Safe Schools/Healthy Students Technical Assistance Team
Tim Dunn, Team Leader (tdunn@edc.org - 617-618-2358) is the associate director of the Center for School and Community Health Programs at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). Mr. Dunn has been responsible for the oversight and management of a number of Federal projects, involving 20 staff who implement $2.265 million dollars of Federal funding. He has been interim project director and part of the core training team of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program's National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Middle School Substance Prevention and School Safety Coordinators, which has trained 900 coordinators and provided them with online continuing education and technical assistance in the area of evidence-based substance abuse and violence prevention intervention and leadership skills. With a background in school-based mental health services as the director of student service for the Massachusetts Department of Education and a certified school psychologist, Mr. Dunn has also managed the Making Health Academic project, which disseminated a coordinated school health program to states and local school districts.
Stephanie Autumn, Technical Assistance Specialist (sautumn@edc.org -
507-697-6395) has 25 years of experience in grant administration for urban and reservation American Indian tribes and community agencies in the areas of social services; housing and homelessness; criminal justice; and culturally-based education projects integrated within public and alternative schools. She has extensive experience working with school administrators, social workers and teachers to implement prevention programs that target truancy and educational neglect, violence prevention, substance abuse and culturally-based education strategies and services for American Indian students. For the past ten years, Autumn’s professional work has concentrated on violence reduction/crime prevention and restorative justice strategies in rural and reservation communities. She has worked to create partnerships between court services, legislators, public defense, law enforcement, schools, and community based agencies and has testified before legislative committees and sub-committees on effective culturally-based services for incarcerated American Indian youth and adults in Minnesota and South Dakota. Autumn holds a B.S. in Elementary Education and is currently working on a Masters degree in Public Policy.
Jack Campana, Technical Assistance Specialist (jcampana@edc.org - 868-794-0440) serves as a Senior Scientist for EDC. In addition to his work with current SS/HS grantees, he provided technical assistance to three large urban school districts integrating school health programs in Boston, Broward County, Florida, and Chicago through the Coordinated School Health Infrastructure Project, a grant from CDC's Division of School Health. Mr. Campana brings to EDC a decade-long career as the Director of Health Services for the San Diego Unified School District, where he was responsible for administering its Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant. Mr. Campana has also provided technical assistance to schools across California as Chair of the State of California Healthy Families Advisory Board and as a member of both the California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board and the Board of Directors for the San Diego Health Partners. In addition, he has provided technical assistance to 19 urban school districts in HIV Education and Coordinated School Health Education for CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.
Connie Constantine, Technical Assistance Specialist (cconstantine@edc.org - 617-618-2459) Connie has more than 26 years of experience as a health educator. She served as the training and technical assistance coordinator for the National Training Partnership at EDC working with state and local education agencies to strengthen their capacity to implement professional development, both through face-to-face training and distance education. The goal of the Partnership was to improve health education, especially HIV prevention, provided in schools and other youth-serving organizations. Before coming to EDC, Connie taught health education at the elementary-, middle-, and high-school levels and spent three years as a district health coordinator. She was also the associate director for the Center for Health Promotion at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where she has been a member of the college's graduate faculty since 1994.
Lauren Gilman, Technical Assistance Specialist (lgilman@edc.org - 617-618-2308) has extensive experience as a program manager in community settings, with a strong emphasis on immigrant populations and linguistic minorities. Formerly the Assistant Director of Cambridge Community Services, Ms. Gilman has worked closely with a range of stakeholders (schools, government, local business, and community members) to promote educational opportunity and healthy development for at-risk youth through school-based programs, mentoring, and projects supporting the transition to post-secondary options. After having worked as a Spanish-English interpreter in hospitals and social service settings, she managed a statewide non-profit interpretation/translation service for Greater Boston Catholic Charities. Ms. Gilman holds a B.A. in Education and Linguistics from Swarthmore College, an M.A. in Intercultural Relations from Lesley University, and a certificate in Medical and Legal Interpretation from Bentley College.
