Kenny Neal Shults, Principal

Kenny Neal Shults has over 25 years of experience working and consulting with service organizations across the country to develop sound, innovative, measurable, engaging, and respectful strategies for engaging with key, vulnerable populations.

Kenny specializes in organizational change that leads to better outcomes. He has extensive familiarity with public health and behavior-change program and curriculum development surrounding a variety of at-risk populations, including adolescents, men who have sex with men (MSM), intravenous drug users (IDU), homeless and runaway teens, and LGBTQ populations. Kenny has been a pioneer in the development of Internet and social media-based approaches and travels the U.S. lecturing and training on social marketing for public health, using new and social media to reach youth and MSM, and the impacts of new media on public and mental health and at-risk-population behavior.

In 1999, he developed some of the first program objectives and evaluation strategies for agencies using the Internet to reach clients in online venues, and later developed the first policies, procedures and protocols for agency use in minimizing liability and ensuring ethical service delivery.

Francisco Solorzano, Creative Director

Originally from Far Rockaway, NY, Francisco is an award winning Latino filmmaker and actor committed to inclusion and diversity in the arts. As its Producing Artistic Director, he has led the multicultural, critically acclaimed Barefoot Theatre Company he founded in 1999 along with its sister co., Barefoot Studio Pictures. He most notably wrote, directed and starred in the first ever stage adaptation of DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Off-Broadway, NYC), and is currently developing a television series along with several socially relevant film projects. His theatrical work spans across the US and internationally and has collaborated with organizations such as Youth Communication, Stella Adler Conservatory in NYC, 303 Theatre in Chongqing, China, and The Art of Acting in Los Angeles creating free theater and serving marginalized teens through the art of storytelling. Francisco is a proud Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio, Actor's Equity Association, and SAG-AFTRA and Adjunct Professor in Theater at CUNY’s Brooklyn College. Francisco brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the process of making art and films with vulnerable youth populations. Moreover, he brings his identification with the youth our clients serve, making his engagements not simply instructional, but an authentic collaboration.

Emily Picon, LCSW-C

is an experienced bilingual psychotherapist, who has worked with children, adolescents, and adults. She is an experienced clinical therapist specializing in working with children and families with a history of maltreatment, adults with chronic and severe mental illnesses, and providing evidence-based, trauma-focused interventions to individuals in need. Throughout her education and career Emily has focused on the social influences on community, organizational and group dynamics, and practical approaches to facilitating change.