Our Team – Astounding Families Alliance

LuzDalia Sanchez MD, Mha, MCP, PHD

Dr. Sánchez is the founder of Astounding Families Alliance. Her love and passion for helping families and young children has guided her personally and professionally. Dr. Sanchez has accrued over 30 years of experience educating families and communities from the health, public health, and educational fields. Dr. Sánchez is a parent consultant and expert in phenomenology. She started working with families as a medical doctor over 30 years ago and is a certified Parent Coach. Currently, She is a board member of the FLCA (Family Life Coaching Association).

Angela Makepeace M. Ed

Angela has been a licensed practicing Parent Educator for over 25 years. In addition, to facilitating Parent Education for School districts, she provides individual consultation with families, and is a consultant of Astounding Families Alliance. She enjoys the diverse families parent education brings into her life. She has experience with a variety of families including immigrant families, young parents, families of color, single parents and LGBT families.

Katia Lopez Petrovich M.s. , NCC, LMFT

Katia López Petrovich is the owner and founder of The Multicultural Psychotherapy and Consulting Services, Ltd., which is envisioned to improve the well-being of children, families, and communities, through quality services provided to the organizations serving the community.

As a consultant, Katia has provided trainings to mental health and education providers at different organizations in the metro area. Currently, she provides Parenting Trainings and Clinical Consultation to bilingual health staff and community educators at Hennepin County Medical Center. Also, she is a Clinical Research Consultant for the University of Minnesota at the Extension Center for Family Development.

Katia has been a Clinical Research Consultant and Family Specialist for the University of Minnesota at the School of Family Medicine in a project that lasted five years. In this project, Katia was one of the main authors of the evidence based parenting curriculum develop for Latino parents of adolescents. Katia also developed a training manual for facilitators of the parenting curriculum.

In her clinical private practice, Katia is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist/Psychotherapist focused on providing a range of services for the community including Individual and Family Therapy for Children, Adolescents and Young Adults. Katia has been providing educational, social and mental health services to children and families in Minnesota since 2000. After obtaining her Master Degree from Minnesota State University, her areas of clinical specialty have become behavioral disorders, adjustment disorders, mood disorders, trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, abuse and neglect issues, attachment trauma, acculturation issues, post-partum depression, infertility grief & loss, multicultural family adjustments and parenting.

As a clinician Katia has the following Specialties/Certifications: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), TF-CBT (Trauma Focus Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), Narrative Trauma Exposure Therapy, and the (Oregon) Parenting Management Training Program (PMTO).

Kristin Ferguson, B.A.S Early Childhood Development, Minor in Family Studies

Kristin is an Early Childhood Family Education and Special Education teacher who has over 30 years of experience. Kristin loves little ones and enjoys preparing all kind of materials to fulfill her curious students. She is licensed in MN in Pre-K, ECSE and Parent Education. Kris is the mother of one and aunt to 5 and has been married 27 years.