Shelter dogs learning to trust. Nervous systems under pressure. Teams heading somewhere no one wants to go. Patterns other people don't see yet.
I'm Delisa. I've spent more than a decade in learning and development, and most of that time I've been noticing things other people didn't want to hear yet.
I have the M.Ed. and the resume. But the way I actually work has always been less about frameworks and more about pattern recognition. I notice when an onboarding program is creating the attrition it's trying to prevent. I notice when a team's high performers are masking. I notice when a training problem isn't actually a training problem at all.
I'm also a multipassionate by nature. I volunteer at an animal shelter. I was a classical musician. I'm neurodivergent. I build small tools when I can't find an existing answer. For a long time I thought the breadth was a liability. I've come around to the opposite view: the breadth is how I notice.
More about me
For companies and animal welfare organizations that want training to actually train. I start by figuring out whether training is even the right answer.
Learn moreField guides, prompt packs, and toolkits built for anxious professionals, accidental L&D practitioners, and neurodivergent brains.
See what's availableEssays at the intersection of animals, nervous systems, and how people actually learn. On Substack.
Read on SubstackIn how L&D tools work, in how teachers are trained to support neurodivergent students, in what pet owners know when something goes wrong. Each one is an attempt to close that gap.
An interactive training module for animal shelter volunteers. Built using the Forge Method, with branching scenarios, perspective shifts, and consequence-driven feedback. Try it yourself.
A self-paced course for K-12 educators on recognizing and supporting students with ADHD. Built around real classroom moments and the small, specific moves that change how a student experiences the room.
An AI-powered training design tool built around diagnosis, not content generation. It rules out broken processes and unclear expectations before it lets you design a single thing.
An eLearning teaching dog and cat owners how to respond to emergencies. Organized by symptom and severity, in the order you'll hit the decisions.
Whether you're here about a consulting project, a product you're curious about, or something I haven't thought of yet.
hello@canarypatterns.com