Marisol Acosta, MEd, LPC-S, is the Director of Clinical Services at Any Baby Can in Austin, Texas where she oversees the Family Health Programs, including counseling services and medical case management for children and youth with special health care needs and cancer. She was the Director of a Category III NCTSN site at the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Health and Human Services Commission where she served as the state’s Children Mental Health Director and Manager of Child and Adolescent Services for the Behavioral Health Services and oversaw children mental health services, residential treatment services, suicide prevention, and substance abuse prevention services. Marisol contributed to the redesign of children community mental health programs and the Texas Resilience and Recovery service delivery system, including co-authoring the third version of the Texas CANS. From 2011-2019, she was the trauma subject matter expert for the state of Texas implementing trauma informed care policies, evidence-based practices (including TF-CBT, PCIT, Seeking Safety, and PFA) and systems change impacting behavioral health, child welfare, disaster behavioral health, schools and tribal nations in Texas. Marisol holds a BA degree from the University of Puerto Rico, a MA in Counseling from the University of Houston, and a Graduate Certificate from Harvard University and the Italy Ministry of Health on Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery. She is an NCTSN CCCT Facilitator and member of the Affiliate Advisory Group. She serves as a member of the Advisory Board of La Red Por los Derechos de la Niñez de Puerto Rico. She is the co-founder of Expertus Soulutions, LLC which provides training and consulting services focused on enhancing quality of care and competency through the use and implementation of best practices and trauma-informed care. She is a state and national speaker and trainer on matters of trauma, trauma informed care transformation, unaccompanied minors, and children mental health.

Bijoux Bahati is a program manager for implementation of Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees Youth Program at Jewish Family Services, a category III funded site. In this role, Ms. Bahati recruits, trains, supervises, and supports Cultural Brokers and other TST-R Program Staff in trauma-informed and strength-based care. Ms. Bahati works tirelessly to bridge the cultural and linguistic gaps. She has a great understanding of displaced youth’s acculturation experiences and ability to navigate nuanced communications with caregivers and community leaders. Ms. Bahati has worked with refugee, immigrant and asylum seekers youth and families for over 10 years. Her lived experience as a refugee adolescent brings a critical perspective to serving refugee youth in cultural transition and key service team member in equipping them with necessary skills to make a healthy adjustment and develop as leaders. Ms. Bahati holds BSW from The University of Vermont and MSW from The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Other professional trainings include business development, TST-R community outreach, skills-based groups and regulation focused phase of treatment. Outside work, Ms. Bahati is a dedicated mother of two children. She loves to learn and dance.

Philippa Connolly, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry, and Assistant Director of Program Evaluation for the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She has been co-chair of the NCTSN Justice Consortium since 2020. Dr. Connolly is the lead evaluator for the Complex Trauma Program at Mount Sinai—a SAMHSA-funded grant under the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. This project seeks to enhance service provision to children, adolescents, and transition aged youth with complex trauma across the largest health system in New York, through comprehensive training of clinicians and trauma screenings at intake. She also manages several other grants including those funded by the Manhattan DA’s Criminal Justice Investment Initiative where she designs, develops, and evaluates innovative trauma-informed, trauma-focused programs for underserved urban communities, particularly those who are justice-impacted or at high-risk for justice-involvement. She is passionate about informing policy change and increasing access to effective community-based trauma-informed treatments. Clinically, Dr. Connolly specializes in the treatment of traumatic stress, particularly complex trauma. She conducts forensic evaluations, psychological assessments, and neuropsychological assessments with children, adolescents, and adults. Dr. Connolly is a graduate of Columbia University where she received her PhD in Clinical Psychology in 2019. Following this, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in complex trauma and criminal justice at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.​

