Barbara Bennett Woodhouse
Barbara Bennett Woodhouse is the David H. Levin Chair in Family Law at Fredric G. Levin College of Law at University of Florida where she is also founding Director of the UF Law Center on Children and Families. She is a founding Co-Director of the Institute for Child and Adolescent Research and Evaluation (ICARE) at University of Florida, an interdisciplinary project linking researchers in law, medicine, social sciences, education and economics engaged in child welfare policy analysis. She graduated from Columbia Law School and clerked for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor before joining the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she was professor and a founding Co-Director of the Field Center for Children’s Policy Practice and Research until 2001, when she joined the Florida faculty. Professor Woodhouse is a past President of the Association of American Law Schools Family and Juvenile Law Section, a member of the Executive Council of the International Society for Family Law, Vice Chair of the ABA Section on Rights of the Child, a member of the Advisory Board of First Star, and an editor of the Family Court Review. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on children’s rights, child welfare law and family law.
Harry Spence
In November of 2001, Harry Spence was appointed Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, the state child welfare agency. Commissioner Spence formerly served as Deputy Chancellor for Operations for the New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest school system; Receiver for the bankrupt city of Chelsea, Massachusetts; Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Court-Appointed Receiver of the Boston Housing Authority, which became a model for public housing intervention across the nation; and Executive Director of the Cambridge Housing Authority. Commissioner Spence recently served as Assistant Secretary for Children Youth and Families under the Executive Office of Health and Human Services while in his current position. He received a J.D. in 1974 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. from Harvard College in 1969. Currently, Commissioner Spence is leading the Department on a course to further define the core practice values that underlie its practice of child welfare, and to align its philosophy and structures in accord with those values. In charting this course, the Department is attempting to bring the logic of “family-centered” practice to each aspect of its work. This requires a fundamental rethinking of basic work processes and organization. The process Mr. Spence envisions will build on the Department’s long-standing and developing tradition of family-centered practice, but in its comprehensiveness and coherence. It will result in innovations in practice that will fundamentally revise the way child welfare work is done, not only in Massachusetts, but potentially across the nation. The father of 3 children, Commissioner Spence lives in Boston.
Nicholas Scoppetta
Nicholas Scoppetta, Commissioner for the Administration for Children’s Services in the Giuliani administration, was appointed as New York City’s 31st Fire Commissioner by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on December 30, 2001. Commissioner Scoppetta heads a Department with more than 16,000 Fire, EMS and civilian members. His extensive experience in government and management spans more than four decades. The Commissioner brings a wealth of management and leadership experience to the Department. His experience in a number of government posts has prepared him to lead the world’s busiest fire suppression and emergency medical services agency. Commissioner Scoppetta’s leadership abilities will play a vital role in strengthening and rebuilding the Department which lost 343 members on September 11th, 2001. Fire Commissioner Scoppetta is a former Deputy Mayor and Commissioner of Investigation for the City of New York. He received his Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School in 1962. While attending law school at night, he worked by day as an investigator for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He is a past President and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Children’s Aid Society, a not-for-profit social service agency that annually serves more than 200,000 needy children in New York City. Commissioner Scoppetta was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. When he was five years old he was placed in a children’s shelter and lived in various foster care institutions until he turned 12. He attended public schools in Manhattan. After serving two years in the Army, he attended Bradley University on the G.I. Bill and graduated in 1958 with a degree in Engineering. Upon graduation from law school, he was appointed an Assistant District Attorney in New York County by District Attorney Frank S. Hogan. He has also served as Associate Counsel to the Knapp Commission, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and as the Deputy Independent Counsel in the investigation and prosecution of a former Special Assistant to the President of the United States. Fire Commissioner Scoppetta has served on numerous boards of not-for-profit institutions and is a past member of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. From February 1994 to January 1996, he was Chairman of the five-member Commission to Combat Police Corruption, which was created by former Mayor Giuliani to monitor the New York City Police Department’s anti-corruption efforts. Mr. Scoppetta lives in New York City with his wife. They have two grown children.
