Joanna Grace Farmer
Building Community Capacity
Joanna Grace Farmer has worked for over 30 years on community development initiatives and programs focused on housing and education; culturally competent mental health systems, integrated social service delivery systems; transformative pedagogy and curriculum development; capacity and team building; program and organization evaluation; and political engagement strategies. She is the founder and director of Building Community Capacity, a social enterprise, which operates at the intersection between education, mental health, and community development to increase access to information and resources that strengthen, empower, and engage children, families, and communities, especially Indigenous populations.
Joanna earned her bachelor’s degree in Public Policy Studies and master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Chicago, and another master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Her community activities include advocating for children’s rights, developing innovative mental health delivery systems, financial literacy, citizen engagement, and voter participation. She is the proud and happy mother of Jonathan and Faith and enjoys sharing genealogy research and traveling with them.