Jean Adnopoz
Jean Adnopoz, MPH, Clinical Professor, is Director of In-Home Clinical Services for the Yale Child Study Center. Ms. Adnopoz’s clinical and research interests have focused on serving the needs of children who are at substantial risk for disruption of their primary relationships with caregivers and separation from their families and communities.

Sharon Amatetti
Sharon Amatetti is a Senior Policy Analyst for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT).   She is responsible for ensuring that women, youth and family issues are coordinated with the other SAMHSA Centers and Federal agencies, and that adequate attention to women, youth and families is incorporated throughout all CSAT programs.  In this capacity she manages the National Conference on Women, Addiction, and Recovery, and the Women’s Addiction Services Leadership Institute (WASLI.)

Ms. Amatetti also manages the Center’s activities pertaining to child welfare and the impact of parental alcohol and drug abuse on children.  Her work in this area includes management of an inter-agency agreement with the Administration on Children, Youth and Families to advance cross-system coordination which in part involved the development and management of a National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare.  She has a BA from Georgetown University and an MPH from U.C. Berkeley.

Becky Barnett
Becky Barnett, LCSW, has been working in the field of addiction and mental health services for the past fifteen years. She has been the Program Manager for the Utah State Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health providing oversight for statewide women, youth and family programs since 2007. Ms. Barnett began her career at Valley Mental Health in 1994, where she worked as a case manager while attending graduate school in social work. Her practicum placements provided her with experience with family therapy, sexual abuse counseling for children and correctional group work, after which she worked as a therapist at Valley Mental Health providing mental health and substance abuse treatment to individuals (primarily women and children) with serious and persistent mental illnesses. After seven years at Valley Mental Health, she moved to Salt Lake County Criminal Justice Services in 2000 where she worked as a Drug Court Therapist and Felony and Misdemeanor Drug Court Case Management Supervisor before becoming the Clinical Director. As the Clinical Director, Ms. Barnett provided oversight for the Substance Abuse Treatment Program and supervised a team of fifteen licensed therapists, social work students and interns. She is a licensed clinical social worker.

Harolyn Belcher
A neurodevelopmental pediatrician and research scientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Belcher is currently the Director of Research at the Kennedy Krieger Institute Family Center. Dr. Belcher is also jointly in the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and also holds the rank of Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Over the last ten years, Dr. Belcher has worked in the area of substance abuse prevention, treatment, and outcome. While on faculty at the University of South Florida, Dr. Belcher was instrumental in developing (1) community-based programs integrating prenatal care, substance abuse treatment, parent education, and pediatric follow-up for pregnant drug-dependent women and (2) specialized foster care evaluation and education programs for church-based foster care for HIV positive and drug exposed infants (Wallace & Belcher, 1997). Dr. Belcher is a co-investigator in an on-going NIH study to evaluate the impact of home-based nursing intervention for children with intrauterine drug exposure. In addition, Dr. Belcher evaluates children with intrauterine drug exposure in her clinical practice at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Belcher is the Principal Investigator for an Early Head Start Prevention Program, entitled the "Helping-U-Grow study" (HUGS) and on two grants: one that evaluates methods to optimize compliance during MRI’s and measure the effects of illicit drug exposure on brain development and another that created a National Child Traumatic Stress Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute Family Center to study and improve outcome for children exposed to maltreatment.

Fran Belvin
Ms. Belvin is a Women’s Substance Abuse Program Administrator for the Kentucky Division of Behavioral Health. She administers the KIDS NOW Plus Substance Abuse and Pregnancy Initiative and presents on pregnancy and substance abuse and on trauma-informed care. Her training and clinical experience are in art therapy, which she continues to teach at the University of Kentucky.

Lauri Carlson
Lauri Carlson is Project Director of the Parent Partners Program of Upper Des Moines Opportunity, Inc., a parent advocacy program partnering with families that have experienced having a child removed from their home by the Department of Human Services. She is also a Building A Better Future and Family Team Meeting state trainer. 

