Presenter Biographies

Latonya Adjei-Tabi
Senior Program Associate, Center for Children and Family Futures

Latonya Adjei-Tabi serves as Change Liaison for National Center for Substance Abuse and Child Welfare projects. She has more than 20 years experience with multi-disciplnary teams.

Adjei-Tabi previously worked as Policy Analyst for the Ohio Supreme Court — managing implementation of the Statewide System Improvement Program (SSIP). SSIP strengthened cross-system collaboration at both state and local levels allowing communities to provide services to all families affected by parental substance use disorders.

She has also held several positions within local justice systems, including Residential Specialist at a Treatment Facility for felony level offenders; Coordinator for Drug Treatment Courts — managing all operations and successfully obtaining certification from the state of Ohio as a specialized docket; Project Director — implementing the national Reclaiming Futures model in a local county; and Unit Manager — where she developed, coordinated, operated, and supervised an assigned unit of probation officers. She has also written successful funding proposals securing several million dollars in grants to support specialized dockets.

Adjei-Tabi holds a M.A. in Public Administration from Franklin University and a B.A. in Psychology from The Ohio State University. She also has a Chemical Dependency Counselor Assistant (CDCA) license from the Ohio Chemical Dependency Licensing Board.

Judge Diane Bull, Retired
Harris County Criminal District Courts

Judge Diane Bull is a retired judge from Houston, Texas, who served on the criminal bench for 24 years. She co-founded and chaired the Harris County SOBER DWI Court program from 2008 to 2018. Prior to her election, she pursued her legal career as a prosecutor, as a defense attorney, and as legal counsel for a large law enforcement organization. Currently she serves as a judicial consultant providing training and team technical assistance on treatment court best practices for NADCP’s National Drug Court Institute, National Center for DWI Courts, and Justice for Vets. She is a member of the governor's statewide Texas Specialty Court Advisory Council and serves as a special judge sitting by assignment in the Texas hill country. She has received numerous awards for her work in traffic safety and treatment court education as well as recognition and honors from various law enforcement agencies and statewide and community organizations for her contributions to criminal justice.

Shannon Carey, PhD
Co-President and Director of Development, NPC Research

Shannon Carey, PhD, is co-president and director of development at NPC Research. In her management role, she leads strategic planning, grant proposal development, and outreach for NPC. As a part of that work, she collaborates with all NPC staff to support research and evaluation projects in meeting NPC’s mission of informing policy and improving programs to enhance lives. She also works to ensure that NPC’s research and evaluation findings are translated into reports, presentations, and other products that clients can use to make meaningful change in their programs. Dr. Carey has worked in the areas of criminal justice and substance use disorder treatment for over 20 years, particularly in the area of treatment courts and cost analyses. Altogether, she has been involved in performing process, outcome, and/or cost evaluations in over 500 adult, juvenile, family, reentry, DWI, veterans, and federal treatment courts across the U.S. Dr. Carey was involved with developing and writing NADCP’s Adult Drug Court Best Practice Standards as well as the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Family Treatment Court Best Practice Standards and has assisted several states in writing their state-specific standards for all types of treatment courts. She is also an NADCP faculty member for the National Drug Court Institute and the National Center for DWI Courts. She earned her PhD from Portland State University in systems science and applied psychology.

Sean Clark, J.D.
National Director, Veterans Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Sean Clark serves as National Director, Veterans Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA’s Veterans Justice Programs include Health Care for Reentry Veterans, which provides outreach and linkage to VA services for Veterans reentering communities after long-term incarceration in state and federal prisons, and Veterans Justice Outreach, which serves Veterans involved with the “front end” of the criminal justice system (police, courts, and jails). Together, these programs are a prevention-oriented component of VA’s effort to prevent and end homelessness among Veterans, targeting the close relationship between incarceration and homelessness.  Their mission also includes facilitating Veterans’ access to legal services, including by supporting the growing number of free legal clinics operating in VA facilities.

Clark joined the VA in 2007 as a Presidential Management Fellow. He has also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, DC. Clark earned his J.D. from William & Mary School of Law.

Casey Clevenger
Treatment Court Commissioner, Boone County Courthouse

Commissioner Casey Clevenger has served as the judicial officer for treatment court in the 13^th Judicial Circuit of Missouri since 2015. She presides over seven treatment courts. She is a member of the Missouri Association of Treatment Court Professionals board of directors. Prior to her appointment as commissioner, she served as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Callaway County, Missouri, where she was a member of the adult drug and DWI court team. The 13^th Judicial Circuit implemented AIR in May 2019 and is primarily using AIR Mobile and AIR Connect for alternative sentencing and to enforce home incarcerations.

