Our Team

Meet our directors and administration team. Please contact the appropriate person if you need assistance with any aspect of Compassionate Inquiry®.

Our Values 

We embody these in all that we do :

  • Curiosity / Constantly questioning: We invite people to connect with the truth within themselves 
  • Exploration / Expansive: We bring understanding to ourselves and how the past shows up in the present 
  • Liberation / Freedom: We free ourselves from our conditioning 
  • Connection / Trust: We create safety with one another, and access emotions, the felt sense and the true Self 
  • Community / Relating: We value the relationships we create with one another, recognizing commonality while respecting differences

People thrive when met with compassion. 

Below lists the primary team members for our English administrative team. See also:

Dr. Gabor Maté

Executive Director

Gabor is the creator of the Compassionate Inquiry approach to psychotherapy.

  • Executive Director of Compassionate Inquiry and works alongside Sat Dharam Kaur, ND on the overall vision and long-term planning.
  • Guides and supervises the activities of the corporation and of the staff, facilitators and students of the year-long professional training program.
  • Facilitates the monthly Zoom calls and engages in Guest Lectures.
  • Can be contacted via his website here.



Sat Dharam Kaur ND

Co-Executive Director, CEO, CI Facilitation Director

Contact Sat Dharam for inquiries about:

  • Course material that the Facilitator is unable to answer
  • Conflicts within the biweekly groups that are unresolved
  • Facilitated Monthly Workshops, Monthly Discussion Groups, L2 Video Reviews
  • Changes to the Compassionate Inquiry curriculum
  • Suggestions for Guest Lectures
  • Zoom calls with Gabor

Email: satdharam@compassionateinquiry.com



Kristen DeLorenzi

Director of Operations

Contact Kristen for inquiries about:

  • Management of the Compassionate Inquiry Standard Operating Procedures.
  • Workflows, project management and integration across various teams within CI
  • New CI international offerings
  • Communication between departments
  • Issues related to Human Resources

Email: kristen@compassionateinquiry.com



Gurudayal Khalsa

Technical Director, Media Producer

Contact Gurudayal for inquiries about:

  • How to access the course, website, or online forum(s).
  • Technical difficulties with emails, content, or videos.
  • Updating or managing practitioner listings on the website.
  • Access to the Submittable platform for course applications or course completion submissions.
  • Access to media and Zoom call recordings.
  • Pages on the website or course platform.
  • Files and forms related to the training and intake process.

Email: gurudayal@compassionateinquiry.com





Ognjen Vukotić

Technical Administrator

Contact Ognjen for inquiries about:

  • Technical and troubleshooting issues related to the Compassionate Inquiry Professional Training, Compassionate Inquiry Circles, Mentorship Program, Mentor-in-Training Program, Mentoring Support Program, and Suicide Attention Training
  • Email support related to our online course platform(s)
  • Management and updates of the website, online course platform(s), practitioner listings, and Circles Community platform maintenance
  • Technical support for live Zoom calls and workshops, video editing, content organization

Email: ognjen@compassionateinquiry.com




Gabriel Olivella

Administrative Assistant

Contact Gabriel for inquiries about:

  • Course Completion
  • CE Credits
  • Compassionate Inquiry Educator Certificates and Compassionate Inquiry Short Course Certificates

Email: gabriel@compassionateinquiry.com



Sahiba / Dayana Rivera

Program Administrator

Contact Sahiba for inquiries about:

  • Biweekly groups management, including rescheduling and student withdrawals
  • Administrative documentation for each cohort including attendance sheets, pod schedulers, safety plans, and mastersheets
  • Focus Groups
  • Compassionate Inquiry Spanish Program (Sahiba is the Compassionate Inquiry Spanish Program Administrator)

Email: sahiba@compassionateinquiry.com




Karolina Sotomayor

Digital Content Coordinator

Contact Karolina for questions regarding:

  • Compassionate Inquiry English Social Media
  • Compassionate Inquiry Blog posts and newsletters.
  • General information about The Professional Training Course including: applications, subsidies, and waitlist.
  • The Professional Training Course communication including: newsletter, course emails, and workshop notifications.
  • Self-Study Short Course for individuals.
  • General information about Compassionate Inquiry Spanish, including applications and course emails.
  • Compassionate Inquiry Circles Español.
  • Compassionate Inquiry Spanish Submittable documents.
  • Compassionate Inquiry Spanish Social Media.

Email: karolina@compassionateinquiry.com



Jill Forsyth

Administrative Assistant

Contact Jill for inquiries about:

  • Feedback forms and general feedback for CI Programs
  • Issues related to intellectual property, trademark permission and violations of copyright

Email: jill@compassionateinquiry.com


Lara Longo

Certification Coordinator, CI Facilitator and Practitioner

Contact Lara for inquiries about:

  • Certification and recertification submissions, as well as the outcome of all applications of certification and recertification 

Email: certification@compassionateinquiry.com


Jill Forsyth

Short Course Coordinator

Contact Jill for inquiries about:

  • Compassionate Inquiry Self-Study Short Course
  • Compassionate Inquiry Short Course with Facilitation for organizations and groups
  • CI Circles online and in-person

Email: jill@compassionateinquiry.com



Compassionate Inquiry® Circles:

Kevin Young

Circles Steward, Life Coach

Kevin Young is a certified professional practitioner of Compassionate Inquiry, a Compassionate Inquiry Facilitator, Compassionate Inquiry Educator and Compassionate Inquiry Circle leader. Kevin is passionate about bringing healing, compassion and connection to humanity. Kevin currently has a private practice based in Saintfield, Co. Down, Ireland and works with clients from all over the world. He is a certified mindfulness and meditation practitioner. He uses Compassionate Inquiry and mindfulness to help individuals, organisations, and charities to better understand their mental, emotional and spiritual landscapes. He brings a playful and relaxed approach to his work whilst holding a compassionate, non-judgemental and safe space for you to unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories and body states that form the real message that words both express and conceal. Kevin has been unemployed, employed and self-employed and has used both therapy and meditation to deal with and heal from his own life challenges.

