All Children - All Families National Advisory Board
Members of the All Children - All Families National Advisory Board serve as key advisors in the development and implementation of the All Children - All Families initiative and provide leadership in educating the broader child welfare community about the importance of supporting LGBT families in every aspect of practice.
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Bill Bettencourt
Senior Consultant, Pacific Region
Annie E. Casey Foundation, Family to Family Initiative
Bill Bettencourt has 30 years of experience working in the social services field. He began his career as a social worker and assistant director for a parent-run community preschool. For over 26 years, he worked for the city and county of San Francisco, including five years with the criminal justice system and 21 years with the child welfare system. For his last four years in child welfare, he served as the director. For two years, he was the program officer with the Stuart Foundation and he actively serves on boards and committees of numerous local, state and national organizations. He is currently the senior consultant for The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) and is the lead in the Family to Family (F2F) Pacific Region (California, Alaska and Washington). Bettencourt received his Bachelor of Arts degree from SF State and his Master of Arts degree from the University of San Francisco.
Maris H. Blechner
Executive Director
FAMILY FOCUS Adoption Services
Maris H. Blechner, M Ed, LCSW, is the executive director and co-founder of FAMILY FOCUS Adoption Services, a twenty-year-old, non-traditional and high-energy New York State adoption agency. She is an adoptive parent, a birth parent and a nationally respected speaker and trainer on child welfare and adoption issues. She describes herself as a "grass roots" child advocate who has been around for a long time and who believes strongly in the power of the individual to make significant change.
Madelyn Freundlich
Child Welfare Consultant
Madelyn Freundlich is an internationally recognized scholar and child welfare expert. She formerly served as General Counsel and Director of Child Welfare Services for the Child Welfare League of America, Associate Director of Planning for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Executive Director for the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and Policy Director for Children’s Rights. In these capacities, she worked with public and private child welfare agencies and organizations across the country, providing consultation and training and developing practice, program, policy and research initiatives that have gained national and international recognition.
Ms. Freundlich has published extensively on child welfare issues and has developed strong collaborative relationships with child welfare, mental health, medical, legal and research professionals. Her publications range from issues of international market dynamics in adoptions to best practices in protecting the best interests of youth leaving the foster care system. She has served on the editorial boards of leading child welfare journals including Child Welfare, Adoption Quarterly and Adoption and Fostering. She has mentored scholars, policy makers, and practitioners on their research, publication, and practice efforts.
She has developed and led the implementation of numerous efforts to define best practices in child welfare and to develop strong programming to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families. She has trained a broad range of organizations and individuals across the United States on child welfare issues and has worked with organizations to develop customized training on child welfare practice and administrative issues. Now in private consultation practice, her current projects include consultation with Casey Family Services in the planning of a national convening on permanency for older children and youth; with the Home At Last initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts to ensure implementation of the recommendations of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care regarding court improvements; and with the Child Welfare League of America as the principal writer of the revised standards of excellence for the delivery of health care services for children in out of home care.
Ms. Freundlich has presented to national and international audiences on both child welfare practice and legal issues. She has presented at national conferences sponsored by the Child Welfare League of America, the North American Council on Adoptable Children, and the National Association of Counsel for Children and at special conferences on national and international foster care and adoption issues. She has also been quoted in stories featured in the mainstream media, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and NBC Nightly News. For her efforts to improve policies and practices for vulnerable children, she has received numerous awards and recognitions, including an Adoption Activist of the Year Award from the North American Council on Adoptable Children and an Adoption Excellence Award from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Ms. Freundlich holds master degrees in social work (MSW, Louisiana State University) and public health (MPH, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and two degrees in law (JD, University of Houston and LL.M., Georgetown University).
Janice Goldwater
Founder and Executive Director
Adoptions Together
Janice Goldwater is the founder and executive director of Adoptions Together, a child placement agency licensed in Maryland, DC and Virginia that finds adoptive parents for children nationwide. A social worker by trade, Goldwater established Adoptions Together in 1990 in response to her frustration with serious gaps in the child welfare system. She rooted the agency in a firm commitment to working with children traditionally underserved by the private sector.
Adoptions Together provides opportunities and support to all children in need, regardless of age, race or physical or mental health challenges, and provides educational programs and behavioral health services to strengthen families as children mature. Adoptions Together serves children born in the local community, those in overseas orphanages and those in our country’s foster care system. Since 1990, it has settled more than 2,600 children in permanent, loving homes.
