PUBLIC POLICY BRIEFING PRESENTERS

MaryLee Allen is director of the Child Welfare and Mental Health Division at the Children’s Defense Fund. She works to improve policies and practices in support of families, prevent family crises from occurring or intensifying, and promote permanent families for children. She has played a leadership role in the development, passage, and implementation of major child welfare and children’s mental health reforms over the past two decades.

Richard Anderson is the president of the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators. Previously, he served as director of Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services, as well as the director of training for social services, regional director and deputy director. Since entering the field in 1973 as a caseworker, Anderson has served clients dealing with substance abuse, juvenile justice issues, and adult protective services. He is a licensed clinical social worker and had his own private practice for 18 years.

Nadege Mardy Breeden is president of the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Youth Leadership Board funded by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. She assists the Connecticut Association of Foster and Adoptive Parents by providing support and training to licensed families. After entering foster care at age 12, she was adopted at age 21 by her foster mother, the fi rst adult adoptee in many years in Connecticut.

The Honorable Michael F. Brennan, LCSW, is the Maine Senate majority leader, representing Portland and Westbrook. He was first elected to the Senate in 2002, after serving in the state’s House of Representatives for four terms. For the past five years, he has been a policy associate with the Cutler Institute for Child and Family Policy at the Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine. Previously, he worked for the United Way of Greater Portland, as executive director of a nonprofit affordable housing agency, and as a clinical social worker. He has also been an adjunct faculty member at the University of New England’s School of Social Work. He is co-chair of the Board of Advisors for Casey Family Services.

Leonard Burton is the chief operating officer of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, having previously served as associate director. For the past 15 years, he has worked as an advocate, consultant, and administrator to improve outcomes for children, youth and families involved in the child welfare, education, and juvenile justice systems. Previously, he held several leadership positions within the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, including director of policy development, director of foster care, executive assistant to the commissioner, and assistant commissioner.

The Honorable Danny K. Davis is the U.S. Representative for the 7th Congressional District of Illinois. First elected in 1996, he is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and is a regional whip in the Democratic Caucus. He has distinguished himself as an effective legislator able to move major bills to passage. His efforts include Access to Jobs funding in the 105th Congress, and his Community Renewal Act in the 106th Congress, designed to bring investment and jobs to economically impacted communities. Prior to Congress, he served on the Cook County Board of Commissioners for six years and as a member of the Chicago City Council for 11 years. Before seeking public office, he was an educator, community organizer, health planner/administrator, and civil rights advocate.

Leslie Heimov, Esq., has served as the director of policy at the Children’s Law Center (CLC) of Los Angeles since 2002. She has worked at CLC since 1992, both as a staff attorney representing thousands of children in dependency court and as a supervising attorney providing oversight and training to more than 30 case-carrying attorneys. She is the chair of a countywide Task Force on Pregnant and Parenting Teens and is a founding member of the Task Force to End Homophobia in Foster Care. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Counsel for Children and on the National Advisory Board of the Children’s Law Office Project.

Sandra Jiménez is a parent whose eight children were reunified with her after entering the child welfare system. She currently provides technical assistance through the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Family to Family Initiative and helps develop parent advocacy programs for birth parents around the country. She is part of the faculty of both the Disproportionality Breakthrough Series Collaborative and the Casey-Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance on Racial Equity. Previously, Jiménez was a parent advocate in New York City’s child welfare system and directed the Office of Client Advocacy for the city’s Department of Homeless Services, which she helped to found.

The Honorable Patricia Macías serves as the presiding judge of the 388th Family District and Associate Court in El Paso, Texas. Previously, she was associate judge of the 65th District Children’s Court, which was designated as a model court by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Judge Macias is a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the Texas Supreme Court Task Force on Foster Care, and is the co-chair of the Texas Access to Justice Commission’s Systemic Issues Family Law Simplification Committee.

John Mattingly, Ph.D., is the commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, which currently has 23,000 children in its care. He is a nationally recognized leader in child welfare reform. Prior to his appointment as commissioner, he served as director of human service reforms at the Casey Foundation, where he designed and managed the Family to Family foster care initiative, and as the Foundation’s team leader for child welfare policy. In addition to serving as a member of the New York City Special Child Welfare Advisory Panel from 1998 to 2001, he mediated a class action case against the State of Tennessee in 2001.