Email: ci.kevinyoung@gmail.com


Soraya Romao-Inglis (Fateh Bir)

Circles Steward, Psychotherapist

As a trauma psychotherapist, Soraya offers the integration of Compassionate Inquiry (CI), IFS (Internal Family Systems), EMDR and mindfulness practices such as Kundalini Yoga in her sessions. She is trained in psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy which gives her the skills to support her clients during the integration process. As a BIPOC person who was born in Brazil, and who has been a settler in Canada for over 20 years, she brings to her sessions the teachings received from her ancestors and her experience as an immigrant. She works from a multicultural compassionate lens, exploring with curiosity the presence of intersectionality in clients' lives as well as its influences. As for her self-care she spends her free time running, cycling, hiking and reading. She also enjoys spending time with her husband and her two stepdaughters and with her dog (Benjamin) in the Coast Salish People's land.



CI Outreach for Indigenous Communities

Spanish Program:

To meet and contact our CI Spanish Team, please follow this link.


Dispute Resolution:

The Office of Integrity and Equality is available to anyone who is aggrieved by anything that happens or anything that is done or said in the context of Compassionate Inquiry. The Office of Integrity and Equality promotes an ethical community culture based on our shared values of integrity, accountability, transparency and respect, and based on the Compassionate Inquiry Code of Ethics, which can be found here.

We invite you to submit any complaint, grievance, or dispute that you may have in the context of Compassionate Inquiry to us, after you have first spoken to the person directly about the issue using the Compassionate Inquiry Communication Guidelines, and after you have practiced Compassionate Inquiry with yourself using self-inquiry, or worked it through with a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner or your therapist. Please submit your complaint, grievance or dispute here. Once you have done so, please email Siri Dharma at ci.siridharma@gmail.com.

Members of the Dispute resolution team:

Sheila Ann Tyacke (Siri Dharma)

CI Facilitator and Practitioner

Sheila grew up with a great sense of justice and, because of that, went on to study law and become an attorney. She studied three of her degrees in South Africa and the fourth at Stanford University, where she studied subjects such as Racism in American Law and Feminist Legal Theory. She practiced law in both the corporate environment and in human rights. As a human rights lawyer in the years preceding the first free elections in South Africa, she represented the ANC and various civic associations in challenges against the repressive national and local governments of the days. She also represented victims of brutal state violence. She grew her skills in corporate law in order to start mentoring and teaching those skills to young lawyers, which she still does today. Sheila has studied and taught Non-Violent Communication and is a certified mediator with CEDR (the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution), an international organization specializing in conflict management, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution.

Email: ci.siridharma@gmail.com


Vimalasara (Valerie Mason-John)

CI Facilitator and Practitioner

Dr. Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John M.A (hon.doc) is the award-winning author of 9 books. She worked as an international correspondent covering Aboriginal deaths in custody and Land Rights in Australia. After retiring from journalism she trained in the field of anger management and conflict resolution, going on to work as a senior trainer for one of the leading organizations in the UK, LEAP Confronting Conflicts, whose clients included the police, social services, the educational system,  prisons, gangs, and youth offending teams. In 2007 she moved to Canada, and retrained in the field of Restorative Justice RJ, working for Alberta Conflict Transformation ACTS, and developed a Train the Trainer program for youth to deliver the RJ circle. She has trained teachers throughout Canada in RJ approaches for education. She works as a public speaker in the field of Conflict Transformation, and Mindfulness Approaches for addiction. She is an ordained Buddhist and is Chair of Vancouver Buddhist Centre.


 


Compassionate Inquiry® Founding Facilitators:

Meet the Founding Facilitators of the Compassionate Inquiry Professional Training Program. Under the leadership, stewardship and direction of Sat Dharam, the Founding Facilitators collaborated in the development and delivery of the Compassionate Inquiry course. With Sat Dharam and Gabor, the Founding Facilitators launched the program and trained the next generation of facilitators and practitioners who now use Compassionate Inquiry as a therapeutic modality. We are grateful for their dedication and meaningful contributions.

Click here to see the Founding Facilitators for the Compassionate Inquiry Professional Online Training.

All Compassionate Inquiry® Facilitators:

Click here to see all online facilitators for the Compassionate Inquiry Professional Online Training.

Private Mentors:

Click here to see all private mentors for those working on developing their skills in the Compassionate Inquiry Professional Online Training or Mentorship Program.

Certified Practitioners:

Click here to see a list of certified practitioners available to work with you one-on-one using Compassionate Inquiry.

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