Executive Director - Carol Reisinger
Carol Reisinger was the first Executive Director for Common Roads from circa 2001 – 2006 and came to the position by happenstance. Carol worked in education at different levels through her career and came to Common Roads with a MA in Counseling Psychology.
She never took a class on how to council LGBTQ+ youth but saw this as an opportunity to learn and help this group of young adults. Under her leadership, programming stayed the same, however she did adjust the age range of the youth attending from 14 – 22 to 14 – 19.
Besides the adjustment to the age range of youth, Carol’s main goals coming into this position were to continue to create a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth and find ways to educate the educators so that the youth could feel safe in schools.
She never took a class on how to council LGBTQ+ youth but saw this as an opportunity to learn and help this group of young adults. Under her leadership, programming stayed the same, however she did adjust the age range of the youth attending from 14 – 22 to 14 – 19.
Besides the adjustment to the age range of youth, Carol’s main goals coming into this position were to continue to create a safe space for LGBTQ+ youth and find ways to educate the educators so that the youth could feel safe in schools.
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Carol talks about reducing the age range in Common Roads
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Carol talks about the beginnings of her Educational Workshops
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"Talk targets needs of gay youth," The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA), April 2005. Courtesy of The Patriot-News.
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Educational WorkshopsThrough grant funding, Carol’s goal of educating the educators was able to be made into a reality. Through the help of Marlene Kanuck, a good friend of Carol’s who worked in the PA Department of Education, Bianca Cody Murphy, a local psychology professor who had experience writing courses focusing on LGBTQ+ youth issues, and Jennifer Ellis, an attorney, the group created and planned their first workshop.
For the first workshop, the group planned for around 20 attendees, but to their surprise and excitement, 60 counselors attended. So they decided to run the workshop a second time, totaling 120 attendees. The group then went on to work with the Department of Education to count the workshop as continuing education units (CEUs) for attending counselors. Workshops were held at schools all over Central PA and became popular with administrators, who later asked for them to do workshops focused on administrators as well. Carol talks about the success of the workshops
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