Michelle Carney
Ms. Carney is a 22 year old mother of two boys.  She entered the Family Treatment Drug Court in December of 2008 and graduated 13 months later. She is currently employed full time, has completed her child protection case, has full custody of one of her sons, and has been clean for approximately 1.5 years. 

Linda Carpenter
Linda Carpenter currently serves as the Program Director for the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare (NCSACW) In-Depth Technical Assistance program at Children and Family Futures (CFF). In that role, Ms. Carpenter provides technical assistance to jurisdictions across the nation in the areas of cross-system collaboration, comprehensive family-centered treatment, and assisting states and communities to improve outcomes for families at the intersection of child welfare, substance abuse, and court systems. Ms. Carpenter has worked for over 30 years in the early childhood, education/special education, substance abuse and child welfare fields. She has held senior level positions in local government which included directing substance abuse services for children, adolescents and families, a 125-bed emergency shelter facility, and a diagnostic clinic for young children with suspected developmental delays. As a consultant, Ms. Carpenter has worked with both public and private organizations providing training and technical assistance, grant writing, cross-systems collaboration and strategic planning. Her work with FIRST 5 Santa Clara County involved working with the courts, child welfare, mental health, substance abuse and public health agencies, community-based organizations and local school districts to develop a cross-disciplinary system of care for children prenatal through age five and their families, with particular emphasis on medically fragile infants and children in the child welfare system.

H. Westley Clark
Dr. H. Westley Clark, Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, leads the agency's national effort to provide effective and accessible treatment to all Americans with addictive disorders. Dr. Clark was the former Chief of the Associated Substance Abuse Programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco (DVAMC-SF) and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF. In addition to his duties at the DVAMC-SF, Dr. Clark served as a Senior Program consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Substance Abuse Policy Program, as well as a co-investigator on various National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded research grants in conjunction with the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Clark's areas of expertise include substance abuse treatment, methadone maintenance, pain management, co-occurring disorders, psychopharmacology, anger management, and medical and legal issues. Dr. Clark is a noted published author in the field, and has received numerous awards for his contributions.

Nick Claxton
Mr. Claxton has over 30 years experience in child welfare home visiting programs, from direct service to program administration and the development of new programs. He played a major role in initiating the MCFH-CAPTA program, which is part of Philadelphia’s response to recent CAPTA mandates to offer services to families of SENs.

Barbara Drennen
As Executive Director and co-founder of Pediatric Interim Care Center (PICC) in Kent, WA, Ms. Drennen has managed the day-to-day care of thousands of newborns in a nursery dedicated to specialized 24-hour care of drug-exposed infants. In the late 1980s, she provided in-home care for medically fragile infants and designed a program of interim care (between hospital and home) to protect these often fragile and premature babies through their first weeks of life. With co-founder Barbara Richards, she took this plan to the Washington State Legislature and founded PICC in 1990. Now a national model for the care of drug-exposed infants, PICC has served more than 2,500 newborns. In addition, Ms. Drennon has advocated on behalf of drug-exposed infants. She spearheaded legislation in Washington State requiring reporting of newborns with positive toxicology screens for illicit drugs. Her books, videos, classes and 24-hour information line inform service provision for drug-exposed infants beyond her own community. Her book, Caring for Drug-Exposed Infants, was published in 2010.

Kevin Dysart
Dr. Dysart is a neonatologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He has published scholarly articles investigating the natural history of the neonatal abstinence syndrome and has served as an investigator for studies of new treatments for this, and other diseases of the newborn.

Harrie Freedman
A clinical Nurse Specialist in Parent-Child Nursing, Ms. Freedman has over 35 years of experience working with young children and their families developing and implementing community-based systems of support, including services for infants and toddlers at risk for abuse and neglect. Harrie is the Senior Program Manager for the AIA Reflejos Familiares Project at the University of New Mexico Center for Development and Disability.

