Our Team

Jordan Payne, BA, TRCC is the executive director of Sprouting Minds and Trauma Care Certified. Jordan is an experienced program developer with over ten years of non-profit experience. Jordan is passionate about inspiring organizations to embrace trauma responsive interventions along with immersive treatment approaches, specifically therapeutic horticulture. Jordan is a  community and social services professional with a BA focused in Humanities and Minor in Psychology from Cincinnati Christian University. Jordan believes horticulture helps build bonds that develop resilience and heal trauma. 

Maria Gulley, BS, is the resident intern at Sprouting Minds. Maria's first love is plants, and with a degree in Horticulture and eleven years of experience in the field, she has certainly cultivated that. But since her freshman year of college she has found herself working with both plants and people outside of work over and over again, and she has loved seeing the ways that tending a garden or planting a tree can cause people to blossom and relationships to take root as well. Maria is interested in deepening her understanding of the human side of this dynamic by working alongside Jordan to learn trauma-informed approaches to use plants and gardens for healing. Maria is a horticulturist with a BS in Landscape Horticulture and Design from Purdue University.

Emily serves as the primary graphic designer for Sprouting Minds. Emily is an artist and designer for the greater good. She’s passionate about creating artwork that inspires diversity, enacts social change, expands world views, and teaches inclusiveness. Emily has done graphic design for over fifteen non-profit agencies in the past five years. She believes that representation matters and aims to portray that through her work. Emily has Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and Art Education from Xavier University. 

Sarah Buffie MSW, LSW, founding director of Soul Bird Consulting believes that nothing has the power to heal like supportive relationships. Through Soul Bird Consulting, currently serves as the primary trainer and curriculum advisor for Sprouting Minds. Specializing in trauma-responsive care, she helps organizations and individuals disrupt current models of thinking by building empathy and understanding around the effects of trauma. Sarah has worked in community organizing- specifically, Asset Based Community Development, for over a decade and has a deep passion for her work.  Her focus is to spread awareness about how trauma affects the brain and body, and teach effective approaches for developing resilience within the people organizations strive to serve, and the people closest to the work, caregivers, and direct providers.  Sarah received her Master’s in Social Work from Northern Kentucky University with a self-study focus in Polyvagal Theory, positive psychology, and trauma-sensitive mindfulness practices.