The Can We Talk? New Mexico website is provided as a community service and maintained by a team of volunteers.

CAN WE TALK? NEW MEXICO TEAM

Dominic Cappello, MA (Technical Advisor)
Dominic Cappello works for the New Mexico Department of Health as the Youth Injury Prevention Coordinator and is a specialist in learning management systems. He is the creator and co-author (with Susan Duron, PhD) of the National Education Association’s "Can We Talk?" program, and the author and designer of "Plain Talk for Parents" workshop series, which was part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Plain Talk Initiative. He is also the author and illustrator of Ten Talks Parents Must Have About Violence, and co-author (with Pepper Schwartz, PhD) of Ten Talks Parents Must Have with their Children About Sex and Character, and (with Xenia Becher, MSW) Ten Talks Parents Must Have with their Children About Drugs and Choices. Dominic's award-winning creative direction and whimsical cartoon characters bring a distinctive style to his books, communication activities, web-based learning environments, and animated social satires. He has discussed health and safety issues on Oprah, The Today Show, and ABC News. You may contact Dominic at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Christopher M. Harrington, JD (Technical Advisor)
Mr. Harrington is a member of the Comanche Tribe of Oklahoma, received his Juris Doctor from the University of Utah with an emphasis on federal Indian Law and has been a practicing attorney in New Mexico since 1995.  Mr. Harrington is also licensed to practice law on the Navajo Nation. Mr. Harrington served on the New Mexico State Bar Ethic Advisory Committee from 2003 to 2006 and is a current board member of the New Mexico Public Interest Research Fund. Mr. Harrington currently teaches business law and tribal law at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI), a national Native American college. In his legal career, Mr. Harrington has worked on the Navajo Nation for DNA People's Legal Services, as an Assistant District Attorney for the state of New Mexico, as Deputy General Counsel for the New Mexico Department of Corrections, and has been employed with numerous tribes around New Mexico.

Katy Yanda, MPH (Technical Advisor)
Katy Yanda received her masters in public health from Columbia University, focusing on adolescent and family health.  She has worked extensively in the domestic and international field of maternal and child health, as Director of the Teen Health Initiative, New York Civil Liberties Union; Fellow with the Administration for Children and Families; and as a program manager with the Women’s Global Health Imperative at the University of California, San Francisco.  She has developed projects, training, written articles,  and conducted research in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, New York City, and San Francisco around women and youth health. Katy speaks Spanish, Portuguese and French, and has recently returned to her home state of New Mexico where she works as a consultant on public health.