Operations Committee

Stephen Ambrose, Ph.D. - Clinical Director

Dr. Ambrose is Senior Vice President of the Leadership Center at CII, and serves on the LA Juvenile Dependency Court Panel of Experts. As a licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Ambrose has more than 25 years of experience providing direct clinical services, as well as supervising and training multi-disciplinary staff in the fields of child abuse and neglect, perinatal substance abuse, and family violence. Dr. Ambrose is a former foster parent.

sambrose@childrensinstitute.org, 213-385-5100 ext. 1804

William Arroyo, M.D. – Principal Investigator

Dr. Arroyo serves as the Medical Director of Child, Youth, and Family Administration of LACDMH. He is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at USC Keck School of Medicine, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry where among other subjects he provides a cultural mental health series of lectures to child and adolescent psychiatric residents. He has been actively involved in policy development and program development at both county and state levels and is a member of statewide infant mental health committee led by CADMH. He has also been appointed as a member of the statewide Advisory Committee to the SCHIP. During the past 5 years, Dr. Arroyo has managed grants from CADMH for B – 5 year olds and has assisted in the development of interagency training around B - 5 mental health issues, as well as in the development of a network of mental health agencies that provide B–5 mental health services through LACDMH contracts.

warroyo@dmh.lacounty.gov, 213-738-4615

Kimberley Clayton Blaine, MFT - Social Marketing Director

Kimberley Blaine is a licensed Family and Child Therapist with a specialty in working with children ages newborn to six years old. Her practice, KCB Consulting provides Emotional Well-Being in-services to local preschools and childcare centers. Kimberley is the creator of The Go-To Mom.TV web based parenting show for families with young children. She has created children’s coloring books for the California Department of Criminal Justice Planning and has coordinated conferences for CA Dept. of social Services. Kimberley currently teaches “Early Childhood Brain Development” and “Positive Discipline Strategies” at UCLA Extension Education Department.

kcb@kcbconsult.com, 213-385-5100

Jo Dennis, Ph.D. – CII Administrative Director for ABC

Dr. Jo Dennis is CII's Senior Vice President for Programs and a licensed psychologist. She is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness, quality and growth of agency programs, including those related to early care and education, mental health, and child welfare. Prior to joining CII, she worked in the public school system as well as Head Start for 12 years and holds California School Psychologist, Administrative Services, and General Elementary teaching credentials. Her clinical interests include assessment, early identification and intervention, children with behavioral disorders, and organizational psychology.

jdennis@childrensinstitute.org, 213-385-5100 ext. 2074

Mary M. Emmons – Project Co-Investigator

Ms. Emmons is CEO of CII, and has more than 30 years experience in government and non-profit children’s services. She has been appointed to numerous public policy boards including the CA Child Development Programs Advisory Committee, the Child Welfare League of America’s National Advisory Committee on Chemical Dependency and Child Welfare, and the Child Welfare League of America’s Management and Governance Standards Committee.

memmons@childrensinstitute.org, 213-385-5100 ext. 1800

Karen Moran Finello, Ph.D. – Project Director

Dr. Finello, an applied developmental psychologist with expertise in longitudinal research and infant, toddler and preschool mental health, is Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at USC Keck School of Medicine and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences. She taught doctoral level courses in child clinical psychology and infant mental health, supervised research conducted in community settings, and directed dissertations for eleven years while Professor of Child Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University-Los Angeles. Since 1987, she has directed home visiting programs for very low birth weight infants, infants born to substance abusing women, and infants, toddlers and preschoolers with mental health needs in LA County. She was selected by the state of California to collaborate in the development of comprehensive, multi-county, multi-agency pilot projects providing perinatal substance abuse services to pregnant and parenting mothers. She has particular expertise in the design and delivery of home-based services to impoverished, Spanish-speaking families, based on a family sensitive, collaborative, and interdisciplinary approach. Finello chaired a statewide task force to develop training standards for mental health and allied health and educational professionals providing services to infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families in California. She recently published a handbook of training and practice in infant and preschool mental health.