Kristin Funk
Ms. Funk holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago and is a licensed in the state of Oregon as a clinical social worker. She has worked in the early childhood field since 2000, providing outreach and training to early childhood and elementary school-based professionals nationwide. Ms. Funk has worked on several outreach grant projects in the Early Intervention Program and is currently Co-Coordinator of Project FEAT (Family Early Advocacy and Treatment), a 5-year federally funded systems-change grant focused on the identification, referral and safe care of substance-exposed newborns in Lane County and Oregon.  She also provides training to early childhood and other professionals in the use of the Assessment, Evaluation and Programming System (AEPS), the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) and the I Can Problem Solve® (ICPS) Curriculum.   

Bethany Gadzinski
The Bureau Chief for the Idaho State Substance Use Disorders program, Ms. Gadzinski and serves as Project Director for an Administration of Children and Families Regional Partnership Substance Abuse/Child Welfare Grant. She directed a family-focused methamphetamine treatment project and managed public housing services.

Bill Glienke
As a Parent Partner Coordinator, Mr. Glienke has provided services to families in various capacities for over twenty years in the Northwest Iowa area. Mr. Glienke is a nationally licensed Crisis Prevention Intervention Trainer/Instructor.

Donna Hamburg
Donna Hamburg, BS, worked in public child welfare in Colorado for 30 plus years as a caseworker, casework supervisor, and administrator.  She retired in 2008 from a position as Denver County Child Welfare Intake Manager. Since that time, she has worked as a consultant for a grant called C-SIMI  (Colorado System Integration Model for Infants) as well as Denver’s  initiatives regarding permanency for children and youth in foster care. She was appointed in 2009 to the Colorado Child Welfare Action Committee subcommittee that provided recommendations for state-wide system reform regarding behavioral health services and domestic violence services to families.  Her interest in program development to prevent placement and promote reunification of children with their families continues. 

Karen Hanson
Karen E. Hanson, LCSW, is the Clinical Coordinator of the Family-Based Recovery Program (FBR) at the Yale Child Study Center and Coordinator of the FBR Network. Ms. Hanson is interested in developing and implementing family-focused treatment programs for parents facing the challenges of substance abuse recovery and parenting a young child.

Andrew Hsi
Dr. Andrew Hsi, Director of the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center has focused on developing systems of care for children and families affected by prenatal alcohol and drug exposure, family violence and parental mental illness.  Through his work and that of the teams he’s led, the programs have had 19 years of grant and contract funding to deliver services.

Norma Jaeger
Norma Jaeger has over 25 years experience managing public behavioral health systems and currently serves as statewide director of Idaho’s 55 problem-solving courts, including four child protection drug courts. She teaches at Boise State University and serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

Lauren Jansson
Lauren Jansson, M.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. She received her MD degree from New York State University, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn N.Y. She completed her residency in pediatrics at Albany Medical Center and her fellowship in developmental pediatics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1991 she became the director of pediatrics for the Center for Addiction and Pregnancy at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Dr. Jansson has published multiple journal articles in the area of substance dependent pregnant women and their children. Her current NIDA funded research is in the area of fetal and infant neurobehavior in opiate dependent women.

Hendree Jones
Dr. Jones is currently a licensed psychologist in the state of Maryland and a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. She has more than 16 years of experience in the field of substance abuse and regularly trains professionals in substance abuse treatment of pregnant women. Dr. Jones is currently the Principal Investigator for three federally funded R01 grants, which examine novel behavioral interventions to initiate and maintain abstinence from licit and/or illicit drugs in drug-dependent pregnant women. She also leads the eight-site, multi-center trial Maternal Opioid Treatment: Human Experimental Research (MOTHER) that compares the fetal, neonatal and maternal safety and efficacy of methadone and buprenorphine medications for pregnant opioid dependent women. Dr. Jones is currently on sabbatical working at Research Triangle Institute International as a Senior Research Psychologist.

Karol Kaltenbach
Dr. Kaltenbach is Director of The Jefferson Maternal Addiction Treatment Education and Research (MATER) at Thomas Jefferson University. She has published numerous articles and book chapters, has lectured throughout the world, and has participated in the development of national guidelines for the management of opioid dependent pregnant women and their neonates.