Marisa Jones, Technical Assistance Specialist (mjones@edc.org - 617-618-2306) has an extensive track record in non-profit management, training, and design in crime prevention and currently serves as the project director for the Technical Assistance and Training Program for Mentoring System Involved Youth, which is funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Formerly executive director of Neighborhood Justice Network in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms. Jones has experience in designing and implementing programming that attends to the needs of high-crime neighborhoods in Boston. In this capacity, Ms. Jones also provided training to community members, school officials, and law enforcement staff in youth programming, community mobilization and revitalization, and coalition building. For her efforts, Ms. Jones received a National Crime Prevention Council Youth Service Award in 1996. She also serves as an advisory board member on the Boston Coalition Against Violence. Ms. Jones earned a B.A. in communications from Emerson College and is currently pursuing an M.B.A. at Simmons School of Management.
Sandra Keenan, Technical Assistance Specialist (skeenan@air.org - 202-403-5324) is a Senior Research Analyst for the American Institutes for Research. She is the Education Resource Specialist for the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health, which supports systems of care grant sites for SAMHSA. She also leads AIR’s Behavioral Health Promotion Technical Assistance to the National Center which provides support to Safe Schools/Health Students Grant recipients. She has published numerous articles, monographs, and chapters on school-based support programs for children with emotional and behavioral needs. Sandy is currently finishing her doctorate in Education Leadership.
Nancy Kelly, Technical Assistance Specialist (nkelly@air.org - 202.306.1823) is a Research Analyst with American Institutes for Research. In this capacity she provides technical assistance to SS/HS grantees. As a former project director for a SS/HS 2001 site and with over ten years of experience in special education program development, assessment, and behavior modification, Ms. Kelly brings extensive practical experience to her technical assistance activities. She has worked under Dr. Romanczyk in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. In addition, Ms. Kelly has been an adjunct professor and lecturer in the departments of psychology and education at Mohawk Community College, SUNY New Paltz, and Hamilton College for several years and has authored a column on International Special Education Topics for DISES for four years. Ms. Kelly has a B.S. in Occupational Education, a M.S. Ed in Special Education and a School District Administrator's certification.
Jennifer Kitson, Technical Assistance Specialist (jkitson@edc.org - 785-625-2191) is credentialed and has practiced as a school psychologist for 23 years in a rural setting in western Kansas. For the past three years, prior to joining EDC, she was the Prevention Coordinator for a Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) project in Hays, Kansas. RURAL was one of the 54 original SS/HS sites, and was selected as one of 15 "sentinel" national evaluation sites. This experience as well as Ms. Kitson's work as a school psychologist, and her professional involvement with and volunteer work in a rural community, have provided many opportunities for building collaborations among groups, utilizing evidence-based practices, and implementing systems-level change to improve and expand services for children and families. As the Prevention Coordinator for the SS/HS project, she facilitated the prevention team staff activities, which included training and implementation of prevention programs within the schools and community. Ms. Kitson earned her B.S., M.S., and Ed.S. in school psychology from Fort Hays State University.
Nancy Macias-Smith, Technical Assistance Specialist (nmacias-smith@edc.org - 617-618-2339) has extensive experience as a direct service provider, including work as a teacher-trainer providing parenting skills for a bi-lingual, bi-cultural program for foster parents and day care providers. She is a licensed Social Worker and has worked with several community-based agencies in California and Massachusetts. A native of Colombia, Ms. Macias-Smith worked as a counselor with individuals and families in private practice and at Fundacion Salud y Progreso in Bogotá. Ms. Macias-Smith earned her master's degree from the Heller School of Social Welfare at Brandeis University.
John Rosiak, Technical Assistance Specialist (jrosiak@shs.net – 240-747-4824) has a broad background in drug, crime, and violence prevention, working in a variety of education and communications positions for more than 27 years. His experience includes creating and managing technical assistance; material development and dissemination; and outreach and communications campaigns. Prior to joining the TA team, he served at the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) for 18 years, developing and delivering training to law enforcement, school, and other community leaders who work with young people on drug, crime, and violence prevention issues, including bullying prevention. Mr. Rosiak directed the first drug demand reduction training for the DEA; pioneered the development and delivery of demand reduction workshops for police chiefs and sheriffs; and managed community policing training. Mr. Rosiak oversaw the development and delivery of NCPC programs for school and community settings around the nation. Mr. Rosiak also led technical assistance efforts for crime prevention campaigns in seven countries. He holds two master’s degrees in education.
