Wanjiru Golly, PhD

Dr. Golly was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to San Diego in 1993. She received her BA in Psychology and Sociology from University Guelph, Canada, and her MA and PhD in Psychology from United States International University, San Diego Campus, in 1998; and has completed her 3000 clinical hours, towards licensure. She worked as a Human Resources Professional at Pepsi Bottling Group for 3 years. In 2002, she decided to pursue her passion in working with children and families and made a career change to the nonprofit sector where she worked with a refugee resettlement agency, the Alliance for African Assistance as the Program Director for the Family Strengthening and Community Building Department. Dr. Golly then worked with Community Housing Works as a Community Building Coordinator and provided training and support to refugee and immigrant families. She also consulted on various projects to give a voice to the communities. She worked as a Protective Service Worker for the County of San Diego for 8 years. Dr. Golly began training as an Independent Contractor for The Academy for Professional Excellence, in 2005.  She was also a Best Practice Coach for supervisors and social workers. She joined the Academy full-time in February 2016 as the Program Manager for the Cultural Responsiveness Academy. In her current role, Dr. Golly is responsible for developing and managing the Cultural Responsiveness Academy which includes a series of learning experiences for public child welfare staff and behavioral health staff, to address disproportionality and disparate outcomes of services for underserved communities.