Lynne Katz
Dr. Katz is the Project Director for the Miami Safe Start Initiative.  In that capacity, she is responsible for maintaining the collaborative activities of the community partners, including providing support and guidance to the Juvenile Court/Early Head Start early intervention program, coordinating the Safe Start community-wide training component and participating in the development of the Safe Start law enforcement model for a Quick Response Team to Community Violence at the designated Early Head Start site. 

Concurrent with her responsibilities for Miami Safe Start, Dr. Katz serves as the Director of the Linda Ray Intervention Center, University of Miami, a comprehensive early intervention program for infants and toddlers born prenatally exposed to cocaine. An Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Dr. Katz teaches graduate level courses in the assessment and intervention process for young children with special needs. She is the Principal Investigator of the Strengthening Families Program, a partnership with the Miami Dependency Drug Court, funded to provide parenting programs and developmental assessments for families in substance abuse treatment and recovery. Most recently, she was named Co-Director of the Infants and Young Children’s Mental Health Pilot Project, which was funded by the state of Florida to the Miami Juvenile Court, Dependency Division, to provide assessments and intervention for maltreated toddlers in the community who are in the custody of the state.

Walter Kraft
Dr. Kraft is Director of the Clinical Research Unit and of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Thomas Jefferson University. He has an interest in the pharmacology of medications used in the treatment of the neonatal abstinence syndrome. He has served as investigator on over 80 clinical trials.

Martha Kurgans
Martha Kurgans serves as the Women’s Substance Abuse Treatment Coordinator for Virginia. In her current position, Ms. Kurgans collaborates with both public and private agencies to develop comprehensive, holistic services for women and their children as well as older youth who have been affected by substance use.

Catherine Luby
Catherine E. Luby, MSW is a Child Welfare Program Specialist in the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect at the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families.  The majority of Ms. Luby’s work is concentrated on the intersection of substance abuse and child welfare, as well as systems improvement efforts. She is the Federal Project Officer for a set of grants awarded to implement the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act provision on substance exposed newborns, as well the Drug Court cluster of Regional Partnership Grantees, as a set of grants awarded to build community partnerships to serve children impacted by substance abuse (particularly Methamphetamines). She serves as the Bureau’s lead on the Children’s Justice Act Program, which assists States in program improvement efforts across disciplines aimed at reducing trauma to child victims of sexual and physical abuse.  Previously Ms. Luby worked as a child protective services social worker in the District of Columbia and as part of an evaluation team focused on social service programming.  Ms. Luby earned her BA in Social Work from the Catholic University of America and a Masters Degree in Social Work from Columbia University.

Heidi Mason
Heidi Mason is a Peer Recovery Intervention Worker for A Helping Hand: Mother to Mother (AHH), a federally funded, collaborative project housed at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health/Division for Perinatal, Early Childhood and Special Health Needs. AHH works in close collaboration with the state’s child welfare agency, Early Intervention programs, and substance use disorder treatment programs to provide a comprehensive, coordinated system of care for substance-exposed newborns (SEN), their mothers and families. A hallmark of AHH is the involvement of Peers (mothers in recovery) to intervene in the immediate post-partum period with mothers of SEN. Ms. Mason and her Peer colleagues provide individual, strength based, and family-centered support that integrates child development, substance use, child welfare, mental health, and other social services. Ms. Mason has presented the Peer Recovery Model to numerous groups in Massachusetts, and is the facilitator of the AHH Peer Supervision group. Ms. Mason is sited at Community Healthlink, Inc., a not-for-profit, community-based organization dedicated to serving men, women, children and families whose lives have been disrupted by mental illness, addiction, homelessness, poverty, and trauma.

Bryan Murray
The honorable Bryan Murray is an experienced family, child welfare and juvenile court judge in the 6th Judicial District of Idaho. He serves as the presiding judge of the ACF Regional Partnership Grant Child Protection Drug Court.