Jacob Doek
Jacob Doek is Chairman of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child; Professor of Family and Juvenile Law. Director, Office of International Relations, both at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Deputy Juvenile Court Judge, District Court, The Hague. Member (President-elect) of the European Law Faculties Association. Law Faculty, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam 1961-1967 and Doctor’s Degree 1972.Visiting Scholar, Georgetown University Law School (five months) and Michigan University Law School (four months) in 1993. Founding member of Defence for Children International (Geneva); member of Board 1979-1986. Founding member of the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse; Board member 1977-1992; President 1982-1984; Vice President, developing countries, 1984-1992. Involved in establishing African Network for Prevention and Protection of Child Abuse and neglect. Board member, International Association for Family and Juvenile Court Magistrates, 1982-1986. Member of the International Working Group on Child Labour, 1992-1997; final report published in June 1998 based on 34 country studies.
Dr. Jane Aronson
Dr. Jane Aronson has been an Adoption Medicine Specialist for 13 years and has evaluated over 3,500 children adopted from abroad from countries all over the world. As the Founder and Executive Medical Director of Worldwide Orphans Foundation, which sponsors research and education in orphanages abroad, she has traveled to many orphanages in Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia, and Latin America. The mission of the foundation is to learn about orphanage health issues and plan strategies to improve orphanage conditions. The foundation sends students and healthcare professionals as participants in the Orphan Ranger Program to live and work in orphanages to form liaisons with orphanage educators, staff, and doctors in an attempt to improve living conditions for orphans.
Mark Testa
Mark Testa is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1994 to 2002, he held a joint appointment as the Research Director for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, where his research was instrumental in policy innovations leading to better services for children and families. He is currently the Director of the Children and Family Research Center an independent research organization created jointly by the University and Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. He is also serving as Principal Investigator and Co-Director with Judge Nancy Salyers for Fostering Results, a public education campaign funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts to improve federal financing and accountability in foster care. Professor Testa is the recipient of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Adoption 2002 Excellence Award for Applied Scholarship and Research and the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid Society’s Blue Bow Award for significant contributions for the prevention of child abuse. This year he was named a recipient of the 2005 University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. His recent publications include: “The Social Ecology of Child Endangerment in A Century of Juvenile Justice” by University of Chicago Press, “Subsidized Guardianship: Testing an Idea Whose Time Has Finally Come” in Social Work Research, and “The Quality of Permanence, Lasting or Binding” forthcoming in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law.
Marcia Robinson Lowry
Marcia Robinson Lowry is the executive director of Children’s Rights, Inc., the leading national, non-profit organization fighting for the rights of children in state foster care custody. Children’s Rights, which Ms. Lowry founded in 1995, protects America’s most vulnerable children using policy, public education, and the power of the courts. Currently, the organization has eight systems under court supervision, seven as the result of court-ordered settlements. (Three additional settlements have expired.) Cases are pending in two additional jurisdictions. Ms. Lowry has dedicated her legal career to protecting the rights of children. Formerly director of the Children’s Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union (1973-1979) and the American Civil Liberties Union (1979-1995), Ms. Lowry has a long history of reforming child welfare systems. She pioneered the first body of law to protect children in foster care, bringing increased attention and public scrutiny to systems that were all but ignored. Her work at Children’s Rights uses litigation or the threat of litigation in conjunction with national and local policy analysts, experts, and government officials to implement realistic, long-term solutions to change the lives of children. These efforts have created concrete changes in foster care systems such as more funding and resources, as well as improved management and better outcomes for children.