Zina Fernandez was born in Puerto Rico, and settled in Massachusetts 36 years ago. In addition to fostering many children (unrestricted and kinship), Zina has been a case worker and family resource coordinator at the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program at Lutheran Social Services (now known as Ascentria Care Alliance). Zina became a facilitator for the Massachusetts Approach to Partnership in Parenting where she met Taina Pabon, an administrator at the FACES Clinic, who had attended a closing session she led. Pabon then introduced Zina to Dr. Heather C. Forkey, the clinic director, who hired Zina three and half years ago as a Trauma Coach. During Zina’s work at the FACES clinic another FaCes trauma coach, Dianne Lanni introduced he to the work of the NCTSN and to Chris Foreman, a member of the NCCTS Site Integration Team who invited her to become an active member of the Partnering With Youth And Families Committee. Zina is now co-chair of that committee, and an active member of other NCTSN groups: the Latin American Children and Families, Collaborative Group and the Racial Justice Webpage and Definitions Work Group. Last, but not least, this year Zina was invited to be part of the NCTSN Steering Committee, and she is now a member of this group as well. Zina has been training and facilitating the NCTSN Resource Parent Curriculum in Spanish as well as in English for about 3 years. Dr. Rocio Chang invited Zina to Puerto Rico to do a presentation and training on the RPC to education and mental health professionals presented by Universidad Central of Puerto Rico. In addition, Zina has been collaborating in the rewrite or the RPC in both English and Spanish.

Chase Giroux, LMHC, has over 20 years of experience working in the field of community mental health and local non-profit agencies. After attaining their degree in counseling, Chase became a therapist trained in TF-CBT and ARC. They specialize working with children and families who exhibit a complex trauma response through a variety of interventions. Chase is passionate about building strong and resilient communities so that all children and families can thrive by utilizing a trauma-informed and culturally-responsive lens. After spending time in Buddhist monasteries, practicing mindfulness in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, Chase was inspired to make this beautiful practice accessible to as many people as possible. Becoming trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and a certified Koru mindfulness trainer has allowed Chase to share this practice in a more secular context. Chase lives with their family in Northampton, Massachusetts, where they can be found playing and coaching sports in their community, hiking, and meditating.

Kay Jankowski, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Director of the Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center and Director of Psychology Services in the Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She has focused most of her career on trying to improve the lives of at-risk and trauma-affected children, teens, and families. Kay is currently leading a number of projects including a 5-year SAMHSA sponsored grant (Project LAUNCH Upper Valley) aiming to “meet young children and families where they are” through integrating mental health services and trauma-informed care into 7 pediatric sites, as well as child care centers and businesses in a tri-county area. She is a co-principal investigator on a 5-year DHHS ACF Regional Partnership Grant implementing an evidence-based enhanced care coordination model, called Wraparound, to families with substance use disorder in her community and building infrastructure to enhance coordination between systems. She is also co-lead on a new Category III NCTSN grant called Project TIDD, improving care for children and youth in New Hampshire with trauma and intellectual and development disabilities. The project aims to improve services for trauma-affected children with autism and intellectual disabilities, as well as youth with gender diverse and transgender identities. Kay has led many research projects over the years, including developing and testing new treatment interventions, disseminating evidence-based treatments for traumatized children and youth into “real world settings” and transforming child serving systems, including NH Division for Children, Youth and Families to bring a more trauma-informed approach to care and services for children and families. Kay is a certified trainer in TF-CBT.  She also trains and supervises psychology and psychiatry trainees, and has always maintained a clinical practice within the Department of Psychiatry. Kay is also a mom to two teenage and young adult children and enjoys all the natural beauty that northern New England has to offer in her spare time.

Antron McCullough, MBA, doctoral candidate, started his career in child welfare back in 2006 while earning his BA degree. During this time, Antron interned in Washington DC for three years before migrating over to Seaside, Oregon for a one-year internship. While in Oregon, he traveled across the United States speaking on child welfare trauma, policies, and other challenges that are faced by those in the system and those emancipating out of the system. By the end of that internship, he began working with Sony Corporate while obtaining his MBA degree from Saint Leo University (SLU). It was at this time that Antron switched his career to work in higher education, however, he continued to be a consultant on trauma and child welfare issues. Currently, he is an Assistant director for the University of Florida Heavener School of Business, completing his DBA (Doctorate of Business Administration) at SLU with his dissertation topic titled “The Relationship Between Funds Spent on Child Welfare Programs During the Budget Decision Making Process Between the Number of Youth and the Amount of Time They Receive Services While in the System.” Antron enjoys making sure that child welfare youth, teens, and young adults have the services and resources available to them throughout their journey as they look to create positive self-development for themselves throughout their life. His mantra is, “a successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” 

Kayla has used her lived experiences in foster care to implement policies and procedures on a local and National platforms. Kayla has dedicated her career to healing and uplifting Black and Brown communities with advocacy to prevent further generational trauma that is rooted in our nation's historical traumatization. As a Trauma Informed Yoga instructor, Kayla provides a safe space for individuals who have experienced trauma to reconnect with their bodies through movement, positive:” I am” affirmations, meditation, and journaling. When we slow down and take time to connect with ourselves we can change the narrative of our lives. We are brave. We are strong. We are resilient like our roots!