Tom Naviaux
Tom Naviaux is a Parent Partner in the Parent Partners Program of Upper Des Moines Opportunity, Inc., who provides mentoring services to families involved in the child welfare system. Tom simultaneously facilitates and recruits for “24 Dad’s Groups”.

James Nocon
James Nocon is the Director of the Substance Use Treatment Program for pregnant women and the Prenatal Recovery Clinic at Wishard Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. He is also Chair of the Indiana Prenatal Substance Abuse Commission and Clinical Associate Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine. After a career researching and publishing, he became certified to treat opiate addiction and developed a method of treating alcoholism and drug addiction.

Catherine Nolan
Ms. Nolan is the Director of the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect (OCAN), housed within the Children’s Bureau, US Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families. She is responsible for directing and managing OCAN activities, and providing leadership in the area of child abuse and neglect prevention and systems improvement at the Federal level. Ms. Nolan has over 30 years of experience advocating for children and families. She has worked in public service throughout her career, as a social worker at the local, county, State and Federal levels. This includes working for the Fairfax County, VA school system, the Department of Defense Dependents Schools in Northern Germany, the Exceptional Family Member Department clinic at the NATO hospital in Mons, Belgium, the US Navy Family Advocacy Program and the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, prior to her current position in the Children’s Bureau.

Steven Oversby
Dr. Steven Oversby is a Health Scientist Administrator (Program Officer) for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse (DPMC).  NIDA is one of the twenty six institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He administrates pharmacotherapy clinical trials in the Medication Grants Branch of DPMC.  In 2009, to address research gaps,  Dr. Oversby  developed a NIDA research program entitled “Medications Development for the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women with Substance Related Disorders and/or In Utero Substance Exposed Neonates  (PA-09-106)”.   Dr. Oversby also has a background in mental health program development, clinical psychology, psychiatric nursing and the commissioned corps of the U.S. Public Health Service.  He is a licensed clinical psychologist and an advanced practice RN.

Peter Panzarella
Peter Panzarella has worked for over 15 years in the field of addiction treatment and mental health working in various settings as a clinician, clinical supervisor, and clinical/program management. He was the Director of Substance Abuse Services for Perceptions Programs who served adolescents, families, adults and criminal justice clients in Eastern, CT.  He became the Director of Substance Abuse Services for the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) in 1995. DCF is an integrated state children’s agency with responsibility and programs for the child welfare, juvenile justice and children’s mental health and adolescent substance abuse treatment . He has written and received numerous federal grants to implement program for adolescents, families and drug exposed infants. He is actively involved in the Connecticut Alcohol and Drug Policy Council. He is licensed as a Alcohol /Drug and Professional Counselor in Connecticut. He has two Master's degrees, a Master’s in Arts in Clinical/Community Psychology from Lesley University and Master’s in Science in Administration from State University of New York College at Buffalo.

Jeanne Pietrzak
Jeanne Pietrzak, MSW, is the Founding Director of the National Abandoned Infants Assistance Resource Center, a unit established in 1991 and affiliated with the Center for Child and Youth Policy at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB).  In her 25 year tenure at UCB, Ms. Pietrzak has directed numerous state, federal, and private research projects, program evaluations, and service projects focused on drug- and HIV-affected children and families.  She also co-authored a book on Practical Program Evaluation (Sage) and co-edited another on Families Living with Drugs and HIV (Guilford).  She taught child welfare courses at California State University, East Bay.  Earlier positions Ms. Pietrzak held in Michigan included community planning director for United Way, foundation coordinator, and case manager working with families of children who were severely mentally and multiply impaired, and with adults who were mildly developmentally disabled.

Lynn Posze
Lynn Posze was a therapist and community organizer in North Carolina, and is now an administrator for publicly funded substance abuse initiatives in Kentucky. She co-chairs the Kentucky Substance Exposed Infants Workgroup, helped establish a statewide recovery advocacy group, and presents on women’s treatment and trauma informed care.

