Paulette Meier is a singer/songwriter and a school-based trainer in violence prevention and social emotional learning. Based in Cincinnati (OH), she held a number of key positions before coming to her work with children - a teacher in inner city schools,  an advocate for women's employment rights, and a national organizer on nuclear issues. A passion to address the causes of disharmony at both the societal and personal level led her into social work,  delivering mental health services to school children. She also became active in Re-evaluation Counseling (Co-counseling), a practice of mutual support involving emotional healing work based on an understanding of oppression. The songs on Come Join the Circle:LessonSongs for Peacemaking  reflect Paulette's broad background of social activism and personal healing work.

While living in Washington, D.C. in the early 1980s, Paulette was introduced to the People's Music Network, a national group of which Pete Seeger was a founding member. She began singing and developing a repertoire of songs about peace, justice and the earth.   Back in Cincinnati, Paulette joined MUSE, a women's choir. This led to a 5 year collaboration with fellow MUSE member Ginny Frazier, with whom she produced the recording: Harmony for Social Justice.

The early 90s saw Paulette embark on a career in peace education as a traIner with Cincinnati's Center for Peace Education, an affiliate of  Creative Reponse to Conflict (Nyack, NY). By 1994 she was working independently as a trainer/consultant in schools, helping teachers create peaceable classrooms through positive discipline approaches and training students and teachers in peer mediation, conflict resolution and other social-emotional learning skills and concepts.  She expanded this work to Kentucky through the Peace Education Program in Louisville, as well as to Texas through the Travis County Health Department in Austin.

Paulette has always incorporated music into her school programs,  invoking such artists as Ruth Pelham, Red Grammer and Sarah Pirtle. And now she has recorded her own compositions in Come Join the Circle. The songs are a wide-ranging mix and draw on the skills of diverse Cincinnati artists such as David Archer (arranger, guitarist and audio engineer),  James Oglesby (hip hop),  William Menefield (jazz keyboard and vocals), and a chorus of local children led by Lois Shegog (Asst. Director, MUSE).

Come Join the Circle is into its 3rd edition.  It has won a Parents Choice Approved Award (2002) and a Children's Music Web Award (2003),  and continues to be acclaimed by educators and parents alike from around the United States.