My background

With over 25 years of experience working in the fields of health, mental health, and education, I have helped to build interconnected systems that support the physical, social, emotional and mental health needs of young people at the school, district, state and national level.

I first saw the power of schools to transform the lives of students as a clinician providing mental health services in a school-based health center in an immigrant community in Chicago. This experience led to what has become a career in systems-level work across the fields of SEL and mental health.

As Project Manager for the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership, I helped convene a statewide coalition of policymakers, practitioners, and advocates who worked tirelessly to bring about comprehensive change to the state’s children’s mental health system which included the adoption of the state SEL Standards by the Illinois Board of Education.

Leading a national school mental health initiative at the School Based Health Alliance in Washington, DC afforded me the opportunity to continue to work on system level change by building capacity of school districts and state education agencies in school mental health. In this role, I was also able to advance the integrated school health model by providing mental health technical assistance to school health centers across the country.

Working both as an Mental Health Consultant for Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and later for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), I was instrumental in developing and bringing a multi-disciplinary service delivery model, the “behavioral health team” (BHT) to scale in the district. By embedding this model into the multi-tiered system support (MTSS) framework, training school staff through professional learning communities, and providing on-site coaching to individual schools, BHTs are now recognized as a key strategy throughout CPS.

As one of CPS’ first cadre of Network SEL Specialists, and later as Manager of High School SEL Supports in CPS’ Office of Social and Emotional Learning, I developed a deep appreciation for SEL as I supported schools across the district in developing the systems, structures, and practices to implement SEL school-wide.

My commitment to young people - and all the sectors that serve them - has continued as an independent consultant for organizations, schools, school districts, and health providers who are seeking to bring about positive change. See my client list here.