Gretchen Read
Gretchen Read is a Supervisor in Child Protection at Denver Human Services in Denver Colorado. In her unit, Gretchen currently has three specialized programs to collaboratively address the needs of families who are involved in the department and have substance abuse problems: the Savio Direct Link program, the Family Integrated Drug Court (FIDC) program, and the Colorado Systems Integration Model for Infants (C-SIMI) grant. Ms. Read holds a Master of Social Work from Colorado State University. She has been honored for her work with theWest Denver Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative program and the Community Family Advocate Program. In 2000, Ms. Read was awarded Appreciation as President by the Mayor’s Office for Education and Children, and in 2003 she was awarded Exceptional Best Practice at Denver Human Services by the Division Director for services rendered to Families and Children.

Dale Saul
Dale Saul is the infant mental health specialist for the Family-Based Recovery program, coordinated by FBR Services at the Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, CT. She has a doctorate in educational administration from the American University, a post-doctorate certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training from the Washington Psychoanalytic Foundation in Washington, D.C., and a Master's in Teaching. She has worked in community mental health intervention in Early Head Start, developed programs for teen parents, and directed a family support program in rural Maryland.

Rizwan Shah
Rizwan Shah, MDFAAP, is Medical Director of Regional Child Protection Center in Des Moines, Iowa. She is also Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at University of Iowa School of Medicine. She has provided developmental follow-up for Substance Exposed infants and children since 1989, and is nationally known for her work with substance exposed infants and children. She is site Principal Investigator for the IDEAL Study addressing outcome of Meth-Exposed Newborns.

Celeste Smith
Celeste Smith, FLE, MA, is the Program Coordinator for the federally funded Healthy Connections program at St. Vincent’s Mercy Medical Center, where she has worked for 22 years. Ms. Smith is the current Chair for the St. Vincent Cultural Diversity Council. She has presented at many national conferences on the issues of substance exposed newborns, use of illegal substances, and mental health.

Liz Twombly
Liz Twombly is a Senior Research Assistant and Instructor at the University of Oregon’s Early Intervention Program. For the past 4 years, Liz has been involved in the coordination of activities related to the Family Early Advocacy and Treatment (FEAT) Project. The FEAT project has worked with a community collaborative involving local child welfare, health care and parent support agencies to develop policies and procedures to ensure better identification, referral and safe care of substance exposed newborns in communities in Oregon. Liz has worked at the Early Intervention Program for close to 20 years on personal preparation and research activities related to providing services to families who have very young children with, or at risk for disabilities. Liz’s areas of interest and research include infant mental health, the use of standardized screening tools in health, educational and social services settings, the provision of family guided services when young children are eligible for Early Intervention, and Early Childhood Special Educational services. Liz is a contributing author on the widely used developmental and social-emotional screening tools, the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) and the Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Social Emotional (ASQ:SE).

Jean Twomey
Jean Twomey, MSW, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Pediatrics (Research) at Brown Alpert Medical School. Her clinical interests include disorders of infancy and early childhood, colic, parent-infant relationships and fathers. Her research interests include developmental outcome of substance-exposed infants with child welfare involvement, parental mental health and family functioning.

Jeffrey Vanderploeg
Jeffrey Vanderploeg, Ph.D., is the Quality Assurance Consultant for the Family-Based Recovery Program. Dr. Vanderploeg is interested in program and service systems evaluation. He has been involved in FBR program evaluation for over two years.

Enid Watson
Enid Watson is the Director of Screening and Early Identification Projects at the Institute for Health and Recovery, and the Project Director of A Helping Hand: Mother to Mother (AHH), a CAPTA demonstration project based in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. AHH works to enhance identification of and services for substance exposed newborns, their mother and families, and to build collaborations with child welfare and Early Intervention programs. She also provides clinical supervision to the Peer Recovery Workers who work with the mothers of substance-exposed newborns. Ms. Watson is the Massachusetts Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders State Coordinator and a Recovery Coach/Trainer. Ms. Watson has worked within prenatal and primary care settings to provide gender-specific, culturally relevant behavioral health screening; develop brief intervention protocols; and enhance or develop linkages to resources. Ms. Watson is the editor and co-author of Alcohol Screening Assessment in Pregnancy: The ASAP Curriculum, and A Pre-Vocational Handbook for Women in Treatment, and co-author of Using the Peer Recovery Model with Mothers of Substance-Exposed Newborns Identified through CAPTA Requirements in AIA’s The Source, Spring, 2010.