Matt Collinson
Project Director, Justice Initiatives in the School of Public Affairs at American University

Matt Collinson is a project director for Justice Initiatives in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC. In this role Matt directs several translational research and TTA projects focused on addressing racial disparities in treatment courts across the country. This work includes using AU’s Racial and Ethnic Disparities Assessment tool to help courts to understand how their current policies and practices may be unintentionally contributing to racially biased outcomes, and then developing unique and tailored training and technical assistance programs for courts, jurisdictions, and states to reduce racism, disparities, and bias in their programs. Matt also teaches as an adjunct professor in American University’s department of Justice Law and Criminology, where he teaches an undergraduate class on the history and purpose of the legal system, and a graduate level course on pre-trial justice, jails, bail and risk assessments. All his classes explore the role of racism and racial bias in the administration of justice, and challenge students to fight for a more equitable, less racist, and radically reimagined system of justice.

Judge Theresa Dellick
SAMSHA GAINS Institute certified trauma-informed trainer

Judge Theresa Dellick is a SAMSHA GAINS Institute certified trauma-informed trainer. She has presented on trauma-informed practices since 2015. Her entire court staff is trauma-informed. Dellick along with her local Mental Health and Recovery Board Executive Director created and implemented a county-wide Trauma-informed/Resiliency Based Collaborative made up of several social service agencies, law enforcement partners, schools, and businesses to expand practices, information, and education regarding trauma-informed and resiliency practices. She has been a juvenile judge since 2001 and was a county court judge from 1999-2001. She was partner at a Youngstown law firm and was engaged in private practice as a civil defense trial attorney. She was accepted into ABOTA based upon her civil trial experience. Her administration of the Court has been directed to trauma-informed, balanced and restorative justice with focused attention to youth accountability and responsibility, public safety and restoration of victims’ rights. Dellick has been named a Champion of Hope by Sandy Hook Promise, and has received recognition for her court programs by the Obama White House, U.S. Department of Justice, and U.S. Department of Education. She is also a Fellow of the Georgetown’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform. She is a member of several national and state task forces and commissions, including the American Psychiatrist Association Foundation and the CCJ, NCSC, and COSCA’s National Judicial Task Force to Examine State Court’s Response to for Mental Health. She received the ATHENA Award from the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber. Dellick also completed podcasts for the American Psychiatric Association and National Council of State Courts on trauma and trauma-informed practices. She is a member of the Judicial Racial Justice Network (JRJN), hosted by the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC), and supported by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ).

Tammy Doby
CEO, Urban Minority Alcoholism Drug Abuse Outreach Program (UMADAOP) of Franklin County

Tammy Doby is the CEO of the Urban Minority Alcoholism Drug Abuse Outreach Program (UMADAOP) of Franklin County, Ohio. She is the first woman and African American woman to serve in this role. Prior to becoming the CEO of UMADAOP of Franklin County, Doby worked for 23 years in the healthcare industry, where she spearheaded local and statewide community-based initiatives that focused on underserved people and communities. Her body of work also includes quality improvement and healthcare administration. She is an entrepreneur, the proud founder of Shelling Peas, an organization that provides resources and support and addresses issues that directly impact women. She received a bachelor’s degree in education with a minor in African American studies from the Ohio State University and an MBA with a concentration in project management from Ashland University. She is a proud member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., serving 25 years and counting.

Kendall Friend, MA
Project Director, National Drug Court Institute (NDCI)

Kendall Friend, MA, is a project director for the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI), a division of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). She joined NDCI in 2019, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge of treatment courts stemming from her experience in probation and court coordination. Friend began her career in treatment courts in 2014 as an adult probation officer at Fayette County Court of Common Pleas in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where she had the opportunity to supervise veterans court and mental health court intermediate punishment participants. She transitioned to a position as the court coordinator of Fayette County’s mental health court and veteran’s court. In that role, she worked with community partners to implement Fayette County’s adult drug court. In 2018, she became the court coordinator for Pierce County District Court’s adult drug court and veterans’ treatment court programs in Tacoma, Washington, where she helped the treatment court teams implement a veterans treatment court. Friend earned her master’s degree in criminal justice from Slippery Rock University and her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and psychology from Lycoming College and is certified in grant writing from Temple University.