Each year, the agency’s Center for Adoptive Families provides post-adoption support services to hundreds of adoptive families, and provides training to professionals across the DC region on a wide variety of issues that impact the lives of adopted children and their families.
Goldwater is married, the mother of four children and resides in Silver Spring, Md. She received her master’s in social work in 1980 from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St Louis, Mo. She began her career in community mental health and transitioned to child welfare in the early 80s. Since that time, she has dedicated herself to creating and implementing innovative programs that find permanent homes for children and support for their families across the lifespan. In 2001, Goldwater was honored with a Congressional Coalition on Adoption “Angel in Adoption” award. She currently serves on several boards of directors, including ATTACH, the Adoption Exchange Association and the All Children-All Families initiative of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
Jill Jacobs
Executive Director
Family Builders
Jill Jacobs is the executive director of Family Builders, an adoption and permanency agency based in Oakland, Calif. She has a Masters in Health Services Administration and 25 years of experience in the management and leadership of non-profit, community-based, multi-cultural health and social services organizations. Jacobs is a leader, trainer and advocate on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. She is highly committed to the goal that no youth leaves foster care without a permanent family. Jacobs is the mother of two daughters via adoption.
John Levesque
Board of Directors
North American Council on Adoptable Children
John Levesque is a licensed social worker with 28 years experience in public child welfare, both in administration and direct practice. His primary expertise is adoption related services. Levesque is a technical assistance consultant for the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Adoption where he also serves as the liaison to the National Association of State Adoption Programs, Inc. Previously, as the Adoption Program Manager for the Maine DHHS, he developed and implemented a public/private partnership that is the lead “resource family” recruitment agency in Maine. He also designed and implemented a federal child welfare demonstration post adoption/permanency services project. Under his leadership, Maine increased adoptions by over 200% and received an adoption excellence award. Levesque co-led the effort to streamline the dual tracks of adoptive and foster family training/study process into a unified and comprehensive process, along with creating a state-wide cross agency collaborative involving public, private and tribal agencies. Levesque is on the board of directors of the North American Council of Adoptable Children.
Ernesto Loperena
Executive Director
New York Council on Adoptable Children
Ernesto Loperena is the executive director of the New York Council on Adoptable Children (COAC), the first organization in New York City to declare that “Every child, no matter how old and regardless of physical, mental or emotional handicapping conditions of whatever race or creed, is adoptable.” Since 1970 COAC has helped place over 2,500 children in permanent, loving and nurturing homes. Loperena’s major contributions at COAC include the city-wide expansion of the African-American and Hispanic Child Adoption Program and his pioneering work in establishing New York City’s first private program for children orphaned by AIDS.
As president of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC), a non-profit, broad-based coalition of volunteer adoptive parent and citizen advocacy groups from the United States and Canada, Loperena led the organization’s revitalization from 1986 through 1990. He received their highest award in 1994 for those efforts.
Loperena has served on numerous advisory commissions regarding child welfare on the local, state and federal levels. He was a public member of the U.S. State Department Delegation to The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption held in the Netherlands in 1994. He has testified before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families; before the Joint Congressional Committee on Adoption and before the New York State legislature on adoption issues. Loperena also facilitated the National Latino Welfare Advocacy Group, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, whose ultimate goal is to reform the foster care and adoption systems as they impact on Latino children nationwide.
Loperena has served on the Advisory Board of New York City’s Commissioner of Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and is currently president of the Board of Directors of Voice For Adoption (VFA); vice president of the Adoption Exchange Association (AEA) Board of Directors; member of the Board of Directors of Citizens Committee for Children; member of the Board of Directors and chair of the Strategic Planning Committee of Leake and Watts Services for Children; and chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Latino Commission on AIDS (LCOA). Loperena was also appointed by ACS Commissioner John Mattingly to serve on his HIV/AIDS Health Care Advisory Panel in 2005.
Ann McCabe
Family Therapist and Child Welfare Consultant
Ann McCabe most recently served as director of program development and evaluation at the National Adoption Center (NAC). During her nine-year tenure at NAC, McCabe was responsible for launching an innovative adoption support website for families, which included the first ever online home-study training curricula. She served on the technical team that developed AdoptUSKids and provided creative leadership for the first adoption website aimed at children 8-12 years old, The Adoption Clubhouse. McCabe is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice with more than 25 years of adoption experience. She has written many adoption articles including, “Adoption, Reworking the Burden of Split Loyalties” (monograph and teaching tape). As an adult adoptee, she brings an increased sensitivity to her work and writings. She is a parent to two adult daughters, and she and her partner of 20 years boast about sharing the fun task of being grandmothers to nine grandchildren.