Cassie Statuto Bevan
Cassie Statuto Bevan, Ed.D. Senior Policy Advisor to the Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives. Cassie Statuto Bevan received her doctorate in Child Development from Columbia University. She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Bush Program for Child Development and Social Policy at the University of Michigan. Dr. Bevan went to Washington, D.C. on a Congressional Science Fellowship under the auspices of the Society for Research in Child Development and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has been an Adjunct Professor at Marymount Manhattan College, Columbia University and The Catholic University of America. Dr. Bevan has led a Department of Defense sponsored study of military families at the Family Impact Seminar at The Catholic University of America. She went to the U.S. House of Representatives (HOR) to work for the newly established Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families in 1984 and after several years became the Republican Staff Director. Cassie joined the National Council For Adoption in 1993 to become the Principal Investigator of the Child Protection Project and to head the Council’s Office of Public Policy. The Speaker of the House appointed Dr. Bevan to serve as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare in 1994. The following year, Dr. Bevan returned to the House of Representatives as a Professional Staff Member to the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means and was promoted to Staff Director at the beginning of the 107th Congress. In 2001, Dr. Bevan joined the then House Majority Whip, Tom DeLay, to serve as his Senior Policy Advisor handling child welfare, welfare reform, and other domestic issues. Today she serves House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as his Senior Policy Advisor with a broad issues portfolio. Dr. Bevan was a principal staffer of the Inter-Ethnic Placement Act of 1996; the Adoption Tax Credit of 1996; the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997; the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000, the DC Family Court Act of 2001 and the House passed welfare reform reauthorization, the Personal Responsibility, Work and Family Promotion Act of 2002. Dr. Bevan was a member of the Bush Cheney transition team. Dr. Bevan serves on the Board of Directors of the Safe Shores DC Children’s Advocacy Center. She has received numerous awards for outstanding leadership in child advocacy from the National Council for Adoption, the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, the National Association of Psychiatric Treatment Centers for Children, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Patrick Murphy
Patrick Murphy graduated graduated from Northwestern University School . He was an assistant state’s attoney doing criminal felony trials for two years before joining the Peace Corps. He served in Somalia where he worked first with the Minister of Grace and Justice and then with the National Police Force. In the 1970’s he was a lawyer with the Legal Assistance Foundation in Chicago where he operated a store front law office on Chicago’s west side. In 1975 he became a Fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs and subsequently was the Executive Director of the Governor’s Commission to Revise the Illinois Mental Health Code. After five years in the private practice of law he was appointed Public Guardian of Cook County, a position he held for 26 years. In that capacity he supervised the staff of 300 including 150 lawyers and 35 social workers. The Public Guardian’s Office represented children in abuse cases and also in divorce cases. Besides this, they acted as guardian of 650 disabled adults and over $60,000,000 of their assets. During his career, Mr. Murphy argued and won cases on behalf of the indigent, the disabled and child clients in the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals, the Illinois Federal Court and in every division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Mr. Murphy has had 3 books and over 80 articles published. He has lectured in every part of the country on child welfare and senior law and also spent 2 weeks in Kosovo working with a U.N. sponsored project in drawing up a criminal code. He has testified on at least six occasions before the committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He has testified on at least six occasions before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He has served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Chicago and also taught Law and Sociology courses at DePaul and Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. He has been profiled on over 40 occasions in many newspapers and magazines including the New York times, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. He has either been profiled or appeared on dozens of television shows including 60 Minutes, Prime Time, 20/20, Oprah, Rosie and Donohue. In November 2004 he was elected as a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County. He presently hears Domestic Relations cases.
Richard P. Barth
Richard P. Barth, BA, MSW, PHD has degrees from Brown and Berkeley. He is the Frank A. Daniels Distinguished Professor at the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was previously the Hutto Patterson Professor, School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley. His 10 books (all co-authored) include Social and Cognitive Treatment of Children and Adolescents, From Child Abuse to Permanency Planning: Pathways Through Child Welfare Services , The Tender Years: Toward Developmentally-Sensitive Child Welfare Services, The Child Welfare Challenge, and Beyond Common Sense: Child Welfare, Child-Well-Being, and the Evidence for Policy Reform. He has also authored more than 160 book chapters and articles. He was the 1986 winner of the Frank Breul Prize for Excellence in Child Welfare Scholarship from the University of Chicago, a Fulbright Scholar in 1990, the 1998 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Research from the National Association of Social Workers, and the 2005 winner of the Flynn Prize for Research. He has directed more than 40 studies and, most recently, served as Co-Principal Investigator of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, the first national study of child welfare services in the US. He has served as a lecturer and consultant to the Swedish Board of Health and Social Services; the U.S. Children’s Bureau; the states of California, Washington, North Carolina, Connecticut, Minnesota; and many universities. He testified before Congressional sub-committees on occasion.
David Olds
David Olds is Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Preventive Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where he directs the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health. He has devoted his career to investigating methods of preventing health and developmental problems in children and parents from low-income families. His original work, conducted in Elmira, New York, examined the effects of prenatal and postpartum nurse home visitation on the outcomes of pregnancy, infant caregiving, and maternal life-course development, and determined the impact of those services on government spending. He is conducting additional scientifically controlled studies of this program in Memphis, Tennessee and Denver, Colorado to determine the replicability of the findings from Elmira. The Denver study is designed also to determine the unique contributions that paraprofessional and nurse home visitors can make toward improving the health of mothers and children from low-income families.