John R. Gallagher
Associate Professor, School of Social Work at Morgan State University

John R. Gallagher is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Morgan State University. His expertise is in clinical social work, substance use disorder and mental health treatment, and criminal justice reform. Gallagher's research agenda is focused on the use of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in treating opioid use disorders; exploring drug court participants' lived experiences in programming; identifying the factors that may contribute to racial disparities in drug court outcomes; program evaluation for drug courts and other treatment courts; and implementing evidence-based interventions to promote substance use disorder and mental health recovery. He serves as Associate Editor for Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly and is on the editorial boards for the Journal for Advancing Justice and the Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions. Additionally, he has served as a peer-reviewer for over 30 academic journals. Gallagher has developed a national reputation for excellence in drug court research, and he helped develop the Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED) Program Assessment Tool, presents the equity and inclusion curriculum for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), and advocates for best-practice standards in serving African Americans in drug court. Gallagher is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Licensed Clinical Addiction Counselor (LCAC) who has practiced substance use disorder and mental health counseling since 2002.

Helen Harberts
Attorney at Law, NDCI Consultant

Helen Harberts has been working in criminal justice since 1983, serving as a prosecutor and chief probation officer. As a chief probation officer, she started one of the first 40 DWI courts in the United States. She wrote the community supervision chapter of the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI) Judicial Benchbook and co-wrote the Supervision Guiding Principles of DWI Courts. She continues to train on supervision matters across the United States.

Judge Kate Huffman, Second District Court of Appeals
Previously Montgomery County General Division Judge

In February, 2023, Kate Huffman began working as a judge with the Second District Court of Appeals. She served as a Montgomery County General Division Judge from 2002 until February, 2023. During her tenure, she presided over the Montgomery County RISE (Recovery Is Empowering) Court, which provides gender-specific supervision of female offenders struggling with substance use disorder, and previously presided over the court’s Drug Court. Huffman received her B.A. in political science from Wright State University, an M.A. in Judicial Studies from the University of Nevada, and her J.D. from the University of Dayton School of Law. She earned a Certificate in Judicial Development General Jurisdiction Trial Skills and a Certificate in Judicial Development Dispute Resolution Skills from the National Judicial College.

Huffman provides peer-to-peer technical and education assistance related to impaired driving and specialized docket issues to judges around the country as the American Bar Association National Judicial Fellow, and previously served as the ABA’s Ohio Judicial Outreach Liaison. Huffman recently served as the Chair of the Commission for the Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Ohio Supreme Court and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Judicial College. She has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Dayton School of Law for 19 years and serves on the faculty of the National Judicial College. She teaches continuing legal education courses on a variety of topics, primarily focusing on gender-specific specialized dockets and evidence-based practices in impaired driving cases, as well as evidence issues.

Kim Kehl, M. Ed.
SAMSHA certified trauma-informed trainer

Kim Kehl is a SAMSHA certified trauma-informed trainer. He has presented at numerous local, state and national conferences and workshops. Kehl is currently a Project Manager for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Office of Families and Children, Bureau of Foster Care Licensing, where he provides consultation and technical assistance to Ohio’s Qualified Residential Treatment Programs (children’s residential programs) on trauma-informed approaches and trauma treatment models. Kehl recently retired from state and county government after more than 32 years. During that time, he has had various roles with state agencies including the Ohio Departments of Education, Mental Health, Health, Job and Family Services, Transportation and the Governor’s Ohio Family and Children First Council. For the past seven years, Kehl has served as Ohio’s Trauma-Informed Care Project Coordinator. Under the general direction of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) Assistant Director, Office of Community Treatment Services, he collaborated with federal, state, and local partners to support training and implementation of trauma-informed practices throughout Ohio. He coordinated training efforts and fostered the implementation of trauma-informed practice within the OhioMHAS and Department of Developmental Disabilities {DODD] systems in both the institutional and community domains.

Kehl received a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from Wright State University in 1990 and a B.S. from Kent State University in Special Education and Elementary Education in 1978. Kehl’s sobriety date is November 22, 2000.

Marie Lane, J.D.
Project Director, Justice for Vets Division of All Rise

Marie Lane, JD, is a project director with the Justice For Vets division of the All Rise. Previously, she was a career public defender who served as the director of the Ashtabula County public defender’s office from 1998 to 2021. She served as the defense attorney representative on the Ohio Supreme Court’s Commission on Specialized Dockets, which oversees the development and delivery of specialized docket services to Ohio’s courts. As a member of the committee, she helped write and implement Ohio’s first statewide rule and uniform standards for specialized docket courts. In 2011, the Ashtabula County Felony Drug Court Program, of which she was a founding treatment team member, was one of the first seven courts to be fully certified by the Ohio Supreme Court pursuant to the new rule. Lane also served as the defense attorney on her county’s family drug court treatment team and on the advisory committee of the adult felony mental health court.

