Meet Your Technical Assistance Lead
Ivonn Ellis-Wiggan - Delaware's B.E.S.T. for Young Children
Ivonn Ellis-Wiggan senior manager employed by the National Federation of Families and is the Deputy Director of Programs for the TA Partnership. Prior to this position, she served as a Regional Technical Assistance Coordinator. She also serves as a member of senior management staff with the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health. In addition to her work in the field of social services she brings an abundance of skills, knowledge and abilities in health services obtained through over twenty years of military service. Dr. Ellis-Wiggan has served as a health services administrator, clinical and operations director, residential, health and community psychologist, director of a mental health unit in a correctional facility, crisis screener and forensic evaluator. Dr. Ellis-Wiggan holds a Juris Doctorate from Widener University and spent some time working on writs of habeas corpus on behalf of death row inmates in Pennsylvania. Dr. Ellis-Wiggan has served her community through her volunteer work with youth and homeless individuals. She is active in her church and was instrumental in developing partnerships with faith-based institutions while working in the New Jersey System of Care. In 2003 – 2004, Dr. Ellis-Wiggan co-presented a series of Cultural Competency trainings to stakeholders within the New Jersey System of Care. She was identified by the community as one of its cultural competency leaders. Dr. Ellis-Wiggan is the parent of a young adult with mental health needs.
Regenia Hicks - MD Cares and Rural Cares of Talbot County, Maryland
Regenia A. Hicks, Ph.D. is the TA Partnership's Project Director. She is be responsible for the TA Partnership’s substantive, administrative, and financial activities. She ensures that the Government Project Officer and other CMHS staff as well as TA Partnership staff are informed of all major project activities. She meets regularly with the GPO and other CMHS staff to ensure that all project requirements are met, effectively obtaining and allocating the resources needed to meet project schedules. Dr. Hicks assigns tasks and supervises all project staff members in the performance of project tasks; approves all aspects of the project’s budgets; and meets routinely with the Content Specialists, the Technical Assistance Coordinators, the Quality Assurance/Contracts Manager, and the Deputy Directors to monitor the status of all project activities. She works with the Deputy Directors to coordinate tasks and prepare deliverables, assists in developing agendas for the system of care meetings, and chairs the Executive Committee.
Dr. Hicks is a psychologist with a 30-year history of providing children’s services in community based and residential settings, as well as experience in planning and program development at the state and federal levels. Prior to joining AIR, she served as the State Director for Children’s Mental Health in Maryland and Texas and the Deputy Director for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Harris County (Houston), Texas. While in Harris County, she was responsible for the development of a continuum of services for youth in the juvenile justice system, pre-school populations, and school-based mental health. She serves and has served on a number of boards and commissions: Mental Health Association of Greater Houston Board; Asian American Family Services Board; Texas Youth Commission Blue Ribbon Task Force on Juvenile Justice Transformation; Technical Advisory Committee, Harris County Mental Health Plan, Joint City/County Commission on Children and Youth; National Institute of Mental Health Child Council; Florida Mental Health Institute, Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health Board; Center for Mental Health Services Cultural Competence Committee; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, National Advisory Committee, Mental Health Services for Youth Program; and the State Mental Health Representatives for Children and Youth and the National Mental Health Association Board.
Sharon Hunt - Family Matters of Orange County, New York
Sharon Hunt, Deputy Director of Operations and substance abuse content specialist for the TA Partnership, is a social service professional with over 25 years of experience working in the social service field in a variety of capacities, including: administrator, researcher, policy analyst, clinician, and volunteer. She has managed programs for homeless individuals and residential programs for adolescents and adults with serious mental health issues (many with co-occurring disorders), and has worked as a foster care social worker. From 1994–1997, she was a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism predoctoral trainee in health services research on alcohol-related problems.
In 1997, as a part of a larger Center for Substance Abuse Treatment study, Dr. Hunt co-led a multi-site qualitative study of the impact of the termination of SSI benefits to individuals who had drug addiction and alcoholism as a disabling condition. As a part of the project, she also provided TA to other health services researchers on understanding substance abuse, disability benefits, and local safety nets. Prior to her work on the TA Partnership, Dr. Hunt worked at Northrop Grumman as the Deputy Project Director on the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) Technical Assistance for Youth Treatment contract. She conducted site visits, helped to oversee the evaluation activities of a multi-site study, and provided TA on clinical and research issues to adolescent treatment grantees, including Strengthening Communities—Youth (SCY) grantees. Dr. Hunt is a licensed foster parent, a high school mentor, and an adoptive parent of two older girls, one with special needs.