In recent years, he has begun helping new communities develop the program outside of research contexts, giving emphasis to ensuring quality implementation with fidelity to the model tested in the scientifically controlled studies. At this time, the Nurse Family Partnership, as the program is now called, has been replicated in 21 states and over 250 counties throughout the United States.
A member of the American Pediatrics Society, Dr. Olds has received numerous awards for his research, including the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health, the Lela Rowland Prevention Award from the National Mental Health Association, a Senior Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Brooke Visiting Professorship in Epidemiology from the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. Olds obtained his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. from Cornell.
Suzin Bartley
Suzin Bartley, LICSW is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund, which leads statewide efforts to support and strengthen families, and thereby prevent child abuse.
Children’s Trust Fund has launched Healthy Families Massachusetts, a statewide program of voluntary home visits for first-time parents under the age of 21. In addition, the Children’s Trust Fund has taken a leadership role in funding and promoting programs that encourage fathers to be actively involved in their children’s lives.
Ms. Bartley is currently a member of the following Committees/Commissions/Boards:
- Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence
- United Way Leadership Council for Children and Youth
- Boston College School of Social Work Advisory Board
Ms. Bartley has served on the following Committees/Commissions/Boards:
- Governor’s Advisory Commission on Responsible Fatherhood and Family Support
- Cardinal’s Commission for the Protection of Children where she was Chairperson of the Public Policy Committee and the Education Committee
- Implementation & Oversight Board for the Archdiocese of Boston
- Governor’s Task Force on Sexual Assault and Abuse
- Governor’s Commission on School Readiness where she was Committee Chair of the Family Support Task Force
- Governor Cellucci’s Transition Team
Ms. Bartley was an International Fellow in Applied Developmental Science at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. Ms. Bartley trained at the Yale Child Study Center, holds a Masters of Social Work degree from the Smith College School for Social Work, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She currently resides in Milton and is a mother of two school-aged boys.
Jennifer Atler
Jennifer Atler graduated, with honors, from Duke University with a degree in Economics and went on to receive her law degree, with honors, from Georgetown University Law Center. While practicing corporate and tax law as an associate at Holland & Hart, she became Invest in Kids pro-bono counsel in 1997. She joined the board in 1998 and came on as one of the organization’s initial two staff members in 1999. In 2000 she became the Executive Director. Under her leadership, Invest in Kids helped to secure state funding for Nurse-Family Partnership, a proven nurse home visitation program, which is now serving over 2,200 families in 51 of Colorado’s 64 counties. Invest in Kids has also replicated The Incredible Years, a highly effective preschool program, in 16 communities across the state, serving over 1,500 children and 300 parents. Since joining Invest in Kids, Jennifer received the Children’s Health and Welfare Award from the Colorado Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was chosen one of Denver’s 40 up and coming business leaders under 40, and was named a Woman of Distinction by the Mile Hi Council of the Girl Scouts.
Margaret H. Marshall
Hon. Margaret H. Marshall is Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. A native of South Africa, she graduated from Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg in 1966. In 1966, she was elected as President of the National Union of South African Students, and served in that capacity until 1968, when she came to the United Stated to pursue her graduate studies. She received a master’s degree from Harvard University, and her J.D. from Yale Law School. Chief Justice Marshall was an associate and later a partner, in the Boston law firm of Csaplar & Bok, and was a partner in the Boston law firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart. Before her appointment to the Supreme Judicial Court, she was Vice President and General Counsel of Harvard University. First appointed as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court in November 1996, she was named as Chief Justice in September, 1999, by Governor Paul Cellucci, and began her term on October 14, 1999, following her confirmation by the Governor’s Council. Chief Justice Marshall is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Judicial Court in its more than 300-year history, and the first woman to serve as Chief Justice.
Judith S. Kaye
Hon. Judith S. Kaye was sworn in as Chief Judge of the State of New York on March 23, 1993, becoming the first woman to occupy the top judicial office of New York State. She became the first woman to serve on New York State’s highest Court when Governor Mario M. Cuomo appointed her Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals in September 1983
Chief Judge Kaye is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts, a member of the Conference of Chief Justices, Chair of the Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, a member of the Board of Editors of the New York State Bar Journal , a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Judicial Administration, Founding Member and Honorary Chair of Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA), and serves as Trustee of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation. From 2004-05 she was Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Commission on the American Jury. She is also a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Women s Bar Association of the State of New York, the Association of Women Judges (New York and national) and the American Philosophical Society.