kfinello@chla.usc.edu, 213-383-5967

Gabriella Del Gaudio – CII Key Family Contact

Having overcome many adversities, Gabriella brings a different perspective to Project ABC. Being a teenage mother at 15, having a child with a Co-occuring diagnosis, both Autism and Depression, and struggling to maintain her educational goals, Gabby has experience and knowledge that help families through their process into the Infant Mental Health System. She has both clinical skills and life experience that help support, educate and advocate for families needs.

gdelgaudio@alliant.edu, 213-385-5100 ext. 1840

Fran Goldfarb, MA, CHES – CHLA Key Family Contact

Ms. Goldfarb is the Director of Parent and Family Resources at the USC UCEDD and serves as Family Resource Discipline Director in the Interdisciplinary Leadership Education in Neuro-development Program. Goldfarb is the mother of a 13-year-old child who has special mental health needs. She received her Master’s degree in Social Science, emphasis in Family Life Education, from Azusa Pacific College in 1977. She also has a BA in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College. She has been the Director of Parent and Family Resources at the USC University Affiliated Program, CHLA and the Parent Faculty in the Interdisciplinary Leadership Education in Neuro-developmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program at the USC/UAP since 1997. She is the Parent/Health Educator on the Los Angeles Medical Home Project for Children with Special Health Care Needs and a member of the LA Partnership for Special Needs Children (LAPSNC) and an active Parent to Parent volunteer.

fgoldfarb@chla.usc.edu, 323-361-2300 ext. 3831

Marisa Davis, MCM – Project Coordinator II

As a Los Angeles native, Ms. Davis has seen her fair share of extravagant events and has always been fascinated with how they were coordinated. After completing her bachelor’s degree from Clark Atlanta University, Davis began working at Giant International, a start-up consumer electronics company in Atlanta, Georgia, as their Marketing Coordinator. Through this position, Ms. Davis was able to develop her event management skills by managing four tradeshows a year in the consumer electronic and outdoor industries. Her organizational skills, ability to multitask, and familiarity with web content management systems allowed Davis to successfully organize the first brand tradeshow and website launch for Giant International within budget during the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. After two years at Giant International, Davis decided to relocate back to Los Angeles and attend the University of Southern California, where she earned her Master’s in Communication Management with a concentration in Marketing Communications from the Annenberg School for Communication. From her marked success with Giant, Ms. Davis was most recently hired as the Project Coordinator II for Project ABC in order to ensure the coordination and event management of the program’s first National Training Conference, Strive to Thrive: Building Systems that Care for Birth to Fives. With the help from Ms. Davis, Project ABC’s first National Conference was a success and within budget. Davis has certainly become a wonderful addition to Project ABC as she currently provides administrative oversight for the program and assists the Project Director with coordinating events for the program’s calendar.

madavis@chla.usc.edu, 213-383-5992

Ferol E. Mennen, MSW, Ph.D. - Evaluator

Before her academic career, she worked in inpatient and outpatient mental health settings in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her research is focused on the mental health implications of child abuse and neglect. Dr. Mennen is Co-Principal Investigator of a longitudinal study funded by NICHD on the effects of abuse and neglect on adolescent development in multiple domains (psychological, social, cognitive, behavior, and physical). This study has a sample of 450 children and their caretakers (Latino, African-American, & Caucasian) and the third round of data collection is about to begin. Her publications relate to the effects of abuse and neglect on children, cross cultural issues in abuse and neglect, and the implications of child abuse to intervention. She has presented at professional meetings on this subject as well as to community groups. She also has expertise in the area of protection of human subjects having served at the Delegated Review Chair for the School of Social Work and member of the Institutional Review Board of USC.

mennen@usc.edu, 213-740-0295

Richard Miyake – DCFS Assistant Regional Administrator

Richard Miyake is an Assistant Regional Administrator with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. His responsibilities include the administration of line operations in the provision of child protective services, and regional oversight of several community programs that include Family Preservation, Partnership For Families, Linkages, and Project ABC. He has served as a child welfare trainer and Field Instructor for MSW interns within the department, and has taught the Integrated Seminar on Child Welfare at UCLA. He has experience working with individuals with chronic mental disabilities, while with the Department of Mental Health, in San Mateo County, CA, as well as with individuals with developmental disabilities, as the director of an agency providing vocational habilitation services in Prince George's County, Maryland.