Ron Slaby, Technical Assistance Specialist (rslaby@edc.org - 617-618-2315) is both a senior scientist at Education Development Center and a lecturer on education and pediatrics at Harvard University. A developmental psychologist, Dr. Slaby has more than 30 years of experience in investigating and applying innovative strategies to prevent youth violence and to enhance children's social and cognitive development through the influences of parents, peers, schools, communities, and media. Dr. Slaby has helped to shape a U.S. national agenda on violence prevention and educational uses of media. He co-authored a national plan for the prevention of violence in America for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, co-authored two national reports on violence and youth for the American Psychological Association, and helped initiate several national programs to disseminate effective violence prevention strategies to educators, health professionals, and criminal justice agents.
Mary Thorngren, Technical Assistance Specialist (mthorngren@air.org - 202-403-6869) is a Senior Project Manager at the American Institutes for Research. She is the Deputy Project Director of the Center for Implementing Technology in Education (CITEd), which supports the use of technology in schools. CITEd provides this support through innovative online technical assistance tools, professional development to teachers and identification of best practices. She has more than 25 years of experience in the areas of grants and contracts management, project management, prevention program development and implementation. In addition, she has many years of experience providing technical assistance and training to Latino community-based organizations, schools, and other partners with a focus on youth and families. She has worked extensively with non-profit board development, coalition/partnership development to facilitate program implementation, and cultural and linguistic competency. She has a passion and expertise in the area of parent/family involvement in education; has served in leadership positions at the county PTA level and has worked to set up programs to encourage Latino parents to become more involved in their students’ education. Mary has a master's degree in human resource development with an emphasis on organization development from American University, is a Certified Health Education Specialist, and is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Sue Vargo, Technical Assistance Specialist (svargo@edc.org - 617-618-2397) is an Associate Director of the National Center and a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Vargo brings extensive experience in providing training and consultation to community-based mental health and social service agencies and has clinical expertise from working with individuals, couples, and families for more than 20 years. Some of the settings Dr. Vargo has worked in include community mental health and health centers, HIV prevention agencies, early childhood settings, substance abuse treatment programs, and correctional facilities; and she has special interests in treating trauma at the community level, implementing evidence-based practices in community settings, and providing skills-based training to adults. Dr. Vargo holds a B.A. from Michigan State University, a M.Ed. from Boston University, and a Psy.D. from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.
Gwendolyn Willis-Darpoh, Technical Assistance Specialist (gwillis-darpoh@air.org - 202-403-6852) is a senior research analyst at the American Institutes for Research. She has more than 30 years of experience in the field of education across various settings. Early in her career, she worked with at-risk youth in Washington, D.C. before moving to the US Virgin Islands to work with learning disabled students. Dr. Willis-Darpoh also worked as a Developmental Specialist for the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Before joining AIR, Gwendolyn was employed by the Maryland State Teachers Association as an Organizational Specialist in Education Reform where she provided technical assistance and training to NEA local affiliates. She received gubernatorial appointments to the statewide Maryland Advisory Council on Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, as well as to the Maryland Advisory Council on Mental Hygiene. Dr. Willis-Darpoh has also been recognized for her work in educating Maryland 's teachers about effective strategies to close the minority achievement gap, as well as the impact of ESEA and IDEA on the teaching profession. Prior to moving to back to Maryland , Gwendolyn was a tenured Associate Professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where she taught eleven different courses to both graduate and undergraduate students. While there she traveled to Nigeria and Germany as a Fulbright Scholar in Educational Communications and Technology. Gwendolyn earned a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, a M.Ed. in special education from the American University, and a B.S. in health and physical education from Virginia State University.
Barb Zandlo Hutchinson, Technical Assistance Specialist (bhutchinson@edc.org - 763-757-4221) has 25 years in program administration, including 15 years experience in community and K-12 education programming. As a former Project Director for the 2002 SSHS initiative in Spring Lake Park , MN , she brings extensive practical experience in the areas of resource, program, and partnership development, grants management, and project implementation . She has had both training and work experience in primary prevention programs, security surveys, after school programming, youth development and service, parent/ family involvement, and community partnershi ps. Before coming to Spring Lake Park Schools , Hutchinson was a customized trainer for the Minnesota Technical College System, licensed in parenting and family relations. Prior to that , she coordinated neighborhood and school crime prevention programs for a local municipal police department. Previous paid and unpaid positions have all focused on using the tools of involvement and prevention to develop strong individuals, families, and communities. Hutchinson was a founding member of a county-wide children and family services collaborative and served as its most recent chair. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and graduate courses in Adult and Community Education.
