Beth Brindo Beth Brindo, MSSA, LISW-S, Field Faculty & Instructor at CASE, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Independent Child Welfare Consultant Beth Brindo is an expert in the specialized field of permanency for children (administrative and clinical arenas of mental health /adoption & foster care) and diverse populations such as GLBT, rural, & international communities. She is employed at Case Western Reserve University (CASE) as field faculty advisor and instructor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences (MSASS). Beth has worked in the private sector of child welfare in collaboration with public child welfare for over 25 years .

Beth has a M.S.S.A. from CASE, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences and a B.A. in social work undergraduate degree from Ursuline College. She and her husband are parents of four children, two of which are adopted.

Her capacity building includes successful public and private grant development and management in projects that addressed minority family recruitment for foster care and adoption, recruitment of rural families in adoption, promoting open adoption with older children, supporting kinship adoption, engaging public/private partnerships that target state wide adoption recruitment and adoption service delivery, and non- adversarial interventions with birth parents.

In addition to independent consulting with several national organizations Beth is a contributor to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) “Best Practices Manual, Working with GLBT Families”, “All Children All Families” (ACAF) training curriculum and ACAF trainer.

International child welfare has taken her to South Korea, Romania, Guatemala and Ethiopia to assist in research and training with community child welfare professionals. She has written and collaborated on publications, developed curriculum and conducted training workshops. Beth has worked on statewide adoption reform legislative issues, administrative rule implementation and the Hague Treaty on international adoption.

As field faculty and clinical instructor at CASE, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Beth is part of the Child Welfare Training Initiative Fellows project, a five year project that targets public child welfare workers to be effective leaders and managers in public child welfare.

Cynthia A. Brown Cynthia A. Brown is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies in the College of Health and Public Affairs at the University of Central Florida. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Southern Mississippi and her law degree from Mississippi College School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable David Bramlette, District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Dr. Brown also holds a Master of Science degree in Economic Development and a Doctorate of Philosophy in the Administration of Justice, both earned from the University of Southern Mississippi. She practiced law with offices in Mississippi and Florida before leaving practice to join the Academy in 2006. Dr. Brown teaches Contracts, Courts, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Employment Discrimination Law, Law and the Legal Environment, and Law and Society. She has received national and regional awards for both her teaching and her research.

Since 2001, Dr. Brown has served on the Board of Directors for the National Institute of Ethics, where she also contributes as an instructor and trainer. She frequently works with local, state and federal agencies in the areas of ethics, leadership and diversity. Dr. Brown is regarded as an expert in police ethics and has traveled extensively working with both state and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States.
 

 

Bridget Doherty As a Communications Specialist for Hamilton County Jobs and Family Services, Ms. Doherty coordinates electronic media for foster care and adoption by incorporating social media, blogs, podcasts and videos. Prior to joining HCJFS, Ms. Doherty worked for the Board of County Commissioners where she started her public service career. She also held positions as the Communications Director for the Cincinnati AFL-CIO and as a Radio Reporter for 700WLW, a heritage news station in Cincinnati. Ms. Doherty has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Carrie Fiasco As adoption recruitment manager at Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services, a public child placing agency, Ms. Fiasco works to find adoptive families for the 200+ children in the county’s foster care system. Ms. Fiasco has worked in the field of child welfare for 14 years in both the public and private sectors of domestic adoption with an expertise in the area of special needs adoption. She obtained her master’s degree from the University of Kentucky, College of Social Work and is a licensed social worker in the state of Ohio.

Ann M. Haralambie
Ann M. Haralambie is a Certified Family Law Specialist, Arizona Board of Legal Specialization, and a Martindale-Hubbell AV® Preeminent™ rated attorney in private practice in Tucson, Arizona since 1977. Her practice is restricted to family and (non-delinquency) juvenile cases, with an emphasis on custody and child abuse. The practice is child-focused and seeks to minimize the harm which often occurs when child custody is litigated.

Ms. Haralambie is also an author and a national and international speaker and trainer for professional groups on topics related to custody, child abuse, and child advocacy. She serves as a consultant to and member of a number of national organizations dealing with family and child welfare law. She has served in a number of leadership roles within the legal and child welfare communities.

Scope of practice: Dissolution of marriage (divorce); Paternity (unmarried parents); Third party custody and visitation (grandparents, stepparents, foster parents, de facto parents); Modification of custody/visitation; Interstate custody; Parenting agreements (pre- and post-decree, unmarried parents, LGBT parents); Child sexual abuse; International child abduction (Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction); Dependency; Termination of parental rights; Guardianship of children; Stepparent adoption; Private adoption; Representation of adoption and child welfare agencies
 

 

Michelle M. Hughes
Ms. Hughes established her own law firm, the Law Office of Michelle M. Hughes in 1993, where her legal practice focuses primarily on adoption, (working with DCFS, private agency, independent adoption, co-parent adoption and related adoption). She is a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Ms. Hughes is a member of the Chicago Bar Association Adoption Committee and former Vice Chair of Cook County Bar Association Adoption Committee. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.

Ms. Hughes started organizing and conducting seminars on transracial adoptions in 1991. In 1994, she co-founded Bridge Communications, Inc. specializing in diversity training, with an emphasis on transracial, international and general adoption education. Bridge Communications was featured in the film "Outside looking In: Transracial Adoption in America"(2002); and magazine articles in Adoption Today (February/March 2004); and Chicago Magazine (September 1996). She has been quoted regularly in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times concerning issues of transracial adoption and biracial identity.