Judge Kaye is the author of numerous publications, particularly articles dealing with legal process, state constitutional law, women in law, professional ethics and problem-solving courts. She is the recipient of various awards, including the American Bar Association Justice Center John Marshall Award, the North American Council on Adoptable Children’s Adoption Activist Award, the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the National Center for State Courts’ William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, the New York County Lawyers Association’s William Nelson Cromwell Award, New York University Law School’s Vanderbilt Medal, the Barnard College President’s Medal, the Gold Medal of the New York State Bar Association and the Fordham-Stein Prize. She has also received numerous honorary degrees.
Chief Judge Kaye is a 1958 graduate of Barnard College and received her LL.B. cum laude from New York University School of Law in 1962. She engaged in private practice in New York City until her appointment to the Court of Appeals.
She and her husband, Stephen Rackow Kaye, a practicing lawyer, are the proud parents of Luisa, Jonathan and Gordon, and proud grandparents of Sonja, Andrea, Ben, Shirin, Amelia and Shayna.
Gloria Sosa-Lintner
Hon. Gloria Sosa-Lintner was born in New York City, born to Puerto Rican parents who migrated to New York in the 1930’s. She was educated in the public school system, graduating from Seward Park High School on the Lower Eastside. She was graduated from Barnard College in 1970 and New York University Law School in 1975. Judge Sosa-Lintner began her legal career practicing labor and employment law. She also served as an Administrative Law Judge, a Special Referee, and a Hearing Examiner. She was a sole practitioner in the Bronx from 1982 – 1985. She was appointed as a Family Court Judge by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1988, and reappointed in 1992 by Mayor David Dinkins. In October of 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg reappointed her for a term that expires Aug. 30, 2012.
Since March 1998, she has been presiding over the New York County Family Treatment Court, a unique court-based intervention program designed to deal with substance abusing parents involved with the Family Court. As a judge in the New York State Family Court, she presides over cases involving families and children. The jurisdiction of the Court is very broad including issues of abuse and neglect of children under the age of 18 years, juvenile delinquency, defined as acts committed by children from ages seven to 16, which are criminal acts if committed by someone more than 16, (those cases go to Criminal Court); cut.stody and visitation, paternity issues of children born out-of-wedlock, child and spousal support, domestic violence, PINS (persons in need of supervision) for truants, runaways, and generally incorrigible children less than 18 years of age. All cases are heard as “bench” trials, since there are no juries in Family Court.
Judge Sosa-Lintner is a member of the Puerto Rican Bar Association and served two year as its first woman president in 1985 – 86. She has served and/or is currently a member of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, the Family Court Advisory Committee for the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Department, the Commission on Drug and the Court, the Interdisciplinary Forum on Mental Health and Family Law, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the Association of Judges of Hispanic Heritage. She is a member of the Board of both the Association of Family Court Judges of the State of New York, and newly revitalized New York City Family Court Judges Association.
Edwina G. Richardson
Hon. Edwina G. Richardson was appointed to the Family Court bench by Mayor Michael R.. Bloomberg on January 24, 2003. She previously worked as a Court Attorney-Referee in Queens County Family Court presiding over post-dispositional child protective proceedings from July 2001 until her appointment to the bench. Prior to that, Judge Richardson worked for ten years as an Assigned Counsel Panel 18-b attorney representing parents and children in New York County Family Court as well as in Supreme Court matrimonial matters. She also served as the first Staff Attorney with the Sanctuary for Families Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services from 1990 – 1991, and with The Legal Aid Society – Bronx County Civil Division from 1988 – 1989, where she represented indigent clients in Housing Court and in proceedings under the Social Services Law. Judge Richardson graduated from the C.U.N.Y. Law School, Queens College in 1988. Judge Richardson also earned a Master of Philosophy degree in Criminal Justice from C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center in 2000, and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice at the C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center in 2002. Judge Richardson taught as an Adjunct Professor in the Law and Police Science Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice from 1990 – 2000, and has lectured frequently on Family Law issues.