Imani Walker
Imani Walker is a mother of four beautiful children. She enjoys eleven years in recovery from substance abuse as a result of receiving 18 months of comprehensive family-based treatment. Imani has used her experience of personal suffering to healing to advocate for the needs of other families with substance use issues. Imani is co-founder and director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR) a national legal and policy organization that advocates for public policy reform justice & dignity for vulnerable families. Ms Walker is Founder and Director of the Rebecca Project's Sacred Authority program a leadership core of mothers who advocate for the needs of mothers in recovery from substance abuse. Sacred Authority mothers and their allies work to ensure the inclusion of the parents’ voice in the articulation of policy goals and recommendations. Ms. Walker received The Ford Foundation's "Leadership for a Changing World" award in 2004, Redbook Magazine’s "Mothers and Shakers" 2005 award & Ladydiva award 2009. Ms. Walker and The Rebecca Project have been featured in Essence Magazine, Redbook Magazine and the Washington Post.

Kathryn Wells
Dr. Kathryn Wells is currently the Medical Director of the Family Crisis Center where she serves as the child abuse and neglect consultant for Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Denver Department of Human Services, the Denver Police Department and the Denver District Attorney’s Office. She is also an attending physician with the Kempe Child Protection Team at the Children’s Hospital in Denver and has an academic appointment as an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. After completing her medical training, Dr. Wells joined the Family Medical Clinic in Caldwell, ID where she practiced general pediatrics for five years. She received fellowship training in Denver, CO at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, The Kempe Children’s Center and The Children’s Hospital in the Pediatric subspecialty field of Child Abuse and Neglect from 2001-2003.

Currently, Dr. Wells has two major grant projects. She received a grant from HHS’s Children’s Bureau to develop a model program to better identify and serve substance-exposed newborns and their families. This program, entitled the Colorado Systems Integration Model for Infants, is currently being implemented and tested in Denver County. Additionally, Dr. Wells has received a grant from the HRSA’s  Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Healthy Tomorrows Program to develop a medical home for children in foster care in Denver County through the Connections for Kids Clinic at Denver Health.

Tina Willauer
Tina Willauer has been a START worker, supervisor, manager, and director during her career with child protective services, first in Ohio, and now in Kentucky, where she leads substance abuse initiatives in child welfare. She provides private consultation and training on topics including case work with substance abusing parents.

Kristi Wolthuis
Kristi Wolthuis is a Parent Partner in the Parent Partners Program of Upper Des Moines Opportunity, Inc., who provides mentoring services to families involved in the child welfare system. Kristi has been instrumental in the implementation of “Mom’s Off Meth Groups”.

Judge Erica Yew
Judge Yew was appointed to the Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2001. Currently she is in the Juvenile Dependency division of the Court and presides over the Family Wellness Court and First 5 to serve children under the age of three years whose families are struggling with addiction, homelessness, poverty, violence and other issues. In October 2009, Yew was appointed by Chief Justice Ron George to the California Judicial Council, which is the policymaking body of the California Courts, the largest court system in the United States. She also sits on the national board for Interplast, which serves children globally, and chairs the Good Samaritan Hospital Board. In 2006, Yew also established Santa Clara County’s first county-wide collaborative workshop program serving victims of domestic violence. This collaborative continues to serve families throughout the county in multiple languages.

As an attorney, Yew has been on the board of Child Advocates of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties and served on the county Advisory Commission for the Children’s Shelter. She was a Child Advocate for ten years and volunteered through the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office to represent children in the dependency system. In 1994, Yew founded a monthly program for toddlers at the Agnews Family Living Center, a homeless shelter. Yew coordinated this program for four years.