Patrick McCarthy, Ph.D., is vice president for System and Service Reform for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where he provides management across policy areas, including health, mental health, early childhood, adolescent reproductive health, juvenile justice, education, child welfare, and financial security. With more than two decades spent in the field, his professional experience includes working as a family therapist, and teaching in the graduate schools of Bryn Mawr College and the University of Southern California. He also has held key positions in Delaware’s child welfare system, serving as director of the state’s juvenile corrections system and the Delaware Family Preservation Project.

Sania A. Metzger, Esq., director of policy for Casey Family Services, works to advance child welfare policy reforms at the local, state, and federal levels, often working with Casey’s direct service divisions. She serves on the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Policy and Communications Strategy Group, the Child Welfare Strategy Group, and the Casey-Center for the Study of Social Policy’s Alliance for Racial Equity. She worked for the New York State Legislature for 11 years as legislative counsel to Assemblyman Roger Green, then chair of the Standing Committee on Children and Families. Metzger serves on the Board of Directors for Prevent Child Abuse America and the Center for Family Representation.

Douglas W. Nelson is president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and a member of its Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the Foundation in May of 1990, he was deputy director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy and assistant secretary of the Wisconsin State Department of Health and Social Services. He is nationally known for his leadership and advocacy on behalf of family-centered, community-based responses to the needs of at-risk children and vulnerable families. In addition to frequent lectures and addresses, Nelson has written widely on a range of domestic social policy issues. His social history of the World War II relocation of Japanese Americans, entitled Heart Mountain, earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1976.

Ada Skyles, Esq., Ph.D., is a research fellow and associate director at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and a member of the Race Matters Consortium’s coordinating committee. She has more than two decades of research and direct service experience with human services systems and with legal issues involving children and families. Previously, she taught at the schools of social work, medicine, and law for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she was affiliated with the Institute for Research on Poverty. She currently chairs the Ethics Board for Child Welfare Professionals, Office of the Inspector General, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. In 2002, she was a member of the Illinois governor-elect’s transition team, subcommittee on child support. She is former chair of the Wisconsin Governor’s Council on Domestic Abuse and former director of the Wisconsin Bureau of Child Support Enforcement.

Jane M. Spinak, Esq., is the Edward Ross Aranow clinical professor of law and director of clinical programs at the Columbia University Law School. She joined the teaching faculty in 1982 as cofounder of the Child Advocacy Clinic. Previously, she served as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Division. She currently is a member of the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, the steering committee of the Columbia University Institute on Child and Family Policy, and the Board for the Center for Family Representation. She lectures and writes on issues of child welfare policy, juvenile justice, child advocacy, family court reform, clinical legal education, and legal organization management.

Gary Stangler is the executive director of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, a major national effort launched in 2001 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Casey Family Programs to help youth in foster care make successful transitions to adulthood. Prior to this, he was the director of the Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS) for nearly 12 years, rising through the ranks to be appointed director by two governors. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), the Finance Project, and the Center for the Study of Social Policy. As a spokesperson for APHSA, he has testified before Congress numerous times on health care reform, Medicaid and indigent care, family preservation and foster care, and service integration. He is the author of a number of articles in professional journals and publications, and co-author of On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System.

Raymond L. Torres is the executive director of Casey Family Services, the direct service agency of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. He is responsible for the oversight and administration of the agency’s eight divisions, located throughout New England and in Baltimore, Maryland. He also serves as a member of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s senior leadership team. Prior to his current position, he was the programs administrator for child welfare services within the Oklahoma State Department of Human Services. He held the post of deputy regional director for the New York State Division of Family and Children Services. He has served as adjunct assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma’s School of Social Work, where he taught courses in child abuse prevention and child welfare issues.

Khatib Waheed, a senior fellow with the Center for the Study of Social Policy, leads a new initiative addressing racial disproportionality and disparity in child welfare, for the Casey-Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance for Racial Equality. Previously, he served as an associate director for the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. He has spent numerous years doing community-building work through public-private partnerships involving state agencies, school districts, parents, law enforcement offi cers, and elected officials to design and deliver school-linked, school-based family support services. He is a former participant in the International Initiative for Children, Youth, and Families.