She has been a member of several Bar Association committees in involving Family Law and children’s issues, and chaired the Children and the Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York From 1999 – 2001. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New York City Association of Family Court Judges.
Nicolette M. Pach
Hon. Nicolette M. Pach (retired) was a Judge of the Suffolk County Family Court from 1993 – 2002. Judge Pach is currently a Judicial Fellow with the National Drug Court Institute and an independent consultant to national organizations including the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare. Her expertise lies in assisting in the development of Family Dependency Treatment Courts and assisting states and localities with the coordination of family courts with child welfare systems and substance abuse providers.
She presided over New York State’s first Family Treatment Court which opened in 1997. She initiated and oversaw the development of this court, designed to address the needs of children who are neglected as the result of parental substance abuse. The treatment court places equal emphasis on timely permanency for children and parents meeting their obligations to their children while maintaining their sobriety. The model has been highly successful. Judge Pach’s model is now being replicated statewide.
Judge Pach is a frequent speaker at national conferences. She is a member of the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, the New York Unified Court System’s Family Court Advisory and Rules Committee and Co-chair of the Suffolk County N.Y. Task Force to Prevent Family Violence.
Richard Weissbourd
Richard Weissbourd is currently a Lecturer in Education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government. His work focuses on vulnerability and resilience in childhood, moral development and effective schools and services for children. For several years he worked as a psychologist in community mental health centers as well as on the Annie Casey Foundation’s New Futures Project, an effort to prevent children from dropping out of school. He is a founder of several interventions for at-risk children, including ReadBoston and WriteBoston, city-wide literacy initiatives, led by Mayor Menino, a new pilot school that begins with children at 3 years old, and Project ASPIRE, a social and ethical development intervention in three Boston schools. He has advised on the city, state and federal levels on family policy and school reform. He has written for numerous scholarly and popular publications. He is the author of The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America’s Children and What We Can Do About It (Addison-Wesley, 1996), and is currently working on a book on moral development (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
Kyle Dodson
Kyle Dodson is currently the Principal of the Lee Academy Pilot School in Dorchester, MA. During the prior school year he was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Boston Principal Fellows Program, a one-year intensive program to train new leaders for the Boston Public Schools. Before coming to Boston, Mr. Dodson worked at Saint Michaels’s College (Colchester. VT) for eight years doing a number of jobs, the last of which was as the Director of Multicultural Student Affairs. Earlier in his career, Mr. Dodson worked as a Mortgage-backed Securities trader at the Wall Street firm, PaineWebber Inc. Mr. Dodson earned an undergraduate degree in History from Harvard University and an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia University. Mr. Dodson is currently working toward an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Vermont.
Roderick L. Ireland
Roderick L. Ireland was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court by Governor William F. Weld in 1997, and is the first African-American to sit on this bench. Previously, he served as an Associate Justice of the Appeals Court for seven years, and as an Associate Justice of the Boston Juvenile Court for almost thirteen years, both appointments by Governor Michael S. Dukakis.
Justice Ireland received his B.A. degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1966, his J.D. degree from Columbia University Law School in 1969, and his LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School in 1975, where he was a teaching fellow. In 1998, Justice Ireland earned his Ph.D. at Northeastern University in its Law, Policy and Society Program.
A native of Springfield, Massachusetts, Justice Ireland began his legal career as an attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services in New York City. In 1970 he returned to Massachusetts and was a staff attorney at the Harvard Center for Law and Education. From 1971 to 1973 Justice Ireland served as chief attorney, then deputy and executive director at the Roxbury Defenders Committee. He also worked as a part-time hearing officer for the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission, 1973-75, part-time legal counsel for the Roxbury District Court Clinic, 1974-77, and as an associate at Burnham, Stern and Shapiro in 1975. From 1975 to 1977 he served as Assistant Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance, and in 1977, as Chairman of the state Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Liability Policies and Bonds.
Justice Ireland began teaching law courses in 1972 at Harvard Law School, and since 1978 has been an adjunct faculty member at both the School of Law and College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. He has also been a faculty member of the Appellate Judges Seminar at New York University Law School since 2001. He is the author of Massachusetts Juvenile Law , volume 44 of the Massachusetts Practice Series, published by West Publishing Company in 1993.
