The Consultants

Jaren Doby is a psychotherapist currently credentialed as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with more than 14 years of experience in the mental health field. Jaren currently practices as an Outpatient Mental Health Therapist in the state of North Carolina.

He is credentialed to provide clinical supervision to both LCSW-Associate’s and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate’s that are seeking full licensure in the state of North Carolina. In addition, Jaren acts as a mental health consultant for various organizations both locally and abroad.

A passionate public speaker who also serves as a mental health correspondent for various news/media outlets in North Carolina. Jaren has appeared on news outlets/publications that include but are not limited to:ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, The CW, Spectrum News, Charlotte Magazine, The Charlotte Observer, The Charlotte Post, Ashe Post & Times, The Mint Hill Times, Tri-W News, Winston-Salem Journal, and the Greensboro News and Record.

Jaren has also appeared as a guest expert at the regional and national conventions for the National Association of Black Journalists. Jaren is the founder of the Brandon Dwight Blue Memorial Scholarship, where he provides aid to high school seniors at his alma mater James B. Dudley High School (Greensboro, NC) that are pursuing a college education. Jaren is also the co-founder of Transcend Resource Solutions, LLC, an organization driven to spread awareness surrounding mental health and educational disparities within the community.

If you wish to learn more about Jaren Doby and his work Please visit www.jarendoby.com

Ms. Hilda Willis has been a performing artist since the age of 11 when she landed her first role with the Children’s Theatre Company, a pre-professional company in Roanoke, Virginia. Ms. Willis studied drama and sang in choirs all throughout junior high and high school. In her early years as an artist, some of her most noted performances include the lead role in Trial By Jury (an operetta), A Day To Remember, and as a featured soloist in the New Virginian’s. Voted “Most talented” of her high school class, Ms. Willis participated in many other types of programs and projects that helped to increase not only her artistic skills and abilities, but also her leadership skills. They include winning the Roanoke Miss Black Teenage Pageant and first runner-up for the state of Virginia, being voted President of Y-Teens, and head cheerleader during her senior year, to name a few.

Ms. Willis was granted a scholarship to study with the award winning Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Program at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. While at NCA&T she received several awards and became known for her exceptional work on-stage at the historic Paul Robeson Theatre. Those performances include: Lorraine Hansberry in Young Gifted and Black and Nell Carter in Ain’t Misbehavin, where she was nominated to compete in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Irene Ryan Acting Competition and received high honors on the regional level as a top 10 finalist. Christmas Is Coming Up-town, Tell Pharaoh, and You Don’t Know Me But I’m Famous are also among some of her favorite performances as a student at NCA&T.

Ms. Willis has performed and directed on some of the most well-known stages in New York and other Regional Theatres including: The Apollo, The Cotton Club, The Baby Grand, Sweet Waters, National Black Theatre, The Mint, The Trilogy, Theatre Row, Billie Holiday Theatre, Lime Kiln, Mill Mountain Theatre, 7 Stages, Jomandi Theatre, 14th Street Playhouse and The Great Bay Plaza (Antilles), Highways Performing Arts Center, 4th Street Promenade Playhouse, The Beacon Theatre, and Madison Square Garden. Some of her favorite professional roles include: Lady Capulet (Romeo and Juliet), Dr. Charlotte (Falsettos), Amy (Stone Wall Country), Ancestor (The Legacy), Mother (Breath Boom), Clorine (Glory Bound), and Woman #1 in Mad At Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth.

Having co-written and directed two musicals, Ms. Willis’ work has been produced on several Off-Broadway theatres. Other credits include the 2015 Atlanta Premier of Baptism by Fire, a new gospel musical, and Spunk for Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company. A few of her favorite projects in the past few years are the Atlanta Premier of Mad At Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth, an adaptation by Donna B. Bradby of Pearl Cleage’s book of the same title, at 7 Stages Theatre; director and lighting designer for the India.Arie and Idan Raichel Open Door Concert, The Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, Israel; writer/director of a short play about Afeni Shakur titled, Afeni Shakur: In Her Defense; writer/director of Breathe: The Nicole Kelly Story; and, co-writer of Conversations with our Mothers, with Sandra Hughes, a new play with music, which features both women; The Way Out (Promenade Playhouse, Santa Monica, CA), and as producing director for a celebrity reading of the play, The People Of Clarendon County, for the Ossie Davis Endowment for Education, which was presented in New York, Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia. She has also produced and directed for several televised specials.

In 2007, Kenny Leon asked Ms. Willis to join the True Colors Theatre Company staff as the Education Consultant. She served in that role for eight years and was responsible for developing the pre-professional training mission of the company, which included her successful expansion of the August Wilson Monologue Competition, both regionally and nationally. Under Ms. Willis’s leadership The August Wilson National Monologue Competition is now in New York; Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Portland and Seattle, Washington; North Carolina and Texas.

Willis initially moved from New York to Atlanta at the request of Jane Fonda, who garnered her help to evaluate the staff and programming of the Performing Arts Program for Youth (PAPY). She became the lead consultant for the PAPY program and worked with Harvard University’s Project Zero in a two-year program evaluation. Ms. Willis then went on to design an artist/teacher-training model and was later hired as Executive/Artistic Director, where she wrote the curriculum guide for the middle and high school level. Under the leadership of Ms. Willis, PAPY became a performing arts school that offered full artistic training and development tools for youth and youth-serving institutions and acquired it’s 501(c)(3) and 107(c)(2) status. Willis lives her art and has dedicated her life to reaching and teaching all communities through the arts. Her arts and education methodology has been recognized by educators and a variety of youth-serving organizations and has afforded her the opportunity to take part in conversations that address the needs of instituting more Arts-Based Learning.

If you wish to learn more about Hilda Willis please visit her website www.hildawillis.com