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Steering Committee

The Steering Committee of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network guides the development of the national network of centers to improve treatment and services for all children and adolescents in the United States who have experienced traumatic events. Steering Committee members serve 2-year terms and are selected to reflect the diversity of the NCTSN, including representatives from the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, SAMHSA, and Category II, Category III, and Affiliate organizations.

Saida Abdi

Saida M. Abdi, PhD, LICSW, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. She is a trained clinician and expert in refugee trauma and resilience. She earned her PhD in Sociology and Social Work from Boston University. Dr. Abdi has worked for more than 20 years with refugee and immigrant youth and families. Her area of focus is building individual, family, and community resilience and improving mental health access and engagement among trauma-impacted refugee and immigrant children and families. Dr. Abdi is a leader in the adaptation and implementation of Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees (TST-R). She is also the co-author of a recently published book, Mental Health Practice with Immigrant and Refugee Youth: A Socioecological Framework (American Psychological Association, 2020).

Marisol Acosta

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.

Cynthia Arreola

Cynthia Arreola is a social justice advocate and licensed social worker who has been working in social services for over 25 years. Her experience ranges from direct services to managing and developing programs. She has worked with populations from infancy to adulthood in areas of domestic violence, health care, homelessness/housing, child welfare and early childhood trauma. Ms. Arreola is the former Program Manager for the Family PEACE Trauma Treatment Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital, where she worked for over 12 years. In this capacity, she co-developed a Trauma-informed Socially-Just service delivery model for young children and families impacted by trauma. She also worked on several grass roots initiatives and participated in local Coalitions working to end violence. Ms. Arreola served as the co-chair of the NCTSN IPV Collaborate Group and is currently part of the core development group for the Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) 2.0, which is specific to Latin American families. Additionally, Ms. Arreola is receiving training to become a rostered NCTSN Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment (TIOA) Coach. Ms. Arreola is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work and has a Certification in Spirituality and Social Work from New York University. She works as a consultant dedicated to developing spiritually sensitive trauma-informed models of care for BIPOC communities that center healing through culture.

Bijoux Bahati

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.

Margaret Blaustein

Margaret Blaustein, PhD, is a clinical psychologist whose career has focused on the understanding and treatment of complex childhood trauma and its sequelae. With an emphasis on the importance of understanding the child-, the family-, and the provider-in-context, her work has focused on identification and translation of key principles of intervention across treatment settings, building from the foundational theories of childhood development, attachment, and traumatic stress. Dr. Blaustein is co-developer of the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) treatment framework (Kinniburgh & Blaustein, 2005), and co-author of the text, Treating Complex Trauma in Children and Adolescents: Fostering Resilience through Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competence (Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2010 / 2018). She is currently Director of the Center for Trauma Training in Needham, MA, and is past Division Director for Trauma Training and Education at The Trauma Center at JRI. She is actively involved in local, regional, and national collaborative groups dedicated to the empathic, respectful, collaborative and effective provision of services to this population. Dr. Blaustein has been involved in various NCTSN-funded projects since the network’s inception.

Betsy Bledsoe

Sarah E. “Betsy” Bledsoe, Ph.D., MPhil, MSW, is Co-Director of the National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce Development. Dr. Bledsoe is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work. She is also founding principal investigator of the Health Equity for Rural Mothers and Families (HER) Lab and principal investigator of MI-PHOTOS, Community Voices and Whole Robeson Together, all community based participatory research studies in partnership with families and service providers in Robeson County, N.C. Dr. Bledsoe’s research reflects over 25 years of experience conducting community-based and national studies to strengthen the mental health of adults, adolescents, children, and families surviving poverty, discrimination and trauma and the workforce serving them. 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. Her research has examined the development, implementation and dissemination of evidence-based practice and empirically supported interventions to treat psychiatric illnesses and support emotional health and wellbeing with attention to the cultural acceptability and adaptation and of these practices. A community-engaged scholar, Dr. Bledsoe is dedicated to partnering with communities to understand and address the factors that impact health inequities and the emotional health and wellbeing of children, adults, families, and communities.

