Cynthia Arreola, LMSW is an Affiliate member of the NCTSN Steering Committee from California. Cynthia has been in the Network for 9 years and is involved in the Violence Prevention and Restoration Consortium, the Child Welfare Resource Parent Curriculum Workgroup, the Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment Community of Practice, and the Latin American Children and Families Collaborative Group. She has worked with populations from infancy to adulthood in areas of domestic violence, healthcare, homelessness/housing, child welfare and early childhood trauma and now as a consultant is dedicated to developing spiritually sensitive trauma-informed models of care.

Betsy Bledsoe, Ph.D., M.Phil., MSW, is a Category II representative on the NCTSN Steering Committee. She is the Co-Director of the National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce Development at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Social Work. She has expertise in mental health services, intervention, implementation, and community based participatory research. She focuses primarily on health inequities associated with trauma related, mood, and anxiety disorders during the perinatal period and beyond.

Philippa Connolly is a Category III representative on the NCTSN Steering Committee from the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Philippa leads the Justice Consortium and is active in the Child Welfare Collaborative Group. She is passionate about informing policy change and increasing access to effective community-based trauma-informed treatments. 

Shannon CrossBear is a Family Partner currently serving on the NCTSN Steering Committee from Lake Superior Ojibwe, Northern Minnesota. She has been a Network member for 22 years and is active in the Embodied and Holistic Healing Group, Trauma-Informed Suicide Prevention Community of Practice, Trauma and Substance Use Collaborative Group, Culture Consortium, Child Welfare Resource Parent Curriculum Collaborative Group and the Indigenous Leadership Circle. Over the years she has held different roles and participated on many collaborative groups such as the Indigenous Leadership Circle, the Child Welfare Resource Parent Curriculum Workgroup, and the Trauma-Informed Suicide Prevention Breakthrough Series. 

Joel Epstein has been a member of the NCTSN for 9 years and is now serving on the NCTSN Steering Committee as a Category III representative from Children's Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis, University of Missouri - St. Louis. Joel is an active participant in the Evaluator’s Community of Practice within the NCTSN and is passionate about research, evaluation, and data focused on post-traumatic growth.

Zina Fernandez is a Family Partner currently serving on the NCTSN Steering Committee from Massachusetts. Zina has been a member of the NCTSN for 5 years and is active in the Partnering with Youth and Families Collaborative Group, the Latin American Children and Families Collaborative Group, and the Child Welfare Resource Parent Curriculum Working Group. She has been a foster parent for many years and is a tireless advocate for children and youth. 

Allegra Hirsh-Wright, MSW, LCSW, is an Affiliate member of the Steering Committee from Maine. Allegra has been a member of the Network for 17 years and leads the Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative Group and is active in the Together Against Antisemitism Collaborative Group, and the Peer Support group. She is a nationally recognized expert in trauma-informed care, secondary traumatic stress (STS), and professional and organizational wellbeing and is passionate about systems change.

Candace Johndrow is a Category III representative from Family Service of Rhode Island. Candace has been a Network member for 15 years and is active on Category II Calls Planning Committee and has participated in various collaborative spaces over the years. Currently serving as the PI for Family Service of Rhode Island's Category II Center for Trauma-informed Policing, her work has been consistently focused on fostering a trauma-focused response to children that have encountered crime scenes and her work partners with law enforcement and social services. 

Jason Lau has been a member of the NCTSN for three years and serves as a Category III representative from DePelchin Children’s Center in Houston, Texas. He has been an active member of various NCTSN collaborative groups such as the Evaluators Community of Practice and the Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment Community of Practice. Jason is passionate about helping programs decipher data and translate findings into meaningful stories that help convey the impact of services for children and families.

Katherine Tineo-Komatsu, LCSW, is a Family Partner on the NCTSN Steering Committee working at New York Presbyterian Family PEACE Center. Katherine has been a Network member for 4 years and is active in the Trauma and Substance Use and Embodied Holistic Healing Collaborative Groups. Katherine is passionate about supporting others through body-based practices, healing-based practices, and practices of care.

Anitra Warrior is a Category III representative from the Santee Sioux Tribe of  Nebraska. She has been a member of the NCTSN for 4 years and is an active member of the Indigenous Leadership Circle, the Child Traumatic Grief and Traumatic Separation Collaborative Group, the Integrated Care Collaborative Group, Trauma and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Collaborative Group, and the Violence Prevention and Restoration Consortium. She is dedicated to working with Indigenous and Native students who have experienced trauma.

Oscar Widales-Benitez, PhD, NCSP, LSSP, is an Affiliate member of the NCTSN Steering Committee from the state of Texas. Oscar has been a member of the NCTSN for 8 years and is an active member of the Child Traumatic Grief and Traumatic Separation Collaborative Group, Forcibly Displaced Children and Families Community of Practice, the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression Collaborative Group, and the Latin American Children and Families Collaborative Group. Oscar is particularly driven by a desire to increase access to trauma- and grief-informed care for historically marginalized youth, who often face systemic barriers to healing. By centering the voices and strengths of youth who have been silenced or overlooked, Oscar strives to create a more equitable, compassionate, and empowering approach to healing—one that recognizes not only the challenges young people face, but the strength and brilliance they already possess. Oscar’s work is deeply rooted in the belief that all young people possess inherent strengths even in the face of profound adversity.