miyakr@dcfs.lacounty.gov, 213-639-4235

Marie Kanne Poulsen, Ph.D. – Project Co-Investigator

Dr. Poulsen is Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at USC Keck School of Medicine and Director of Psychology at USC UCEDD at CHLA. She has worked extensively in the areas of service delivery, research, program development and policy addressing the needs of infants and young children with mental health vulnerabilities and disorders. She has provided consultation and technical assistance to early intervention, foster care, HeadStart, preschool, childcare and LACDMH programs. Her work centers on building resilience in children with mental health risk due to biological and psychosocial circumstances. Dr. Poulsen has a Governor’s appointment to the State Interagency Coordinating Council on Early Intervention and served on the California Child Development Policy Committee and the California Infant/Family Mental Health Initiative Committee. She was an invited participant at the 1999 White House Conference on Mental Health and presented at the Eighth Infant Mental Health World Congress in Amsterdam.

mpoulsen@chla.usc.edu, 323-361-3819

Tara Rose, Ph.D. – Evaluation Manager

Dr. Rose is a Research Assistant Professor of Social Work at the USC. Dr. Rose was the evaluation project director for the SAMHSA “Women, Co-Occurring Disorders and Violence Study” local site in LA and for the Children's Subset Study. These two studies followed women and their children receiving integrative, trauma-sensitive treatment. Dr. Rose has 16 years experience managing longitudinal research studies with qualitative and quantitative components. At the Murray Research Center at Harvard University, she supervised the preparation of some well-known, classic American longitudinal studies of children and families for secondary analysis. Her specialties are program evaluation, underserved and underrepresented populations (particularly Latinos and African Americans), and the difficulties they face accessing services. Rose has expertise in data analysis, combining qualitative and quantitative data. She is working on her third book, Research Methods for Program Evaluation.

trose@usc.edu, 213-440-1001

Marian E. Williams, Ph.D. – Clinical Director

Marian Williams, PhD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the USC Keck School of Medicine, became Director of The CHILD Center in 2007. Dr. Williams was formerly the Program Area Lead for Early Childhood Mental Health Services at the UCEDD. In addition to leadership for the CHILD Center, Dr. Williams collaborates with faculty of the USC Center for Premature Infant Health and Development, serves as faculty for the LEND Training Program, teaches graduate courses in the USC Department of Psychology, and participates in Project ABC, a collaborative work group that improves the system of care for children aged birth to five and their families. A licensed psychologist with expertise in infant mental health, psychological assessment, developmental disabilities, interdisciplinary training, and access to services, Dr. Williams is currently developing and implementing research projects to promote attachment and improve feeding and developmental outcomes in preterm infants, develop improved systems for early diagnosis and intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders, and improve mental health care for infants and toddlers in the foster care system.

mwilliams@chla.usc.edu, 323-361-8525

Leticia Ximenez, Psy.D. – DMH Birth to Five Coordinator

Dr. Ximénez is the Birth-To-Five and School-Based Mental Health Program Coordinator for SPA 4, Los Angeles County, Department of Mental Health. She has designed, implemented, and assessed programs and represented agencies in countywide and statewide administrative meetings and committees. Dr. Ximénez has coordinated and supervised programs with DMH, Community Based Organizations (CBO’s), and other organizations. She has provided in-service and consultation, as well as presentations, workshops, and trainings in community, organizational, and clinical settings. Dr. Ximénez has conducted trauma recovery, crisis intervention, psychological assessment, psychotherapy, rehabilitation services, and case management to individuals, couples, families, and groups in outpatient, school, day treatment, and juvenile detention settings. Dr. Ximénez is committed to a mental health, multidisciplinary, and multi-cultural perspective, as well as community education, organization, and empowerment.

lximenez@dmh.lacounty.gov, 213-738-6193

David Zippin, Ph.D. – DMH Chief Research Analyst

David Zippin is Chief Research Analyst with LACDMH. He completed postdoctoral training programs in mental health program evaluation and in pediatrics at UCLA. He has been responsible for managing the collection of the children's performance outcome measures required by the California State DMH for clients served by LACDMH treatment programs.

dzippin@dmh.lacounty.gov, 213-783-4614