About Collective Progress

Collective Progress is a diverse, women-owned and operated business. We work in the private and public sectors and specialize in behavioral health, human services, education, government, and criminal and juvenile justice. We are a for-profit firm with public-serving sensibilities.

We support clients in innovating and sustaining equity-centered, evidence-informed policies, practices, and decision-making by facilitating systems planning, site-level implementation, organizational learning, and staff development.

Effective implementation is the key to actualizing (and sustaining) the intended outcomes of any solution. Without implementation capacity AND diverse representation that is inclusive and centered in equity, any evidence-based solution, even those ideally suited for a system or program, will fade and be replaced by the status quo.

That is why we prioritize relationships, evidence, ground-up perspectives and programs. We strive to balance fidelity with the inevitability of adaptation because we understand innovations aren’t often developed with diverse groups or contexts.

Our goals:

1. Make implementation science relevant and accessible.

2. Build capacity for equity, diversity, and inclusion

3. Build capacity for equity, diversity, and inclusion-centered implementation

Meet the Team

Antonia Airozo launched Collective Progress in 2021 to bridge the gap in system and

organizational capacity to sustain evidence-based policy and programs. Her career began

in peer supported-education working side-by-side with people with severe and persistent

mental illness. Her person-centered, inclusive style has remained at her core as she has

advanced in training and coaching, program design and implementation, leadership, and

systems change roles. She is a gifted facilitator and specializes in implementation science,

behavioral health, leadership development, adult learning, training and curriculum design.

She has worked with a variety of populations facing complicated challenges and brings this

perspective when partnering with community advocates, direct service, management, executive and system leaders.

As a thought-leader and program developer for the first young adult community-based case management program in Illinois, Partners for Children’s Mental Health at Children’s Hospital Colorado, and now Collective Progress, she brings a depth of experience leading people through change. She is deeply rooted in the values of promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion at all levels of a system and is devoted to building the trusting relationships that this work requires. The results are successfully implemented programs and training that connect and engage all stakeholders along the way.

Dr. Madhavi Tandon has over three decades of international experience working as a teacher and a teacher educator. Most recently, she has been working as an administrator, academic, and teacher educator with a large public university in Colorado. Her work focuses on multilingual students who are often refugees or new immigrants in our K-12 school system. Madhavi works with school teachers and administrators in schools as a partner in advancing equity and inclusion for students. Madhavi’s experience as an education researcher in international spaces has trained her to evaluate programs with a focus on marginalization and equity. Using ethnographic and qualitative methodologies, Madhavi has spent years

looking for absences and silences, whether these are in policies, administrative decisions, planning or budget allocations. Her work in evaluation of programs or policies within an organization grounded in social justice and equity is focused on serving people who have less power and privilege, specifically on communities and families of color. Her evaluative approach is inherently inclusive of community and she believes that these are the voices that should inform a service organization’s methods of supporting community members.

Madhavi has worked with Collective Progress for a year and has been a critical leader in both the early childhood and EDI Summit county projects. Madhavi always strives to ensure that her partnership with clients will contribute to ongoing equity work at their organizations, a process that is continuous, ongoing, and deep.

Shelley Siman has worked in state and local government for the past sixteen years,

implementing jail and recidivism reduction programs in the adult and juvenile justice

systems. Shelley has served in the following capacities: research and evaluation, direct client

services, project management, leadership consulting, training, and coaching. She has helped

launch several initiatives including rapid rehousing for people exiting prison, case

management strategies in prison facilities, problem-solving courts, jail-based mental health

programs, and jail to community reentry models. An advocate for equitable justice system

initiatives, Shelley has also facilitated workgroups to address racial/ethnic and gender

disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems and compiled and analyzed data to

propose solutions to mitigate disparities at system decision points. She served as a member

of a leadership team with the Colorado Department of Public Safety to implement strategies

for organizational equity, diversity and inclusion, and has led implicit bias and equity, diversity and inclusion training for both government and nonprofit entities.

Shelley has a BA in Art and Psychology and completed her MA in International Human Rights and a Certificate in Global Health Affairs from the University of Denver. Her research focused on overrepresentation of people of color in the justice system, which served as a framework for investigating disparities in Denver’s justice system. She is a certified trainer in the National Institute of Corrections’ Thinking For a Change, SAMHSA’s How Being Trauma Informed Improves Justice System Responses, and Motivational Interviewing.

Our Values

Balanced

Reflective

Approachable

Our North Star

Capacity for Implementation

Diverse, Inclusive Groups Driving Change

Equitable Systems
Sustainable Change
Tangible Outcomes