 

Philippa Connolly

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.​

Shannon Crossbear

Shannon Crossbear articulates her purpose as "to demonstrate and promote gentle healing." She expresses her commitment to healing through her work in the world. Her own community and family history propelled her to develop leadership to address disparities that have led to poor outcomes for friends and relatives. Shannon’s work has included facilitating and consulting with the National Indian Child Welfare Association, the Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, Georgetown University, The National Child Traumatic Stress Network and the Surgeon Generals Conference on Children’s Mental Health. She has worked with tribal and non tribal communities in providing technical assistance to Systems of Care and Circles of Care utilizing traditional interventions and the promotion of culturally congruent and trauma informed practices. Shannon has worked in communities throughout the contiguous United States and Alaska, as well as within Canada, to address systemic change for improved out comes for children and their families. Ms. Crossbear has facilitated and supported practices and services that include the provision of culturally-cemented early childhood; parenting programs; supports for transition age youth, young adults, and families with mental health and substance abuse issue. Ms Crossbear is skilled in trauma-informed community engagement. She has worked with supporting organized stakeholder voice and representation at local and national levels through various behavioral health initiatives.

Caryn Curry

Caryn Curry, LCSW, is Director of Operational Excellence Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Ms. Curry has over 30 years of clinical and programmatic experience in hospital, residential, community and educational settings. Her work focuses on building capacity of schools and other child and youth-serving organizations to create trauma-informed, healing-centered systems and practices. She provides training and consultation to partners, bringing a lens of cultural attunement and mutuality to her relationships. Her work is grounded in the critical importance of adults building their social and emotional capacity to effectively educate and nurture children toward success and well-being in school and life. Ms. Curry holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and a Master of Science degree in Clinical Practice from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice at the University of Chicago (formerly the School of Social Service Administration).

Zina Fernandez

Zina Fernandez

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.

Nancy Fitzpatrick

As funded CAT III site Project Director, in addition to successfully administering SAMHSA grant funding and providing oversight of the implementation of the project, a school-based therapy initiative that serves children, ages 3 to 18, who have experienced various types of trauma. Nancy also developed the trauma awareness training for the project on (1) how to recognize trauma; (2) how to respond to trauma; (3) how to create trauma-informed systems for children; and (4) how to manage secondary traumatic stress. Nancy successfully administered these trainings to over 300% of the first-year target population goal. As a Steering Committee member and an Affiliate Advisory Council member with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and as a national advisory board member of the TRANSFORM (Trauma and Racism Addressed by Navigating Systemic Forms of Oppression using Resilience Methods) Program with Washington State University, Nancy works closely with trauma-focused research professionals and evidence-based intervention providers to promote awareness and create transformative training tools to develop trauma-informed systems of care. She is a passionate advocate for the homeless, for those who suffer with mental illness, and for children impacted by trauma. Nancy continues to use her unique skill set and commitment to learning to maximize every effort in developing solutions for at-risk populations. Nancy also serves as the Health Committee Co-Chair for the Milwaukee Section of the National Council of Negro Women.

Chase Giroux

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.

Allegra Hirsh-Wright

Allegra Hirsh-Wright, LCSW, works within the Department of Clinical Innovation at Maine Behavioral Healthcare. She is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of trauma-informed care, secondary traumatic stress (STS), burnout, and professional resilience. Allegra has authored multiple resources on the topics of STS, compassion fatigue, and resilience, including fact sheets, a national website, STS Core Competencies for Supervisors, and a chapter on STS and compassion fatigue in national guidelines for pre-and post-natal treatment of women with substance use disorders. In addition, she has expertise in direct clinical practice as well as training, supervision, and implementation of multiple evidence-based child trauma treatment models, and is a nationally certified TF-CBT clinician, clinical supervisor, and consultant. Allegra sits on multiple statewide committees all working towards improving trauma-informed care across Maine and is a member of the University of Kentucky’s Secondary Traumatic Stress Innovations and Solutions Center National Advisory Board and a member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s Affiliate Advisory Committee. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern Maine’s School of Social Work.

Kay Jankowski

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

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.” 

