
Jeanette Romkema
Senior Partner, Certified Network Director, Owner and Board Secretary
Jeanette Romkema is an Owner and Senior Partner with Global Learning Partners (GLP). An artist educator, she helps organizations gain clarity about how to become a learning-centered organization. Unique in her passion for heart learning, she delves deep into the values, culture and practices of people and organizations to strengthen their identity, mission, purpose and the change they seek.
With 35 years of experience, expertise, and relationships with practitioners and colleagues who are thought leaders in learning-centered approaches to design and learning facilitation, she now coaches and mentors trainers and change agents who are working across many government and civil society sectors and around the globe in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America.
Jeanette has a knack for connecting with large and small clients to accompany them through short and long processes of change, always with the learners and the learning in mind.
Jeanette serves GLP as its Partnerships and Certified Network Director.
She holds a Master’s degree in Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, and is adjunct faculty with Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto.
Jeanette also has extensive experience in governance, having served on numerous community and not-for-profit Boards.
Education & Training
FORMAL
PhD (abd) Education: Teaching and Learning
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- Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto | Canada
M.A. Education: Teaching and Learning
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- Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto | Canada
B.A. Education
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- Calvin University | Michigan, USA
Diploma: Fine Arts in Black & White, Colour Photography
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- Academie voor schone kunsten ǀ Ghent, Belgium
Diploma: Black & White Photography
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- Academie van St. Lucas kunsten ǀ Ghent, Belgium
Diploma: Textiles Analysis & Weaving Techniques
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- Stedelijk textielinstituut Henri Story ǀ Ghent, Belgium
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Certificate: Authentic Facilitation I & II
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- Anima Leadership ǀ Toronto, Canada
Certificate: Seminars for Trauma Awareness and Resilience I (STAR I)
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- Eastern Mennonite University | Virginia, USA
Project Spotlights
Impact and Innovations Development Centre (IIDC), Uganda
Jeanette led the development of a series of ‘how-to’ guides for IIDC to use with partners to help support, train, and resource them to be learning-centered organizations. To ensure strong and consistent modeling of the principles and practices of a learning-centered approach, Jeanette (with a skilled GLP team) trained staff in learning design and facilitation for a variety of applications, including meetings, training, conferences and convenings.
Canadian Red Cross, China
Jeanette worked with local Red Cross China teams to evaluate their HIV + AIDS work with two priority groups: heroin addicts and commercial sex workers. An emotion-based approach was used, and multiple evaluation tools were developed including the use of drawings, pictures, stories, and probing questions. Members of each priority group as well as members of multiple influencing groups were interviewed. The final report offered rich findings which led to provocative recommendations for future work.
TransACTION, Ethiopia
Jeanette collaborated with GLP colleague Valerie Uccellani to design HIV prevention education materials for mobile individuals including waitresses and daily laborers (male and female), and designed training for local NGOs around the country. TransACTION was especially interested in creating materials which would effectively promote personal reflection, honest dialogue, and new perspectives on taboo topics. For example, real stories from the priority groups were collected and used to produce interactive “story cards”. We also worked with TransACTION to design Peer Leader Guides to build their confidence in HIV and AIDS content, as well as their skills in storytelling and facilitation.
Read about more of Jeanette’s work:
- Rapid Response: Preparing Financial Navigators to Serve their Communities
- A New Take on Tax Reform
- Innovative Mobile-based Learning Program during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Emotion-based Data Collection Used for Sichuan HIV Case Study
- Transforming California WIC Training for over 10 Years
- Encouraging Collective Solution Development with Many Stakeholders
- Developing Professionally, Convening Virtually
- Building the Bridge Together: An Integrated Approach to Pediatric Health Care
- Unearthing Collective Wisdom: Strengthening Disaster Preparedness & Early Action with PLA Tools and Principles
- Deepening Learning Through a Blended Approach
- Volunteer Orientation for Disability Concerns
- Scaling for Change: The Challenge of Pivoting a Large International Project
- Collaborative Leadership for a Stronger Tomorrow
Blogs
Jeanette has written the following blogs for the GLP Blog, Speaking of Dialogue.
Listen to Jeanette on Shift the Power: A Learning-Centered Podcast
- Episode 105: Engaging the Whole Person Virtually
- Episode 201: Organizational Change is a Slow Cook — featuring Elanco
- Episode 205: A Re-Design Worth the Time – featuring Sinapis
Client Testimonial
Jeanette created a warm and friendly space but with enough structure and substance to bring about a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Jeanette really helped us to take ambiguous ideas and move us into an intentional plan, all the while providing us with spaces for our own learning and growth. We left each session with practical takeaways as well as increased knowledge and development in facilitation. We received excellent feedback from participants for the session that Jeanette provided coaching on the design.
Emilie Hayes – Capacity Development Advisor, Sustainable Affordable Housing – Green Municipal Fund || Conseillère en développement des capacités, Logement abordable durable – Fonds municipal vert || Federation of Canadian Municipalities