Gabrielle Russ, B.A.
Quality Assurance Reviewer
Gabrielle Russis a National Center for State Courts Certified Court Manager and seasoned child welfare professional with more than a decade of experience working with children and families involved in the court system. As a member of HZA’s privatized Service Quality and Practice Improvement Unit within the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ Division of Children and Family Services, she completes case record reviews in support of the Division’s Program Improvement Plan and Practice Model development initiatives. She reviews case files and interviews key stakeholders to provide the State with recommendations for improving positive outcomes for children and families. She also provides onsite mentoring support to area staff.
Ms.Russcame to HZA from the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Administrative Office of the Courts where she developed and implemented a system to measure and track the performance of Arkansas’ juvenile drug court programs. She supportedjuvenile drug court programs by maintaining expertise in evidence-based practices and scientific research regarding youth with substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders, and performed quality assurance checks to ensure court programs maintained fidelity to practice standards. For the courts, Ms. Russ applied for and received a $400,000 grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to address a systematic barrier in Arkansas’ juvenile drug court programs.
She also has a great deal of volunteer experience, having served for more than a decade as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) volunteer advocate with Pulaski County (Arkansas) CASA, a nonprofit organization serving children in Pulaski and Perry counties who have experienced abuse and/or neglect. As a volunteer advocate, Ms. Russ advocates for abused and neglected foster youth in the county’s juvenile court and investigates each case to ensure the youth’s safety and well-being while awaiting permanency. She attends court hearings and prepares a court report for each. She also collaborates with multi-disciplinary professionals at case staffing to develop strategies to achieve case plan goals and comply with court orders.
Ms.Russearned herB.A. in Speech Communication in 2006 from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.