Karena H. Montag, MFT | Director

Karena is a lover and a fighter. She strives to co-create and steward communities of color where truth-telling, dignity, and full self-expression are tended and celebrated, and believes that well-being is integral to achieving community safety and collective liberation. Karena has worked at the intersection of mental health, justice, and healing for over twenty years with an emphasis on complex trauma and restorative practice in carceral settings and schools, families and communities, and has consulted at the community, state, national, and international level.

Karena’s roots in restorative justice took hold through prison-based RJ work; she is a co-founding member of the Transformative Prison Workgroup (TPW), a statewide coalition that breaks isolation & builds political power as an integral step towards abolition.

Karena loves all things food, learning from horses, and envisions her future on a sun-drenched compound, full of her beloveds. Karena maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Berkeley, CA. 

Adrienne Skye Roberts

Adrienne Skye Roberts is a facilitator, therapist and restorative justice practitioner with experience in community-led efforts for justice and healing. As the granddaughter of Jewish, Ukrainian immigrants who were imprisoned for their political organizing, Adrienne sees her work as a continuation of this legacy of liberation and reckoning with the intergenerational trauma of white supremacy, political repression, and silence. Adrienne has worked closely with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners for over a decade to support incarcerated women and transgender people in their healing, legal campaigns and ultimately, their freedom. She is strengthened by the lessons she receives from this work about survival, community, and resilience. Adrienne has experience working with young people as a counselor and restorative justice facilitator and regularly works with other white people to deepen commitments to end white supremacy. Adrienne is a psychotherapist working at the intersections of social justice and trauma healing and knows that anti-racism work is mental health work. Adrienne is a Jewish, queer femme who currently lives in unceded Ohlone land known as Oakland.

STRONGHOLD is space that centers our inherent dignity and worth.

Ashley Kelly

Ashley has been living and working in the Bay Area for the last 10 years. She spends her time gardening and foraging, peer counseling, and studying healing justice.  Ashley is a leadership trainer and social worker committed to developing the leadership skills of young adult community leaders. Ashley joined the STRONGHOLD family 1 year ago at an RRJS training.

The slow and deep work of STRONGHOLD has helped her deepen her practice and commitment to restorative justice. The more she has been able to practice her values in her personal life, the more prepared she feels to support her community in becoming safer and more accountable. 

Briana Bellamy

For the last many years, Briana has been led by a question turned mantra: "how do we not drop each other?"  This internal call led her on a winding path to STRONGHOLD, where she has found a home as a community of practice, deepening into this question together. Briana brings over 10 years of coaching and facilitation experience rooted in intercultural leadership and adult development, somatic psychology, nature-connected inquiry, popular education, mindfulness, restorative justice, and equity and inclusion with a global lens.

STRONGHOLD is calling us home to each other.

Cristina Haley

Cristina Haley is a Bay born child of the Salvadoran Diaspora living on unceded Ohlone land in Richmond, California. 

Supporting individuals, organizations and institutions in processes of decolonial reimagination feeds Cristina’s desire for continued work in restorative practices and collective healing. She entered into work with STRONGHOLD with a deep desire to soften and reclaim the parts of herself that have been hardened by intersecting systems of oppression. She found in STRONGHOLD a way of being in relationship that honors our connection to each other, mama tierra and our ancestors. This work provides her space to return to her body, to witness the power of collective practice, and co-create new futures. 

Cristina fills her life with dogs, plants, music and loved ones, and continues to reclaim joy and pleasure as a birth right and tenet towards liberation. She is thrilled to be continuing her growth with and through STRONGHOLD.

STRONGHOLD IS mi remedia.

Danya Axelrad-Hausman

Danya comes to STRONGHOLD longing to transform the parts of her cultural inheritance that perpetuate harm into practices that serve collective liberation. Bringing experience working with youth in the outdoors, living and working in intentional Jewish community, and organizing, she’s committed to working with and mobilizing white folks in racial justice work from a place of compassionate accountability. Outside of STRONGHOLD, she works at a high school wellness center and organizes and facilitates with SURJ Bay Area.

Danya is inspired and shaped by collective singing, queer Jewish ritual, and the resilience practices of her ancestors. She continues to find joy, creativity, and nourishment through the STRONGHOLD community. 

STRONGHOLD is aliveness.

Phoeun You

Phoeun You is a Cambodian genocide survivor and refugee who grew up in Long Beach, CA. Phoeun was sentenced to life at 20 years old. 

During his 26-year incarceration, Phoeun supported hundreds of incarcerated people on their journeys of rehabilitation and transformation, facilitated dialogues between survivors and responsible parties, led survivor-centered healing circles, and trained countless volunteers to deliver in-prison programs. Phoeun is a dedicated mentor to many other Southeast Asian refugees who were incarcerated at a young age and co-founded ROOTS (Restoring Our Original True Selves) to help connect prisoners to their history and culture through education and restorative justice. Phoeun has partnered with Human Rights Watch, Healing Dialogue and Action, and Re:store Justice. 

Phoeun has been widely featured in national and international media, highlighting his deportation and ‘double punishment’. He has raised awareness about the systemic changes needed to bring long-term healing and safety to poor communities like the one in which he grew up. Phoeun is eager to continue to build a life of meaning grounded in service and transforming trauma, family bonds and community connection. Phoeun’s pursuit for inner peace takes him on long motorcycle rides and he looks forward to more travel.

