With more than 20 years of experience in clinical social work, this expert focuses on foster care, adoption services, child welfare systems, permanency planning, behavioral health, child development, family counseling, parenting issues, and social services case management involving children in foster and adoptive homes. Professional experience includes supervision of child welfare caseloads, intake and assessment of children and prospective families, treatment planning, adoption home studies, foster and adoptive parent recruitment and training, placement coordination, post-adoption services, and permanency planning support for children and families in foster and adoptive environments. The expert has more than 5 years of experience providing expert witness consultations, deposition testimony, and courtroom testimony involving foster care, adoption practices, child welfare systems, and placement-related disputes.

Professional responsibilities have included supervisory, management, training, and program development roles within adoption agencies, foster family agencies, educational institutions, and child welfare organizations. Experience includes supervision of social workers and permanency planning services, clinical case consultation, quality assurance review, policy and procedural development, personnel training, curriculum development, and coordination of foster care and adoption recruitment efforts. Additional experience includes post-adoption program management, mediation-related services involving parenting and family systems, social work case management instruction, and training related to diversity, cultural competency, cross-cultural theory, family systems, and human behavior in social environments.

Teaching, presentation, and training activities have involved adoption-related issues, foster care transitions, cultural competency in placement services, transracial adoption, attachment and trauma-related issues affecting foster and adoptive children, behavioral management, permanency planning, and social work practice methodologies. Presentation and instructional experience also includes child welfare casework, social services training, family systems approaches, adoption transitions, support services for foster and adoptive families, and educational programming for social workers, therapists, parole agents, and child welfare professionals. Professional involvement includes participation in social work, adoption, alumni, scholarship, educational, and community organizations, along with committee service related to diversity, recruitment, scholarship, and training initiatives. Educational background includes a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. Credentials include Licensed Clinical Social Worker licensure, permanency planning mediator certification, school social work credentialing, and school social work certification.