Founder and Executive Director
Hi everyone! My name is Debralyn Woodberry-Shaw (she/her) and I am the founder of the ELIE Circle Network. I am also the executive director of both ELIE Circle LLC and ELIE Circle Institute Inc.
The idea for the ELIE Circle Network came about in 2010 when I was a summer camp counselor working with 6-19-year-old girls with disabilities in rural New York. In 2014, I worked on ELIE Circle Manual: A Guide to Understanding and Engaging Black Adolescent Girls in her MSW program at the University of Pittsburgh. I soft launched ELIE Circle LLC in 2015 facilitating training sessions based on what I learned during my Master of Social Work (MSW) program specifically around trauma and Black young people. ELIE Circle LLC officially became a PA LLC in 2017. After informally conducting and facilitating research, I started an Education PhD program at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 to learn more about research to improve my practice. Besides diving deeper into research, my primary goal of going into the PhD program was to expand the ELIE Circle Network. In 2023, ELIE Circle LLC moved to MD. I finished my PhD program in 2024. My dissertation, Supporting 5th-12th Grade Black Girls in Community-Based Educational Spaces, focused on the social dimension of holistic health, specifically related to social identities at the intrapersonal level. ELIE Circle Institute Inc. obtained 501(c)(3) status in Maryland in 2025.
The ELIE Circle Network strives to foster the holistic health of (1) Black girls & Black women and (2) young people & staff in community-based educational spaces (CBES; e.g., afterschool programs, summer camps, libraries, museums, scouts). The ELIE Circle Network includes two separate entities: ELIE Circle LLC and ELIE Circle Institute Inc.
ELIE Circle LLC is a LLC with a social mission and centers practice. It includes creating and facilitating activities for young people (e.g., activity books and psychoeducation groups) and professional development opportunities for adults (e.g., training sessions and workshops) for profit.
ELIE Circle Institute Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and centers the research. It includes writing literature reviews, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data from focus groups, interviews, surveys, photovoice, etc., and communicating findings through reports, articles, op-eds, blog posts, presentations, etc. with the purpose of contributing knowledge to the social work and education fields.
The Name
Yes, ELIE is an acronym!
Shortly after the idea of the ELIE Circle network was planted in my mind, my maternal grandmother passed away. This was about 5 years after my mother passed away. At the time all I knew was I wanted to support Black girls and women but I wasn't sure what to do yet. However, I did know I wanted to honor the memory of these two amazing Black women. I decided to name this new endeavor after them. After I looked up the meaning of ELIE and discovered it means, “the Lord is my God”, I knew that was the official name. I added Circle a little later to represent the importance of community, unity, and wholeness.