Ms. Hughes also serves on the board of AMEA (Association of Multiethnic Americans) and the board of Directors of Perspectives Charter School and has actively mentored several students. She is a former board member on the Gayle and Ardythe Sayers Advisory Counsel at the Cradle adoption agency and the Advisory Board of Adoption-Link adoption agency.
 

 

Since 2008, Kathy Ledesma has been National Project Director for AdoptUSKids, which is administered by Adoption Exchange Association through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Children’s Bureau. Kathy worked for 20 years for the child welfare system in Oregon. She served as Oregon’s statewide Adoption Manager for seven of those years and was on loan to the Children’s Bureau as the Acting National Adoption Specialist from 2005 to 2007. Kathy has served as President of the National Association of State Adoption Program Managers. She received her MSW from Portland State University.

BB Liu 

BB Liu graduated with a BA from Columbia University in 2001, then worked as a full-time public elementary school teacher until 2005. In 2008, she graduated from the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently accepted a position working as a real estate transactions attorney for Debevoise & Plimpton. Since 2009, Ms. Liu has been an Attorney for the Child at the Children's Law Center, where she appears in Brooklyn Family Court on a daily basis to represent children in proceedings involving custody and visitation, guardianship, family offenses and child protective issues, and recently worked on a case study examining broken adoptions in custody and visitation cases.

 

Adam Pertman
Adam Pertman is the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a national nonprofit recognized as the pre-eminent research, policy and education organization in its field. Pertman – a former Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist – is also the associate editor of the professional journal Adoption Quarterly. He is the author of Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America, which has been reviewed as “the most important book ever written on the subject.” In addition, he is the author of many chapters and articles on adoption- and family-related issues in books, scholarly journals and mass-market publications.

Pertman has delivered hundreds of keynote speeches, trainings and other presentations in the U.S. and internationally. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work on behalf of children and families. His commentaries – as well as articles about him, his book and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute – have appeared in the media throughout this country and in many others. As one of the leading experts on adoption and family issues, Pertman is widely quoted by journalists and has been a guest on many radio and television programs, including “Oprah,” the “Today” show, “The View,” and “Nightline.” Before embarking on his current career, Pertman was a senior journalist with The Boston Globe for more than two decades. He is a member of the Council on Contemporary Families, the editorial advisory board of Adoptive Families magazine, and the National Adoption Advisory Committee of the Child Welfare League of America, among others.
 

 

Dawn J. Post 

Dawn J. Post is the Co-Borough Director of the Brooklyn, New York office of the Children's Law Center (CLC), providing representation to children in guardianship, custody, visitation, orders of protection and related child protective cases. Prior to her current position, Dawn was an Assistant Attorney-in-Charge of the Legal Aid Society's Juvenile Right's Practice in the Brooklyn office, providing representation to children in child protective and delinquency cases.

She provides various trainings on family law matters in New York City focusing on trial skills, the role of the attorney for the child, custody and visitation, and child protection. Dawn seeks to assist individuals and institutions to recognize and address compassion fatigue and secondary trauma in attorneys through training, organizational consciousness, and a more open dialogue about its effects, and to provide a supportive environment to address it. Nationally, Dawn has led panels and discussions about providing voice to children in high conflict custody and visitation cases and addressing failed adoptions. Dawn authored Identifying and Addressing Compassion Fatigue and Secondary Trauma in the Legal Services Workplace and recently oversaw a case study examining broken adoptions in custody and visitation cases. These results have been included in an article co-authored for the Capital University Law Review, The 7th Annual Wells Conference on Adoption Law, “Maintaining a Family: Post-Adoption Challenges for Families”. Dawn sits on the NYC Family Court Advisory Council for TPRs and Adoptions.
 
 

Pat Rhoads Pat has been involved in social media for over 5 years. In his current position as Social Media Specialist for AdoptUSKids, he is responsible for developing and implementing plans and reporting for all social media, including Twitter. In addition to promoting events and resources, he also uses Twitter to answer questions and otherwise engage AdoptUSKids' organization's community. Previously, as 30 Hour Famine Manager at World Vision US, Pat was responsible for managing all marketing efforts for a youth-focused fundraising program. This included creating and growing the program's Twitter profile and engagement from scratch. He earned BA in Marketing from Western Washington University, and is a member of the local chapter of Social Media Club.

Jini L. Roby, JD, MSW, MS
Jini Roby is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Brigham Young University

Roby's educational background includes earning a JD, an MS, MSW and BS from Brigham Young University. Her research areas cover Comparative and international child welfare, formal and informal substitute care of children, adoption policy and practice, orphan care, human trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation of children, child soldiers and refugees

Harvey Schweitzer 

Harvey Schweitzer, a 1976 graduate of UCLA Law School, has been involved in child welfare and related issues since 1980 when he helped create the Counsel for Child Abuse and Neglect Office at the D.C. Superior Court. Mr. Schweitzer engages in trial and appellate litigation. He has been legal counsel to the (D.C.) Consortium for Child Welfare.

Mr. Schweitzer is now a consultant to the (D.C.) Healthy Families/Thriving Communities Collaborative Council; and is an adjunct professor at Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America where he teaches juvenile law. He is of counsel to Savit & Szymkowicz, LLP and provides advice and representation to many nonprofit child serving agencies. He also represents social workers in licensing and disciplinary proceedings. Mr. Schweitzer is admitted to practice law in D.C. and Maryland.

Mr. Schweitzer has been an attorney for hundreds of adoption and foster care cases, is a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and served on the Advisory Council of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. He was awarded “National Treasure Award” from Foster and Adoptive Parent Advocacy Center.

Mr. Schweitzer is the co-author of Foster Care Law: A Primer (2004) available from Carolina Academic Press.