Nathan Monell
Chief Executive Officer
Foster Care Alumni of America
Nathan Monell is the executive director of Foster Care Alumni of America (FCAA), a national association whose mission is to connect the alumni community and to transform policy and practice, ensuring opportunities for people in and from foster care. FCAA is building a network of people across the nation who will give voice to their experience of foster care and use their combined voices to support one another and change the foster care system for the better. FCAA is proud to be a supporter of All Children - All Families, knowing from experience that all children deserve a home, a true place of belonging.
FCAA was launched in 2004 and opened its membership for the first time in late 2006. Membership is open to alumni (any adult who experienced foster care of any kind in their childhood), allies who support the alumni movement and organizations with a vested interest in improving outcomes for children in care and foster care alumni. FCAA’s ever-growing chapter network provides opportunity for local connection and statewide advocacy.
Monell has over 20 years experience leading non-profit organizations in the areas of executive management, human resources, development, marketing and public relations. Prior to joining FCAA he served nine years as executive director of the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry (NOVAM), where he nearly tripled the budget, increased net assets by nearly 500% and doubled staff size to 20 employees. Before leading NOVAM, Monell was executive director of Federal City Performing Arts; director of marketing and external relations of the Knoxville Museum of Art; director of marketing, development and public relations of Overlook Center, Inc. and director of human resources of the Job Training and Employment Corporation.
Monell holds a certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University; a M.A. in communication studies (organizational communications/behavior) from the University of Michigan; and a B.A. in speech from Cornerstone University. Among his many volunteer leadership interests, Monell serves as the 2007-2008 chair of the Board of Regents for Leadership Arlington.
He and his partner, Shepherd Faught, have two adopted children and reside in Falls Church, Va. Their family has been featured in several media stories including an Associated Press story on employer benefits for adoptive gay families.
J.Toni Oliver
Founder and CEO
ROOTS, Inc.
J. Toni Oliver is president and CEO of ROOTS, Inc., the first adoption agency in Georgia to focus solely on improving adoption opportunities for African American children. In addition, Oliver is president of J.T. Oliver & Associates, a child welfare training and consultation firm based in Atlanta, Ga.
Oliver incorporated ROOTS on April 21, 1992 to address what she felt was a largely unmet, un-addressed social problem – the growing number of African American children drifting aimlessly in foster care. Currently, ROOTS serves more than 100 families per month who are actively engaged in the adoption process and has placed nearly 400 children with permanent adoptive families.
In 1999, Oliver took a two-year sabbatical from ROOTS to take a position as program manager for adoptions with the Child and Family Services Agency in the District of Columbia. Under her supervision, finalized adoption services were improved and 600 adoptions were finalized, representing a 250% increase in finalized placements for the District of Columbia.
As an independent consultant and trainer with J.T. Oliver & Associates, Oliver develops training programs for public and private child welfare agencies that focus on adoptive parent recruitment, family assessment and child placement services, as they relate to children in the custody of public agencies, particularly children of color. In this capacity, she has provided training, consultation and keynote speeches for public and private agencies, parent and community groups and professional organizations in over twenty states.
For 3 ½ years, Oliver served as director of consultation and training services for the Child Welfare Institute (CWI) in Atlanta. Prior to CWI, she was the associate director of training and consultation for the National Adoption Center in Philadelphia, Pa. She has been a board member and advisory council member for numerous national and local organizations, including One Church, One Child, North American Council on Adoptable Children, University of Georgia’s Federal Child Welfare Training Grant and has served as co-chair of the NABSW National Foster Care & Adoption Task Force for ten years. She has received numerous recognitions and awards for her work in the field of child welfare. In 2004, she received the Black Administrator of the Year Award from the Black Administrators in Child Welfare. In September of 2004, Oliver taught a three week course on non-profit management at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia for the University of Georgia’s Institute of Governmental Affairs. In 2005, Oliver was selected as the 2006 Alumni Fellow for Temple University’s School of Social Administration.
She is a member of New Life Presbyterian Church, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and the proud parent of two daughters. Oliver holds a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from Bennett College and a master’s in social work from Temple University.
Dennis Patrick
Professor
Eastern Michigan University
Dennis Patrick received his Ph.D. in interpersonal and family communication from the University of Texas. He is currently a professor in the communication department at Eastern Michigan University. His research interests focus on gay parenting and communication in foster/adoptive families. He and his partner Tom have fostered sixteen children and have adopted four boys through the foster care system.
