About

Leticia Garcia Tiwari

Leticia identifies as a neurodivergent biracial, indigenous woman of color with a disability devoted to helping families and communities break cycles and pass on legacies of love

Formal Education

Leticia is a survivor of academia who left a PhD program in 2014 to pursue a growing interest in supporting families and advocating for children. She holds a Bachelor’s in Women’s and Gender studies from Temple University and a Master’s in Psychology with an emphasis in Translational Neuroscience from the University of Oregon. She has been recognized as a Harvard Fellow, National Hispanic Scholar and Fulbright Scholar, though she turned down the latter to accept a university fellowship.

 Parenting

Leticia is trained by Hand-in-Hand Parenting, a non-profit that helps families build solid parent-child connection, emotional intelligence and heightened resiliency through gentle, playful, evidence-based parenting methods. She also became certified as a postpartum doula through Mother Tree Doula Services.

Research

Leticia is currently leading community-based statewide research with BIPOC-identified reproductive justice activists to assess parent of color NICU satisfaction in Oregon. This research is funded by the Center for Institutional Courage. As a doctoral student, she previously researched resource access in immigrant and refugee communities along the U.S./Mexico border as well as sovereignty efforts led by Black communities in North Philadelphia. This research was funded by a San Diego State Doctoral Fellowship as well as a Harvard Fellowship in the Study of Capitalism.

Mindfulness

Leticia has been meditating for 13 years. She studied Trauma-Informed Yoga with SarahJoy Marsh at the Daya Foundation, where she learned about the effects of trauma on the nervous system as they relate to the practice of yoga and mindfulness. Thereafter, she completed an advanced prenatal and postnatal training with Birthlight Yoga. She has obtained both 200 and 500-hour yoga teacher credentials.

Somatics

Leticia has taken several somatic workshops in the following: Body-Mind Centering, Somatic Experiencing, Continuum, Danceability and the Tamalpa Life-Art Process. She brings elements of each approach into her work with children and families using methods that are body-based, expressive and uniquely personal.

 

Moments of joy on The journey