About the Black Women Coach Conductors Certification Program
Join Black women from around the world in Blooming Willow’s Black Women Coach Conductors Certification Program—a transformative journey of growth, healing, and liberation.
This 6-month, International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accredited program is your opportunity to master our Healing Centered Coaching® framework, designed to create liberation for all.
Our program is tailored for high-performing changemakers—entrepreneurs, CEOs, nonprofit leaders, advocates, therapists, and teachers—passionate about leading with authenticity. If you're dedicated to making a positive impact, our intentionally inclusive space provides a supportive community where you can deepen your leadership, enhance your coaching skills, and facilitate healing within your organization and beyond.
Grounded in our signature Healing Centered Coaching® framework, developed by CEO Leslie Avant-Brown, this program champions culturally relevant coaching that honors the unique needs of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other vulnerable communities. As you immerse yourself in this experience, you will cultivate powerful coaching skills, foster personal growth, and empower yourself to create profound, meaningful change as an ICF Accredited Certified Coach.
At the heart of this program is our trademarked Healing-Centered Coaching Model, a powerful framework designed to guide changemakers through four essential practices: Pause, Ground, Align, and Act.
This model, developed to help leaders serve others without sacrificing their own humanity, creates a sanctuary for both personal and collective growth.
You will learn to:
Pause: Guide clients through intentional reflection and restoration.
Ground: Support them in gaining clarity on their values and purpose.
Align: Help them explore new possibilities and strategies to meet challenges with intention.
Act: Encourage them to take sustainable steps that honor their well-being and mission.
By mastering these practices, you will deepen your ability to foster transformation for yourself, your clients, and the communities you serve.
Black Women Coach Conductors
Fall 2026 Schedule
October 2026
Welcome to Healing Centered Coaching Core Competencies & Coach's Stand
Asking Powerful Questions
Practicing Engaged Listening, Curiosity, Interrupting & Acknowledgment
Group Mentor Session - Core Competencies Focus 1 - 7
November 2026
Healing Centered Coaching Mindset, Pausing & Supporting Safety
Supporting Safety, Opening, Grounding & Expanding the Session
Group Mentor Session: Module 1&2 Competencies Focus: 3 Agendas 1 - 16
December 2026
Gathering and Clarifying the Client’s Agenda
Exploring the 3 Agendas, Respecting the Client & Expanding the View
Group Mentor Session: Module 3-I Competencies Focus: Play 1 - 24
January 2027
Visioning, Metaphors & Analogies
Inviting Play to Support Clarity
Exploring Limiting Beliefs & the Internal Community
Group Mentor Session: Module 3-II Competencies Focus 1 - 27
February 2027
Accessing Inner Wisdom and Power
Group Mentor Session: Module 3-II Competencies Focus 1 - 27
Supporting Pausing, Reflection, and Meaning Making
Group Mentor Session - Module 4+ Competencies Focus 1 - 28
March 2027
Co-Designing Healing Centered North Star Goals & Accountability
Expanding the View
Group Mentor Session - Module 4+ Competencies Focus 1 - 30
Community Celebration & Reflection + Teach Back
Core Faculty & Mentors
-
Principal Owner
Leslie Avant-Brown, Conductor# 1, is an innovator, facilitator, coach and thought leader within movement work. Her relentless desire to fuel systems change in support of vulnerable communities has changed the fabric of this work. With her down to earth demeanor, she brings a unique mix of laughter, curiosity, healing, creativity and strategy to support conductors of change – those who are designing innovative strategies that benefit future generations. She believes that moving beyond traditional leadership approaches will revolutionize the way that people work and thrive. “I have dedicated my life to supporting communities to build trust, identify new leadership, increase diversity of voice and choice, incorporate growth and healing strategies and build sustainably. I do this because I know, what we plant today will bloom tomorrow”
In 2016, through a partnership with Beyond Emancipation, her CCRW Coaching Model (focused on foster and probation youth) received the notorious International Coaching Federation Prism Award Honorable Mention (Coming 2nd only to Coca-Cola Russia) for its innovative design supporting culture change. She went on to support the development of an ICF Accredited, Community Coaching Certification Program at Leadership that Works, the first of its kind. Through this pioneering effort, she certified over 100 coaches in this new community accreditation, radically shifting how communities are supported through coaching.
Leslie serves as CEO at her firm Blooming Willow Coaching, a culturally relevant, Healing Centered Coaching practice that allows her to partner with individuals, organizations and businesses. Her specialization areas include “all things” coaching including: one-on-one and group coaching, coaching facilitation, coach training, and designing sustainable coaching models that support growth and healing in communities.
Previously, she worked as the International Program Director for Leadership that Works, and supported the development, implementation and facilitation of cutting edge coaching programs that supported value-driven transformation in India, Europe and the United States.
Prior to earning her coaching certification Leslie worked in the nonprofit capacity building sector, supporting work that promoted social justice -- she has a background in leadership development and evaluation. “What brought me to the field of coaching was the idea of supporting deep change while aligning my strengths to support conductors of change.”
Leslie received her professional coaching certification through Leadership that Works and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Michigan. In her free time, Leslie enjoys finding new adventures, spending time with her wife, belly laughing, eating delicious food and of course creating!!
-
Feedback Mentor
Like a rocket, Nicky's coaching is the vessel that clients access when a much broader perspective is required. From a more spacious point of view, clients get to see their full operating systems--the world and themselves in it. By observing from different angles clients are better positioned to see options, opportunities, limiting beliefs and the way forward.
For over 21 years, Nicky has been exploring the impact of our systems- and rule-based society on individuals. As a workshop facilitator, coaching trainer, department supervisor and program manager, she has designed empowerment curricula centered on internal capacity building, culture change, leadership and healing for organizations.
As a Professional Certified Coach (trained in Transformational Life Coaching and Healing Centered Community Coaching), Nicky considers herself to be an intuitive partner, a wise ally and a reflector of the space between what you didn't know then and what you do know now. She brings a sense of wonder and curiosity to every session.
Nicky's coaching opens space for traditional and non-traditional leaders to slow down and catch up to themselves, to explore needs, to envision success and to create fresh boundaries and agreements before taking brave steps forward.
-
Feedback Mentor
Based out of the Bay Area, California, DeShauna received her Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, with additional coursework in Forensic Psychology. During this time, DeShauna also began working for a non-profit agency that contracts with Alameda County Social Services supporting foster youth with navigating self-sufficiency. After working in this field, she realized that the core of our problems and stress often correlate with symptoms in our bodies. Starting with self, she decided to challenge her mind, body and spiritual alignment by beginning an Ashtanga yoga practice. Also, she discovered life coaching, which quickly became an important tool in all clientcentered and leadership work. This allowed her connections with others to become more than just a mentorship, but a partnership in their goals.
Through self-discoveries in yoga and coaching, DeShauna resolved to deepen the mind/body connection and received her 250-hour Teacher Training Certification (Power Vinyasa & Yoga Sculpt). DeShauna also realizes that mastering the “self” is a lifelong path, yet the journey there is where meaningful experience happens. In June 2018, she became a certified transformational coach through Leadership that Works and uses somatic tools to support individuals with bringing their authentic selves to the surface. DeShauna will also earn her 300-hour Teacher Training (continued yoga education) in December 2021. Her ultimate goal is to create a connection with individuals throughout their personal journey, with the hopes of helping to empower them to reach their desired destinations. DeShauna believes “Health is a state of body and wellness is a state existence.”
During DeShauna’s spare time she enjoys spending time with her husband, daughter, animals (she has a dog, cat, gecko, fishes) and different species of plants as well as geodes.