Sandy Keenan - Kentucky System to Enhance Early Development (SEED)
Sandra Keenan currently serves as the education Content Specialist for the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health. She supports system of care grantee communities funded by the Center for Mental Health Services by sharing strategies and resources for addressing the mental health needs of children, youth, and families as a collaborative part of the education system and for effectively partnering with the schools. In this role, she facilitates peer-to-peer networking, coordinates conference presentations and Webinars, and provides technical assistance and training.
Sandy has over 30 years of experience in special education and school-based support programs for children and youth with emotional and behavioral needs. She has served as the education Content Specialist for the last 8 years for the TA Partnership. In addition, she serves on the leadership team for the National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, which support Safe Schools Healthy Students and Project LAUNCH Early Childhood Mental Health Grantees.
Prior to her current position, she served as a special education administrator for 10 years in southern Rhode Island. It was in that role that she participated in the county-based system of care project and supervised the school-based collaborative programs that partnered with mental health. In addition, she served for over 20 years as a leader in regional and national activities for the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders. She has written or co-authored many chapters, articles, guides, and monographs on education and systems of care.
Ken Martinez - Madison Cares, Idaho
Ken Martinez serves as the mental health content specialist for the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health. He supports system of care grantee communities funded by the Center for Mental Health Services by sharing strategies and resources for addressing the mental health needs of children, youth, and families. In this role, Ken facilitates peer-to-peer networking, coordinates conference presentations and Webinars, and provides technical assistance and training. Ken is the lead for the Cultural Competence Action Team (CCAT) with the Technical Assistance Partnership.
Ken has been a licensed clinical psychologist for 30 years and has worked in the behavioral health field in a variety of capacities, including: clinician, university faculty, state administrator, consultant, technical assistance provider, and volunteer. He is lead for the TA Partnership’s Cultural Competence Action Team, which published the Web-based document The Cultural and Linguistic Competence Implementation Guide, and several other cultural and linguistic competence-related products. Ken was the State Children’s Behavioral Health Director in New Mexico and has extensive experience in policy, administration, and program development. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. He was Chair of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), Children, Youth and Families Division, and is currently on the Board of Directors of the National Latino Behavioral Health Association and the National Alliance of Multi-Ethnic Behavioral Health Associations. He is a founding member of the National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health, a member of the Advisory Board for the Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health at the Florida Mental Health Institute, and a panelist on the Expert Advisory Panel for the Cultural Competence Center of Excellence at Nathan Kline Research Institute in New York State, as well being a member of several other advisory groups. He was on the 2004 and the 2008 planning committees for the Rosalynn Carter Annual Symposium on Mental Health at the Carter Center and is a member of the SAMHSA-sponsored Outcomes Roundtable for Children and Families.
Marie Niarhos - Clermont County Mental Health and Recovery Board, Ohio
Marie Niarhos currently serves as the Technical Assistance Partnership's co-Family Involvement Content Specialist. Marie has worked on behalf of children since graduating from college; as a teacher, parent by birth and adoption, advocate, newsletter and pamphlet contributor, board member, support group leader, director of a parent information and support organization and director of a family leadership institute. She believes strongly in family and youth involvement in all aspects of systems development, that families do know what is best for their children and that children and families deserve support from their communities. Marie is looking forward to providing resources to systems of care communities and helping to make children’s mental healthcare more accessible and family driven.
James Sawyer - Hamilton County's Journey to Successful Living, Ohio
James Sawyer serves as a Youth Involvement Content Specialist for the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health. He supports system of care grantee communities funded by the Center for Mental Health Services by sharing strategies and resources for involving children and youth with multi-system experience in systems of care. In this role and alongside his peers, James provides mentoring to Youth Engagement Specialists, facilitates peer-to-peer networking, coordinates conference and webinar presentations, and provides technical assistance and training.
