just under $2M in funding in competitive grants over the course of three years. These funds support MVYPS to scale up the comprehensive school mental health system that Kim had supported in its design, and to support positive school climates in its six schools.

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Coaching & Training:

 

     Kim is trained in multiple coaching modalities, which she incorporates into her personal coaching style. Her coaching style integrates leadership and transformational coaching, data coaching, and elements of motivational interviewing into a style that can be used to support individuals, teams, and organizations in various contexts.​​

• Data Coaching: In 2008, Kim completed a year long training with Research for Better Teaching where she was trained as a data coach using the Collaborative Inquiry approach (Love, 2008).

• Leadership Coaching: In 2017, she completed the Leadership Coaching Certificate Program, an ICF leadership coaching program supported by Ramerman Leadership Group, Rochester, NY. 

• Leader Effectiveness Training: Kim has completed her training in the Gordon Effectiveness Training model of communication and conflict resolution. She is an independent facilitator of the Gordon Skills Model. She has completed these trainings herself as both a leader and as a parent. Now, she is leading her own workshops and excited to work with leaders and teams in developing their own strengths to overcome interpersonal conflicts and resistance in organizations. Kim believes that the Gordon Training International's effectiveness training model is a key solution to many organizational challenges.

• Continuous Improvement & Internal Evaluation Capacity 

• MTSS & Comprehensive School Mental Health

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Community Engagement:

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     Kim prides herself on supporting her community and the organizations that help Martha's Vineyard to grow and thrive. In addition, she is committed to working with groups who make it their mission to support positive youth development and family systems. The following organizations are those that Kim currently serves through volunteering her time and expertise.

• Board Vice Chair for ACE MV- Kim, in her board role, provides support to the organization and advocates for high quality community education and workforce development on MV. 

• Chair of the Vineyard Vision Fellowship Advisory Board- Kim works with 9 other Vision Fellows who were selected to inform the direction of Vineyard Vision planning and fellowship through connection to the community, research, and evaluation. 

• Stakeholder Member of MV Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Coalition- Kim represents the MV Public Schools and youth education of MV in her role and position with the MV SUD Coalition

• Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese Bishop Search Nominating Committee- Kim is one of 15 selected members of the Episcopal Church of Massachusetts to drive the rigorous search process for the next Bishop elect of the diocese.

• Member of the MV Youth Task Force- Kim sits as a community member on the MV Youth Task Force coalition and a representative of the MV Public Schools.

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Citations:

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Finnigan, K.S., Luengo-Aravena, D.E., Garrison, K.M. (2018). Social Network Analysis Methods in Educational Policy Research. In: Lochmiller, C. (eds) Complementary Research Methods for Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.