Adam Pertman
Executive Director
Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
Adam Pertman is executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the pre-eminent research and policy organization in its field. Pertman is also author of Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America (Basic Books, 2000), reviewed as “the most important book ever written on the subject.” He has written many chapters and articles in other books, scholarly journals and popular publications. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for writing about adoption while at the Boston Globe, where he was a senior journalist for more than two decades before embarking on his current career, and has received numerous honors for his work. Pertman lectures nationally and has appeared on various television programs including Oprah, Today and Nightline. He and his wife, Judy Baumwoll, live in Massachusetts with their two children (both adopted): Zachary, 13, and Emilia, 10.
Maria Quintanilla
Executive Director
Latino Family Institute
Maria Quintanilla is executive director of Latino Family Institute, Inc. (LFI). LFI is the only Latino adoption agency in Southern California. LFI specializes in providing adoption and foster care services to the Latino community. LFI is the recipient of state funding to provide Latino kinship adoptions. LFI is the current recipient of two federal grants; the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program (IATP) for health care providers and the Abandoned Infants Assistance Program (AIA) providing comprehensive services to families affected by substance abuse, HIV and AIDS. LFI is the past recipient of two federally funded grants specifically to recruit Latino families interested in adopting Latino siblings, males and children 10 years of age and older. Quintanilla is former director of Hispanic Family Institute, the first Latino adoption and foster care agency in California. Quintanilla obtained her A.A. degree from Mount Saint Mary’s College, her bachelor’s in social work from California State University, Los Angeles and her master’s in social welfare from UC Berkeley and studied social welfare in Mexico at Universidad de Guadalajara. She is a licensed clinical social worker, a certified bereavement counselor, MAPP and PRIDE Trainer. Quintanilla is a recognized leader in the field of Latino adoption and foster care issues. Quintanilla has ten years of medical social work experience specializing in maternal child health and the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). She has trained medical personnel in the areas of adoption and identifying child abuse and domestic violence in a hospital setting. She has also conducted trainings, statewide and nationally, at the request of the State Department of Social Services Adoptions Branch, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – Administration of Children and Families (ACF), the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) and the California Latino Social Work Network. Quintanilla serves as a board member to the National Council of Latino Executives, the Latino Advisory Board for CWLA, the Latino Advisory Group for Wendy’s Dave Thomas Foundation and the Adoption Exchange Association. She is a member of CWLA’s National Advisory Committee on Adoption (NACA), a member of the AdoptUSKids workgroup and technical assistance team, a board member of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC), and most recently joined the All Children-All Families national advisory board of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Quintanilla also serves as a mental health consultant to Channel 34 (Univision), Channel 52 (Telemundo) and Channel 22 (KWHY) the largest Spanish language networks in Southern California. Quintanilla has been interviewed on radio, local and national television and various media outlets regarding Latino child welfare issues.
Karey Scheyd
Family Recruitment Specialist
Scheyd has worked in New York City child welfare for eight years and has contributed to the recruitment of thousands of families over that time. She launched her career at a voluntary foster care agency in New York City in the role of homefinder and foster parent recruitment and training coordinator. In 2002 she began working for the City’s Administration for Children’s Services and most recently served as ACS’s deputy director of foster and adoptive parent recruitment. In this position, she was responsible for managing a number of programs, including Wednesday’s Child, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, Heart Gallery NYC, Families for Teens Speakers Bureau and the Parent Recruitment Hotline.
Scheyd has been a core member of New York City’s LGBT Foster Care Coalition and ACS’s LGBTQ Action Group for several years. In 2005, she was profiled in Gay Parent Magazine as a leader in NYC’s foster care and adoption community and served on ACS’s strategic planning committee for LGBTQ services. She has also been an active member of the National Advisory Network of the Child Welfare League of America’s and Lambda Legal’s Joint Initiative on LGBTQ Issues in Child Welfare since its inception in 2003. Scheyd has facilitated workshops on recruiting LGBT foster and adoptive parents at two national CWLA conferences, including the Finding Better Ways conference in November 2006.
Scheyd has a Master of Public Administration from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service. Her specialization is in public and non-profit management and she is particularly interested in organizational behavior, organizational development and managerial development. She currently does consulting and freelance work with multiple NYC-based child welfare organizations, including You Gotta Believe! (The Older Child Adoption and Permanency Movement) and CT WOCAT (Changing The World One Child At a Time).