Since its inception in 1990, Justice Ireland has been an advisor and teacher for the SJC’s Judicial Youth Corps, a court education program for high school students. He is also a regular participant in bar activities and continuing legal education programs. Active in his community, Justice Ireland is a frequent speaker in schools, churches and community forums. He has been an active member of his church for many years, participating in numerous church-sponsored programs and initiatives.
Among the many awards Justice Ireland has received throughout his career are the Boston College Law School’s St. Thomas More Award; several Honorary Doctor of Law degrees; The Judicial Excellence Award from the Massachusetts Bar Association and Lawyers Weekly Newspaper in 2001; the Judicial Excellence Award from the Massachusetts Judges Conference in 1996; the prestigious Haskell Cohn Distinguished Judicial Service Award presented by the Boston Bar Association in 1990; and the Boston Covenant Peace Prize in 1982 in recognition of his efforts to promote racial justice.
Francine T. Sherman
Francine T. Sherman is the founder and Director of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project at Boston College Law School where she provides comprehensive representation to delinquent girls, policy advocacy for girls in the justice system, and legal services and education to high school students. She is a Clinical Professor at Boston College Law School where she has been teaching Juvenile Justice for the past fifteen years. She speaks widely about girls in the justice system and contextual legal services for system involved youth and is doing ongoing research into the pathways girls take into and through justice systems as well as effective practices for attorney’s representing girls. She is a founding member of the Girls’ Justice Initiative and the author of their recent report, Girls in the Juvenile Justice System: Perspectives on Services and Conditions of Confinement . She is the author of a recent report entitled Detention Reform and Girls: Challenges and Solutions, published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and regularly consults with foundations and juvenile justice systems on policy relating to girls in the juvenile justice system. She has been a contributor to “Women, Girls & Criminal Justice” where she has written about runaway girls, probation practices, and teen prostitution, and legal strategies for attorneys representing young women. She was a contributor to the 2001 ABA and NBA publication Justice by Gender: The Lack of Appropriate Prevention, Diversion and Treatment Alternatives for Girls in the Justice System, and to the 2001 ABA publication America’s Children Still at Risk. She is co-editor with William Torbert of, Transforming Social Action, Transforming Social Inquiry: New Paradigms for Crossing the Theory/Practice Divide in Universities and Communities (Kluwer Academic, 2000).
Tim Carey
Tim Carey is a graduate of The University of Rhode Island undergrad and Boston College School of Social Work. He worked for the Department of Social Services Child In Need of Services (CHINS) unit for eight years and has been a probation officer for the Middlesex County Juvenile Court for six years, supervising delinquency, CHINS and care and protection cases.
Thomas E. Coury
Thomas E. Coury currently serves as the Executive Director of the Gardiner Howland Shaw Foundation, a Massachusetts based private foundation that focuses its grant-making program in the fields of criminal and juvenile justice. During his time at the Shaw Foundation, he has managed the Foundation’s funding and technical assistance initiatives aimed at improving the administration of criminal and juvenile justice in Massachusetts.
Tom is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969. Following college, he served for three years in the United Stated Air Force where he taught at the Armed Forces Language School in the Republic of Vietnam and later helped establish the military’s first Social Action program to address substance abuse and racial discrimination in the armed services.
After leaving the military, he pursued graduate studies in the fields of counseling and public administration. Prior to joining the Shaw Foundation, he worked for fifteen years in the field of criminal justice in both the private non-profit and public sectors.
Tom has served on numerous local and National Boards and has dedicated much of his time to helping organizations develop and implement strategies aimed at improving organizational growth focus and effectiveness. He formerly served as a member of the Governor’s Advisory Board for the Department of Youth Services and regularly consults for a variety of national organizations on issues relating to criminal and juvenile justice as well as philanthropy.
