PENNY G. DAVIS

Biographical Highlights

Professionally, Penny has been a parent educator in a variety of settings for over 25 years. She began her professional career as a social worker in the Child Protective Services field, in Canada. After moving to the inland area of southern California with her husband, she coordinated a school based drug and alcohol prevention program working collaboratively with the public elementary school system. She implemented activities with students in the classroom, and facilitated individual and small group counseling with high risk students, as well as offering in service training for teachers and administrators, and workshops for parents. It was here that she took her first parenting class and received training to teach parenting, using the philosophy and concepts of Alfred Adler and Rudolph Dreikurs. Her own first child was less than a year old at this time, and this training had major impact on how she has raised her children.

Following the above position, Penny was instrumental in writing a grant that was subsequently funded as one of the first programs in San Bernardino County to provide parenting education to pregnant minors. She has also worked in the health education and gerontology fields.

Penny has been an adjunct faculty member in the Child Development Department at San Bernardino Valley College since 1987, where she teaches ‘Parent-Child Interaction’. She also holds a full time position at nearby Riverside Community College Coordinating two programs - the Foster & Kinship Care Education program, which provides training to foster parents and kinship providers (grandparents, etc), and an Independent Living Program, offering classes in independent living skills for foster youth ages 16-21. During her employment at RCC, Penny has also taught many parent/teacher/child care provider education workshops for students and community agencies on topics related to living and working with children.

Penny is in demand privately, throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties as a family relations consultant, and speaker on many topics related to parenting. Participants in her workshops and classes describe her as ‘passionate, caring, dynamic, understanding, knowledgeable, and definitely fun”.

Personally, Penny has two daughters who are now 27 and 20. She was a single mom during most of their growing-up years (they were 11 and 4 when she and her first husband divorced) until she remarried, when her youngest was 16. She and her new husband Barry, reside in Mentone, California.

Academically, Penny earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada. Now that there are no children at home, Penny is, at long last (her words) pursuing a Masters degree in Human Development at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California and expects to graduate by December 2005.