Al Toney
President
AK Consulting Services, Inc
Al Toney III served as a police officer in the Worcester Police Department from March 1987 to April 1995. After the tragic death of his life partner resulting from a shooting in which Toney survived but his partner and another friend perished, he left the police department due to permanent injuries sustained from the shooting. As an openly gay African American male, Toney has been the target of homophobia and racism. His work is dedicated to the elimination of these and other forms of discrimination. Since 1993 he has provided diversity and awareness education consulting services and cultural competency workshops throughout the country where he challenges his colleagues and constituents to be aware of their internalized stereotypes and myths.
Undaunted by the shooting that forced him into early retirement, Toney harnessed his energy to address the need for diversity training and cultural competency workshops in both the public and private sectors. A sample of his past and present clients include Human Rights Campaign (HRC), The Child Welfare League of America, Casey Family Programs, National Grid, The National Black Justice Coalition, MassEquality, Massachusetts Department of Education, Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS), Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), schools, nonprofit agencies, law enforcement agencies and public and private corporations. Toney offers diversity training as a means of creating healthier and more effective learning and working environments.
Toney currently serves as a commissioner with the Massachusetts Legislative Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and previously as president of The Gay Officers Action League of New England, commissioner with The Worcester Human Rights Commission and board member of AIDS Project Worcester. In addition, he ran for public office in 1999 for a seat on the Worcester City Council. Toney is also a master trainer for DSS and was a foster parent for approximately 10 years opening his home to almost 50 children.
Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS) Inc. profiled Toney in 2003 as one of several “Champions of LGBTIQQ Youth”; The Advocate named Toney as one of 117 Worldwide Innovators in 2001; The local National Conference for Community and Justice awarded Toney with the Twenty-Fourth Annual Leadership Award in 2001; “Worcester Magazine” named him a Hometown Hero in 1998, and Boston Magazine named him Best of Boston in 1997. Al, Keith and Kayla Toney, Toney’s biological daughter, were featured in the Showtime documentary on same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Same Sex America, which was released in April 2005.
Al and Keith Toney recently completed a book as contributing writers and editors with the National Black Justice Coalition and MassEquality called, Jumping the Broom: A Black Perspective of Same Gender Marriage in Massachusetts released in the spring 2007. They are also writing and creating a family-oriented children’s book that truly reflects the many aspects of diversity as well as finishing Al’s autobiography.
Diane Wagner
Division Chief, Adoption and Permanency Resources
County of Los Angeles, Department of Children and Family Services
Ms. Wagner has worked in the field of child welfare for over 30 years. She has been a social worker and manager in a variety of areas of public child welfare. She has served in her current capacity as Division Chief of the Adoption and Permanency Resources Division, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services for the past six years.
Under Ms. Wagner’s leadership, the Division has finalized an average of 2000 adoptions of dependent children each year. The Division has received three National Association of Counties (NACO) awards and an Adoption Excellence award. Ms. Wagner is a member of the California Permanency for Youth Task Force, Family Builder’s Network, California Child Welfare Directors Association Adoption Sub-Committee, the California Department of Social Services Permanency Sustainability Workgroup and the Southern California Adoption Managers Group.
John A. Wagner
Director
California Department of Social Services
John A. Wagner was appointed Director of the California Department of Social Services by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in April 2007. With nearly two decades of experience in human services, he has served as senior policymaker and advisor to six gubernatorial administrations in Wisconsin and Massachusetts. As Director, Mr. Wagner is responsible for the operation of an annual budget in excess of $19 billion and more than 4,000 employees in a department that administers critical services to aid and protect California's most vulnerable populations including children, adults, elderly, and the disabled.
Most recently, Mr. Wagner concurrently served in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services as Assistant Secretary for Children, Youth and Families and as Commissioner for the Department of Transitional Assistance. He was responsible for policy and program coordination between four state agencies, overseeing the administration of cash assistance, shelter, and food programs and reforming agency programs for homeless families including establishing individual self-sufficiency plans. Previously, Mr. Wagner served as the Undersecretary and Chief of Staff in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
Mr. Wagner was an integral part of the design and implementation of welfare reform in Wisconsin, including the nation's first statewide replacement of the existing welfare system with "Wisconsin Works" model. In Massachusetts, he oversaw the development and implementation of innovative efforts to combat family homeless, increase access to the Food Stamp Program, and pilot interagency efforts to better serve low-income adults with disabilities.
Mr. Wagner holds a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree in political science and French from Marquette University.