Kelly Moore

Kelly Moore, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist licensed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She currently is the Principal Investigator and Program Manager for the Children’s Center for Resilience and Trauma Recovery (CCRTR), a SAMHSA funded, Category III Center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. This center works to provide training and consultation to mental health providers and advanced students in evidence-informed assessment and treatment of complex trauma in children ages 0-10, along with their caregivers. Kelly is also a certified instructor for Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) Suicide Prevention Training, and Youth Mental Health First Aid. She oversees the Rutgers CCRTR Mental Health Awareness Training Program, a SAMHSA funded project focused on training educators, law enforcement, clergy, and parents in QPR and Youth Mental Health First Aid. As a practitioner, her clinical expertise is in the treatment of trauma and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents with a specialty in the treatment of PTSD and OCD. Additionally, Kelly has worked in efforts to disseminate evidence-based treatments and develop trauma-focused programs in community mental health in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Her work has focused on identifying facilitators and overcoming barriers to implementation of evidence-informed practice and implementing trauma-informed care with multidisciplinary teams.

Kayla Morgan

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

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.

Rosaura Orengo-Aguayo

Rosaura Orengo-Aguayo

Dr. Rosaura Orengo-Aguayo was raised in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico where the women and community who collectively raised her taught her the values of compassion, humility, service, social justice, advocacy, and ongoing self-reflection. She carries these values into her professional identity as an Associate Professor and bilingual licensed Clinical Psychologist at the Medical University of South Carolina. Her team’s mission is for children and families around the world to have access to evidence-based, trauma-informed mental health services regardless of location, language, socioeconomic status, or background. They achieve this mission through community-based participatory approaches, implementation science, telehealth technology, and principles of cultural humility and language justice in their work in the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Dr. Orengo-Aguayo has published several seminal publications on the impact of disasters on youth mental health (JAMA Network Open), and the implementation and dissemination of in-person and telehealth delivery of Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) in Latin America and US (American Psychologist). She is a co-author in the first telehealth manual available in Spanish (Manual de Telesalud Mental). In her spare time she plays beach volleyball with her husband, she has had the privilege of traveling to 28 countries across 3 continents, interior design brings her joy, and she has a baby Golden Doodle and 12 y/o Golder Retriever who make her smile every day. 

Kelly Sullivan

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.

Anitra Warrior

Family and community have always been a highly valued part of my life. I believe this comes from my cultural heritage and how I was raised. I was fortunate in that I grew up being raised by my grandparents as well as my parents. I spent a great deal of time with the elders in our community. I essentially assumed every person with white hair on my reservation was my grandparent and I addressed them as such. These relationships helped me connect with many people across our reservation and I embrace the significance of relationships throughout our lives. I had the opportunity to attend the Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago, NE. After graduation, my family and I moved to Lincoln, NE. and I began at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I received my BA in Psychology and MA and PhD in Counseling Psychology. I have been able to obtain a great deal of experience in counseling and administration. I have worked with diverse backgrounds and have been honored to share experiences with the people I serve.

Lauren Warth

Lauren Warth

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.   

Veronica Willeto-DeCrane

Veronica Willeto DeCrane, is Diné (Navajo) of the Many Hogans Clan and born for the Mexican Clan. Her maternal grandparents are of the Tangle Clan, and her paternal grandparents are of the Bitter Water Clan. She was raised in Ojo Encino, New Mexico on the Navajo reservation and now lives in Billings, Montana with her husband and children. Veronica has worked in education and youth development for over ten years in the areas of school turnaround, parent and community engagement, youth leadership development, afterschool programs, cultural responsiveness, systems change, and behavioral and academic supports. Veronica is a Training and Technical Assistance Manager for the National Native Children’s Trauma Center (NNCTC). Through a collaboration with the Tribal Youth Resource Center, she manages trauma-informed and healing-focused training and technical assistance for tribal youth programs and tribal juvenile healing to wellness courts. She also supports the NNCTC’s child welfare work in partnership with Casey Family Programs, co-facilitates a nationwide Trauma Resilient Schools Peer Learning Network with the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, leads the NNCTC’s Youth Advisory Council, and contributed to the adaptation of Attachment, Self-Regulation and Competency model into a culturally-congruent curriculum for tribal youth. In addition to her work with the NNCTC, Veronica is a Multi-Tiered System of Support Coach with the Montana Office of Public Instruction and serves as the Vice-President of the Montana Afterschool Alliance Steering Council.

Wanda Vargas-Haskins

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.