Department of Early Education and Care Department of Children and Families (DCF)/Department of Mental Health (DMH) Joint Procurement of Out of Home Residential Services for Children Panelists Bios March 13, 2011

Joan Mikula, Assistant Commissioner for Child and Adolescent Services, Department of Mental Health Joan Mikula has been Assistant Commissioner for Child and Adolescent Services at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health since 1985. She joined the Department with experience in education, child welfare and juvenile justice as well as mental health administration in the private sector. Ms Mikula has been a strong proponent of systems of care development, of strengths based interventions in the context of family practice, and of youth and family voice. These have guided the Department’s policy and planning agenda relating to children and their families. Her interagency and community orientation along with her commitment to partnerships with families and youth have resulted in many cross cutting initiatives in the Commonwealth. She is currently the Principal Investigator on a Systems of Care SAMHSA grant focused on Transition Age Youth and Young Adults in Massachusetts.

Bob Wentworth, Assistant Commissioner - Planning and Program Development, Department of Children and Families Bob Wentworth is the Assistant Commissioner, Planning and Program Development, at the Department of Children and Families. Bob has nearly 30 years of experience in child welfare and mental health services in direct care, supervisory and administrative positions. In those roles he has been involved extensively in program design, contract monitoring, and interagency systems integration efforts. He has significant expertise in the areas of policy and program development, as well as quality improvement, monitoring and evaluation.

His work with other state agencies has been instrumental in establishing new and innovative program models and fostering collaborative relationships. Over the past several years he has been closely engaged with representatives from DMH, DYS, Mass Health and other EOHHS agencies in the design and implementation of services for special populations of children and families whose needs cut across the various child serving agencies. He is currently the principle representative for DCF in the Interagency Restraint / Seclusion Prevention Initiative, the Juvenile Detention Alternative Program, and the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative. Bob is also directing the implementation of Family Resource Centers across the state, an initiative that provides peer to peer support and system navigation services to the general population of families in the most impoverished areas of the state. The Domestic Violence unit under his supervision manages a statewide system of shelter and community based services for survivors, and he is a member of the Executive Team for the implementation of Evidence Based Trauma Treatment Models funded with a five year grant from the Administration for Children and Families.

Bob has presented at numerous national conferences including CWLA, National Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the National Governor’s Association for Positive Youth Development, and has provided congressional testimony on how program innovation can be supported through greater flexibility in how the states expend entitlement funds. As a former member of the faculty at Salem State College, where he received his MSW degree in 1993, Mr. Wentworth taught graduate Social Work courses in statistics and research methods.

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