Brian L. Meyer, PhD, LCP
Clinical Psychologist, Central Virginia VA Health Care System

Brian L. Meyer, PhD, LCP, is a clinical psychologist and the psychology program manager and supervisory psychologist for the community-based outpatient clinics at the Central Virginia VA Health Care System and an assistant professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He obtained his AB from Harvard University in 1980 and his PhD in clinical psychology with a specialization in adolescents and families from Duke University in 1990. Meyer has worked in the child welfare and the child and adult mental health fields as a clinician, administrator, teacher, policy maker, program developer, expert witness, researcher, consultant, and trainer. He has been the deputy clinical director of the New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department Protective Services Division; the executive director of the Albuquerque Child and Family Guidance Center; the executive director of the Virginia Treatment Center for Children; and the interim associate chief of mental health clinical services, the workplace violence prevention coordinator, and the PTSD-SUD specialist at the McGuire VA Medical Center for more than 11 years. In his current roles, Meyer oversees psychologists at five (soon to be six) regional VA community clinics; provides evidence-based treatments for veterans who have problems with PTSD, substance abuse, depression, traumatic brain injury, and other co-occurring conditions; trains psychology trainees; and develops and conducts research on treatments for PTSD, substance abuse, and co-morbid conditions. He is also a nationally in-demand speaker who has given over 400 presentations and trainings on a wide range of content areas, including the treatment of trauma and co-morbid conditions, substance abuse, complex trauma, the effects of trauma and substance abuse on families, veterans’ mental health, mindfulness meditation, secondary traumatization and self-care, trauma-informed courts, and treatment courts. He is also the co-author, with Dr. Jarrod Reisweber, of Transcending Self Therapy: Group Integrative Cognitive Behavioral Treatment Book for Facilitators (2019), a treatment manual for people with substance use disorders.

Karen Otis, NCC, LMHC, MA
Deputy Director, Treatment Court Programs, National Training and Technical Assistance, Center for Justice Innovation

Karen Otis is the Deputy Director with the Center’s department of treatment court programs. She delivers assistance to state and local jurisdictions in the areas of adult drug courts, family drug courts, veterans treatment courts, mental health courts, and more. Otis also designs and delivers content to enhance fidelity to the treatment court model and improve treatment court best practices. She is a licensed mental health counselor with more than a decade of experience in family treatment court. She holds a master's degree in forensic psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a master’s degree in mental health counseling from the City College of New York.

Timothy Richardson
Project Manager of Re-entry Services, Urban Minority Alcoholism Drug Abuse Outreach Program (UMADAOP) of Franklin County

Timothy Richardson is an Ohio prevention specialist assistant. He is the project manager of re-entry services at the Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Programs (UMADAOP) of Franklin County, Ohio. He is also the CEO of E.P.I.D.M.E.K (Equal Protection Intentionally Denied Endangers Mandates Enacted Konstiutionally), which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to equality and restoring justice for those who are at a disadvantage. This organization works hand-in-hand with the community to bridge the gap between ex-offenders, families, victims, and the community. Richardson has over 20 years of experience as a community leader and advocate regarding social justice and fighting for the rights of those who have been incarcerated.

Teresa Russell
Treatment Coordinator for the Jail Division, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office 

Teresa Russell joined the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in June 2017 as a Treatment Coordinator assigned to the Jail Division. Russell was tasked with oversight of contracted medical, mental health and re-entry services for inmates. Russell came to MCSO with more than 20 years of experience in community behavioral health, with focus on Vocational Rehabilitation and Forensic Services. During her first full year of service with MCSO, Russell successfully implemented a Vivitrol Release Program, developed Peer Recovery Services within the jail and worked to streamline appropriate discharge planning services for inmates. In 2020, Russell assumed the role of Director of Criminal Justice Outreach for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, where she continues to oversee jail-based services and collaboration with court and community officials to develop initiatives that support jail diversion. Russell is an active member of the Sheriff's Drug Free Coalition and Community Overdose Action Team. Russell received a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from Wright State University and a Master's Degree in Business Administration from Tiffin University.