Associates
Back to staff listingDeb Marois, M.S.
Deb provides assistance to the Center for projects such as the California Strategic Plan for Suicide Prevention, American River Parkway Plan Update and the Lower American River Task Force. She offers more than 15 years experience as a project manager, educator, group facilitator, and community researcher. Her areas of expertise include collaboration, asset-based community development, participatory strategic planning, qualitative research and leadership development. As an independent consultant, she supports nonprofit organizations and government agencies in areas related to creating healthy communities, civic engagement, planning and organizational development.
As a graduate student of community development at UC Davis, Deb master’s thesis Beyond Polarities: Collaboration and Conflict in Community Health Partnerships explored how collaborative groups handle conflict when the membership is comprised of both grassroots and agency representatives. While at UCD, she designed and taught a graduate seminar in asset based community development, served as a teaching assistant, and interned with the Collaborative Governance Initiative, a project of the League of CA Cities' Institute for Local Government.
Deb worked with Public Health Institute's Center for Collaborative Planning for nearly seven years, providing training and consultation to health departments, school districts, First 5 commissions, nonprofits, and grassroots community groups. She played a key role in creating a statewide workshop series and regional train-the-trainer program. After training with the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute founders, she led dozens of these workshops throughout California. Deb also coordinated several countywide planning efforts that included visioning processes and community health assessments.
Additionally, Deb provided technical assistance for two long-term projects: the Community Partnerships for Healthy Children initiative, a 10-year effort to improve young children’s health and Women’s Health Leadership, a statewide capacity-building program for emerging leaders. She also authored Making the Path: A Guidebook to Collaboration for School Readiness, published in partnership with UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities for First 5 California.