Rev. Helen Carroll The Rev. Helen Carroll has assumed the position of interim minister at the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Newbury Park while the congregation embarks on a yearlong search for a permanent leader.

Carroll comes to the Conejo Valley from San Luis Obispo, where she’d been minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Luis Obispo County since August 2001.

She succeeds the Rev. Dr. Betty Stapleford, the fellowship’s first full-time minister, who departed in June after 12 years of leadership.

During her tenure in San Luis Obispo, the church was recognized by the national Unitarian Universalist Association as a breakthrough congregation for excellence in programming and growth.

Carroll was born in Culver City and grew up in Memphis, Tenn. She moved to Massachusetts to study at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, where she graduated in 1995 with a master’s degree in religious studies.

From 1996 until 2001, she managed Project Independence, a HUD-funded program in Boston which provides vocational assessment, training, job placement and follow-up services for hard-toplace homeless people.

At the same time, she took graduate coursework at Harvard’s Divinity School and Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Center, Mass.

From 1999 to 2001, Carroll completed a parish ministry internship at Old Ship Church, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Hingham, Mass.

From there, she was called to her first ministry at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Luis Obispo County.

She lives with her husband, Rob, in Oxnard.

About being a Unitarian Universalist, Carroll says, “We don’t tell you what to believe or think or feel. We will encourage you to explore in meaningful ways what it means to be human in the 21st century and what it means to bring our minds and hearts and hands to the work of making this a better world.”

The Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is at 3327 Old Conejo Road in the Songbird Office Park, Newbury Park. Sunday services are 9:15 and 11 a.m.