I've worked in juvenile justice for the past 25 years, and worked with youth in multiple settings for the last 30 years. I'm currently the Director - Chief of a juvenile probation department with a detention and a post adjudication facility. I've held management positions for the last 15 years, and was the training coordinator for a large urban juvenile probation department, and responsible for implementing motivational interviewing for our entire staff. I'm a member of TMIC (Texas Motivational Interviewing Cooperative), and served as the chair of the collaborative for statewide criminal justice systems. Our organization has been working on building internal capacity for criminal justice organizations throughout the state of Texas. I've worked in all aspects of juvenile justice, and was the director of our juvenile drug court in the past. I'm excited to help youth and young adult serving agencies utilize Motivational Interviewing to help engage young people and their families working collaboratively towards change.
I earned a PhD in a Leadership Studies program. The dissertation was focused on MI in leadership/business/org. culture. Training in MI and leadership was a focus of my dissertation, and I'm interested in helping organizations find a way to help all individuals develop their skills. Leadership is everyone's business.
I'm particularly interested in working with adolescent and young adult serving agencies. I have experience in the Drug Court arena, trauma informed care, and social justice.
I'm a Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) practitioner and that brings a lens of being sensitive to trauma and focused on the needs of the individual.
I completed a PhD in Leadership Studies and did some work on the intersection and interaction of MI and Leadership, so this is obviously an area of interest. I'm a cofounder of MILO.