Carmen Rosa Noroña, LICSW, MSW, MS. Ed., IMH-E® Infant Mental Health Mentor-Clinical, is from Ecuador where she trained and practiced as a clinical psychologist. In the US, she obtained MA degrees in social work and early intervention. For over 25 years, Carmen Rosa has provided clinical services to young children and their families in a variety of settings including early intervention, home-based and outpatient programs. She currently is the Child Trauma Clinical Services and Training Lead at Child Witness to Violence Project and is the Associate Director of the Boston Site Early Trauma Treatment Network at Boston Medical Center. She is a Child-Parent Psychotherapy National Trainer, an expert faculty of the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood Training (DC: 0-5) and one of the developers of the Harris Professional Development Network Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants Children and Families Initiative (https://diversityinformedtenets.org) and of the Boston Medical Center Family Preparedness Plan. Her practice and research interests are on the impact of trauma on attachment; the intersection of culture, immigration, and trauma; diversity-informed reflective supervision and consultation; and on the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based practice in real world settings. She is a former co-chair of the Culture Consortium of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and has adapted and translated materials for Spanish-speaking families affected by trauma. Carmen Rosa has also contributed to the literature in infant and early childhood mental health, diversity, and immigration.

Kelly Sullivan, PhD, is a Licensed Psychologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and has worked at the Center for Child and Family Health (CCFH) for more than 14 years. She directs their NCTSN project and a project to improve services to families impacted by domestic violence and co-directs projects that provide post-adoption support and trauma-informed training for schools. She is trained in Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and is a Level II Master trainer in PCIT. She facilitates the workshop, “Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma,” for foster, kinship, and adoptive caregivers and trains facilitators of this curriculum. She has also worked with Project Broadcast, an initiative to bring trauma-informed practices to NC’s child welfare system, since it began 2011 and is dedicated to assisting all types of agencies to become more trauma-informed.

Lauren Warth, MSW, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and holds a graduate certificate in Early Childhood Leadership. Lauren is the Clinical Director for Child Specialty Programs at Aurora Mental Health & Recovery in Aurora, Colorado. Lauren provides clinical and operational leadership in one of the most diverse cities in the country, with teams providing exceptional care for children, youth, adults, and families in the specialty areas of autism/developmental disabilities, early childhood, immigrant and refugee care, and community-based prevention. Lauren has spent her career building prevention and intervention programs to help youth and families to thrive in their communities. Originally from Connecticut, Lauren managed a multi-city prevention program, connecting almost 1,400 youth to prosocial services in their communities. Since moving to Colorado in 2013, Lauren has focused her work in community mental health, doubling the size of early childhood services, building an autism evaluation and treatment program, and procuring hundreds of thousands in grant dollars to expand prevention programs. Lauren provides training and consultation in grant writing, program development, effective communication, and clinical leadership. She is currently leading a team in developing a national Center of Excellence for Refugee and Immigrant Care, working closely with stakeholders and community members to advance the strategic vision of this important work.   

Wanda Vargas-Haskins, PhD, is currently the senior psychologist at New York Presbyterian’s Family PEACE Trauma Treatment Center. She dedicates herself to improving the safety and well-being of children and caregivers who have been exposed to trauma. Wanda was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to the United States at the young age of 3, where she was raised in the community of Washington Heights. She earned her PhD in the combined Clinical and School Psychology program at Hofstra University where she developed an interest in maternal stress and mother-child dyads. Her career began in St. Barnabas Hospital’s Safe Start program, testing the effectiveness of using Child-Parent Psychotherapy as a treatment for young children exposed to violence. In 2011, she became a clinician at New York Presbyterian Hospital’s Family PEACE Trauma Treatment Center to continue working with the underserved population of Latino/a/x young children and their parents exposed to trauma in Washington Heights and Inwood. Over the years, Wanda’s passion for working with families has grown into a dedication and commitment to affect change both directly and on a systemic level. Through her leadership at Family PEACE, she has been working on creating a trauma-informed approach to identifying at-risk young children and developing programming that is client-centered and culturally attuned to the needs of the community. She dreams of one day being able to break the intergenerational transmission of trauma for our nation’s children.