J. Justin Pasquariello
J. Justin Pasquariello directs AFC Mentoring, the mentoring organization for adopted and foster children that he founded. Justin (JP) spent the first seven years of his life in foster care, kinship care, and the care of his birth mother, who was unable to continue to care for him due to her illness. At the age of seven, he entered his family’s home; they adopted him when he was nine. He went on to Harvard College. While at Harvard, he joined a mentoring program through which he became a mentor for a boy with whom he is still in touch, over eight years later. Justin was also the director of a program that gave interest-free loans to qualified people who were in danger of eviction. Since graduating, he has worked full-time to develop AFC Mentoring. Justin has co-presented keynotes at the national and Oklahoma Pathways to Adulthood conferences. He also has presented addresses and workshops at various other conferences in the US and abroad. Justin has been recognized for AFC Mentoring through the Echoing Green Foundation Fellowship. Despite his general lack of coordination, he was chosen as a Boston Celtics Hero Among Us for the opening game of the 2002-2003 season. He is on the advisory boards of the Treehouse Foundation and the Center for Family Connections. Justin now serves on the young adult committee at St. Clement’s Church in Boston and is one of 30 people on the Boston mayor’s advisory committee of 20-34 year olds. He recently has taken classes in religion and improv comedy. JP lives in East Boston. To learn more about AFC Mentoring, please visit: www.afcmentoring.org.
Terrence Stevens
Terrence Stevens, a native of New York City, is wheelchair confined and virtually paralyzed from the neck down. He was granted Executive Clemency on December 25th, 2000 by Governor Pataki after serving approximately ten years of a fifteen year sentence under the harsh Rockefeller Drug Laws. Mr. Stevens was the only prisoner in the entire New York State Prison system inflicted with Muscular Dystrophy, medically deemed a total care patient. Throughout his incarceration, he required daily assistance with bathing, feeding, wheelchair assistance, being place on and off the toilet and in and out of bed. In addition, Mr. Stevens had to be physically turned every two hours during the night to ease respiratory complications. The severity of Mr. Steven’s condition and grave injustice of his incarceration were featured in several New York Times columns. While incarcerated and attending Marist College, Mr. Stevens often brainstormed innovative ideas which focused on serving children of incarcerated parents. Immediately upon his release, Mr. Stevens received seed funding from Echoing Green, a Wall Street and record executive and started the In Arms Reach organization whose primary concern was providing a multitude of services for this vulnerable population of children. Founded by Terrence Stevens – In Arms Reach, Inc. Parents Behind Bars: Children in Crisis is a not-for-profit-organization located in the historic gothic quadrangle of the City College of New York (CCNY). The renovation of the building’s historic facade is richly decorated with gargoyles and houses state of the art electronic teaching capabilities in a number of classrooms, small-group seminar rooms and multidisciplinary teaching facilities, which fosters the social and academic development for children of incarcerated parents. Board of Directors and advisors include but are not limited to Board Chair Peter L. Greer, Dr. Carl Mazza, retired Supreme Court Justice Jerome W. Marks, Dr. Ben Chavis, Dr. Robert L. Cohen, Jack A. Beck, Esq., Adam Janovic, Ethan Nadelmann, Jason Flom, Julie Stewart and David N. Dinkins. Since In Arms Reach’s inception in 2002, under Mr. Steven’s leadership the program has provided over 25 trips to prison facilities for children to visit with their incarcerated parents, serving a total of 112 children and family members. The In Arms Reach educational program provided over 3,100 hours of tutoring services and 251 after-school mentoring sessions exclusively with children of incarcerated parents. This year, our mentoring and volunteer services include collaboration with the Big Brother Big Sisters of New York City. Mr. Stevens has made several television appearances which include CNN, RNN, UPN 9, ABC, NBC, and Court TV with Catherine Crier, Vibe Magazine and BET Nightly News which featured Jason Flom, Peter Greer, and others.
Matt Dalio
Matt Dalio was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. At age 11 Matt spent a year living with a Chinese family and attending an all-Chinese school in Bejing, China. That year would change his view of the world forever. A few years later, Matt returned to China out of a desire to learn about China’s orphan care system. After bearing witness to the harsh realities that so many children face, he decided to take action. When Matt returned to the United States he founded the China Care Foundation as a small idea to help the children left behind. With the support of so many, that foundation has grown into a million dollar foundation with offices in the United States and China, and has helped hundreds of children and families realize a better life.
Lynn A. Girton
Lynn A. Girton is Chief Counsel of the Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association. Prior to this position, she was the Managing Attorney of the Employment and Welfare Unit of Greater Boston Legal Services. She has practiced in the areas of family law as well as employment and unemployment matters. She has taught many courses and is published in many law journals. She was the recipient of the Massachusetts Bar Association Pro Bono Legal Services Award. Recently, she was asked to be a member of the BBA Public Service Committee.