James is both a Licensed Professional Counselor and National Certified Counselor, achieving his master’s degree in community counseling while working as a system of care Youth Coordinator. James was a Youth Coordinator for an early childhood system of care community in Sarasota, Florida. Through this position, he was charged with bringing community collaboration and consensus around how to operationalize youth-guided principles in an early childhood setting. During this time James was successful in completing Florida State University’s Harris Institutes for Early Childhood Mental Health Therapists. Through the Harris Institutes,he obtained training in diagnosing and therapy techniques for working with infants and young children with mental health–related issues. Prior to this position, James served as youth coordinator for a statewide system of care initiative in Idaho, where he was instrumental in developing a multifaceted youth initiative. During his tenure in Idaho, James developed and directed an annual statewide mental health conference youth track, organized a statewide poetry project, and co-organized a statewide social marketing youth and child art project. During the implementation of such projects, he was able to bring these programs into both juvenile corrections and mental health residential treatment facilities. He also led the development of the Idaho Youth Council, where youth from varied backgrounds shared their experiences within the systems that affected them, provided important feedback, and influenced systems change through youth voice.
Bruce Strahl - Sarasota County Early Childhood Mental Health Partnership, Florida and Nassau County No Wrong Door Family Support System of Care, New York
Bruce Strahl is the Organizational Development and Implementation Content Specialist for the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health and an employee of the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health. He provides technical assistance in the areas of governance, strategic planning, sustainability planning and family organization planning to federally funded systems of care and assists in the development of technical assistance tools, training and processes.
Previously he was President of Strategic Leadership, Inc., a firm based in Tampa, Florida dedicated to helping leaders guide their organizations into the future. He received his undergraduate degree in Education from the University of Wisconsin, where he also did his graduate work. As President of Strategic Leadership, Bruce designed strategic planning and collaborative planning processes and led business and community leaders across the country and beyond in achieving their team goals. In the past 10 years Bruce has worked with 100+ organizations in 22 states and 5 countries.
As a conference speaker, guest lecturer at the University of South Florida and an author of articles about planning and collaboration, Bruce is a consensus builder who specializes in large and diverse teams that face formidable challenges. A former Vice President of Marketing for Nations Bank (now Bank of America), Bruce developed and implemented the communications plan for both the customers and employees for the organization’s largest merger. As Training Director of C&S Bank in Atlanta, Georgia’s largest bank, Bruce implemented a state-wide training system and used his successful sales background to help the CEO create a bank-wide sales culture.
In the not-for-profit sector, Bruce has been a funder, board member and an agency Executive Director. As Agency Executive Director, he re-engineered an organization with financial problems into a vibrant organization with positive cash flow and plans for success and expansion.
As a consultant and Peer Mentor, Bruce provided technical assistance to federally funded communities across the country to build collaborations to implement new social service systems of care. In addition, Bruce also traveled throughout the country to conduct project management training for Fortune 1000 companies and taught leadership skills and conflict management for the Public Health Institutes at the University of South Florida and St. Louis University.
On the faculty of WorldClass Academy for the WorldClass Education Center of the Florida Chamber Foundation, Bruce helped business leaders and educators work together to improve education systems.
Kim Williams - The Tapestry of Chautauqua Initiative, New York and Harris County Systems of Hope, Texas
Kim Williams comes to the Technical Assistance Partnership with varied experience working in her local and state communities. She began working in the system of care environment as a consumer and a parent, when her son received services from The Dawn Project. Through that experience, she became involved as a participant in Families Reaching for Rainbows, Inc.
As a program support specialist for the Choices Technical Assistance Center, Kim became a family trainer, conducting training on family involvement in systems of care to funded system of care communities in Indiana. As the former lead family contact for Dawn, she represented her community at local, state, and federal functions. As the executive director of Rainbows, Inc. from 2003-2006, Kim was involved in its rebirth in the community through reorganization. During this period, Rainbows obtained 501(c)3 charitable status and gained three contracts in its quest to become a sustained organization.
Kim, a native of Indianapolis, attended DePauw University and is currently majoring in psychology at Ashland University. She is the proud mother of two teenagers, one of whom is majoring in biology at Prairie View A&M University with the goal of becoming a psychiatrist.
Some of Kim's past and present statewide and local memberships include:
- Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA) Transformation Workgroup (Member); Family/Consumer Subcommittee (Chairman)
- Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services (Member); Mental Illness Advisory Council (Chairman)
- Indiana Interagency Workforce, NAMI and the Marion County Mental Health Association (Member)