Rachel Schaffran

Rachel came to healing justice work to serve our collective need to re-member and co-vision community rooted processes of interpersonal repair and accountability. Rachel has trained in restorative and transformative justice practices with Insight Prison Project, RJOY, STRONGHOLD and the school of life. Believing that systems transformation is always also an inside job, Rachel is committed to the ongoing work of reversing the tide of white supremacy culture within and without.  

Rachel is a community cultural worker, artist-educator and multidisciplinary creative. Over the past 15 years she has worked directly with youth as well as trained educators to become more comfortable with experimentation, play, getting messy, and finding their voice. She brings her joy, love of collaboration, and trust in process to her work with STRONGHOLD.

STRONGHOLD is wholeness reflected through the mirror of
the circle.

Sam Ho

Sam is a Taiwanese, Buddhist, queer, trans and gender-abundant artist from Peru. They came to their first STRONGHOLD circle seeking quick answers to dismantling supremacy culture and left with a gut feeling that, before all else, they needed to return home to themselves. Sam believes in the healing power of truth-telling and breaking inherited silences. They come to this work to practice staying in accountable relationship on their personal + collective journey towards liberation for all beings. On the other side of this path, Sam organizes and builds power with their queer, trans and gender non-conforming comrades at API - Equality, Northern California. They are nourished by 禪 (Ch’an) Buddhist rituals and their painting practice.

For Sam, STRONGHOLD is a field through which to cultivate compassion with rigor, embodied courage and deep-listening. They continue to deepen their relationships to this community through sharing ancestral food, memes, playlists, check-ins and other community care practices.

STRONGHOLD is a place we go to imagine, co-create and heal with community.

Diane Woods

As a child, Diane developed leadership and public service skills in the Black Baptist Church. While in college, she co-led the Black Student Organization which garnered a tenured Black professor and a Black Studies Program. Diane moved to Newark, New Jersey after graduation to support the successful election of that city’s first Black Mayor; she worked there in community building for over a decade. After moving to California, Diane participated in Race Conversations, DEI training programs in many corporations and non-profits. Diane and two associates designed and led Listening to Race Workshops in the Bay Area. Today, she is a 20-year spiritual student in the Ridhwan School and continues her championing of Cultural Consciousness Training. Diane is a member of a number of Women’s Circles including Women Eradicating Racism. As a facilitator, organization development consultant, coach, and mentor, she counsels others along their journey. She lives in Oakland with her partner of over 30 years.

STRONGHOLD is a pathway to healing ourselves, communities and culture.

James “JC” Cavitt, MSW 

JC has dedicated his career to addressing educational disparities, inequalities, and trauma healing among people directly impacted by mass incarceration. Having spent over two decades of his life incarcerated, JC brings his firsthand experience with the criminal justice system, the carceral education system,  and expertise with working with trauma survivors to STRONGHOLD. A tireless advocate for communities impacted by the criminal justice system, JC is changing the narrative about incarcerated individuals and returning citizens. Beyond his activism, is the heart of a volunteer, Restoritive Justice Practitioner, facilitator, counselor,  mediator, husband and father. 

When people experience trauma or severe life stressors, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel.  JC’s greatest passion is to help people, make a difference in the world and help change lives for the better.

STRONGHOLD is challenging the narrative around racial accountability.

Beth Burzynski

Beth Burzynski (she/they) is a farmer and aspiring plant breeder. They are deeply grateful to learn from and care for plants, seeds, and the land. Dedicated to growing and adapting seeds that will thrive in our changing climate, Beth believes seeds are timekeepers, storytellers, and change makers, as they tell the stories and lessons of seasons past in the fields of the future.

Beth is a white, queer, cis human that believes that their justice work begins with self examination and transformation. Born, raised, and educated in predominantly white spaces, she will forever be on the journey to unlearn, practice, and reimagaine existing beyond the confines of white supremacy. Beth is called to do anti racist work with other white folks to help her love and accept herself as a white person and to also to build community around healing and care.

Claire Whitmer

Claire was trained as a restorative justice facilitator by Insight Prison Project and the men in blue at San Quentin prison. Claire holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS) and is a former Disability Justice fellow with CIIS. Claire’s commitment to healing is also lived through her anti-diet culture work with Be Nourished, as well as her training with the Internal Family Systems (IFS) Institute. Claire is gratefully and critically shaped by the teachings of generative somatics, Queer Nature, Just Practice, rev. angel Kyodo williams, adrienne maree brown, Resmaa Menakem, Virgie Tovar, Brontë Velez and many more.

Claire is a co-founder of STRONGHOLD.

Molly Reno

Molly, galvanized by the 1971 Attica Prison Rebellion, worked on prison issues as a community organizer, an activist and a civil rights lawyer. She represented over 800 women and girl prisoners in successful class action lawsuits that produced system wide reform of the Michigan prison system’s policies and procedures relating to staff sexual misconduct of female prisoners. During this 13 year litigation, Molly studied Somatics and Trauma with generative somatics and with Strozzi Institute in an effort to minimize retraumatization of her clients and herself.

Molly also facilitates groups for the SF LGBTQ+ community and is a founding member of the Openhouse Leadership Council on Queerness, Race and Privilege which addresses white supremacy culture and racism within the SF Bay Area LGBTQ+ Community. STRONGHOLD’s transformative work at the intersection of Restorative Justice and Racial Justice beckons Molly by offering an opportunity for (un)learning white supremacy that includes healing in community and an embodied way of belonging.