SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT: GONE ASTRAY IN SERVICE ARRAY?
TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
PRESENTER BIOS
Sid Gardner, MPA, President, Children and Family Futures, National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare,
Mr. Gardner serves as President of Children and Family Futures, Inc. He served as Director of the Center for Collaboration for Children at California State University, Fullerton from 1991-2001. He is the author of Beyond Collaboration to Results, published by Arizona State University, which assesses the recent history of community collaboratives in the context of the growing move toward results-based accountability and outcomes measures. His four-stage model of the developmental life cycle of collaboratives has been used extensively throughout the nation as a tool, along with a self-assessment instrument for collaboratives and a Collaborative Values Inventory designed to assess the degree of consensus on underlying values within a collaborative. Mr. Gardner´s new book, Cities, Counties, Kids, and Families: the Essential Role of Local Government describes a model for developing strategic policy for children and family policy in local governments.He graduated from Occidental College and was awarded a Master´s degree in Public Policy from Princeton University in 1965 and a Master´s degree in Religious Studies from Hartford Seminary in 1986. Mr. Gardner is a Vietnam veteran, and lives in Irvine with his wife, Nancy Young, and three of their four children. He is also the author of a novel, which was published in 2004.
Sharon Di Pirro-Beard, Program Coordinator, Sacramento Department of Health and Human Services,
Sharon Di Pirro-Beard is currently the Dependency Drug Court (DDC) Program Coordinator and the liaison between all collaborative groups involved with the DDC. She has over twenty years of experience working with the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, including fifteen years working for Child Protective Services and five years for Alcohol and Drug Services. Ms. Di Pirro-Beard earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Colorado State University and a Master of Science degree in Counseling Education from California State University.
Jay Wurscher, Oregon Child Welfare Alcohol & Drug Services Coordinator,
Jay Wurscher is currently the Child Welfare Alcohol and Drug Services Coordinator for Oregon’s Department of Human Services. He works in the Children, Adults and Families Division, Office Safety and Permanency for Children in Salem, Oregon. He is a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor and has been in the field of addiction treatment and prevention since 1982. Mr. Wurscher’s experience includes the jobs of addiction counselor, including work with substance abusing families involved in the child welfare system; clinical supervisor; program manager for a community based prevention program; and trainer. He has trained at numerous national conferences regarding substance abuse issues in child welfare and community collaborations, often with emphasis on methamphetamine. Mr Wurscher has taught summer courses at the University of Oregon’s Substance Abuse Prevention Program since 1992 and is a member of the Governor’s Methamphetamine Task Force and the Oregon Alliance for Drug Endangered Children.