Skip to Content
Enter
Skip to Menu
Enter
Skip to Footer
Enter
We are the

Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Analytics

a collection of photos with kids and adults smiling and workinga pair of photos with adults sitting in an office having a conversation and a child smiling at the camera

As a project of the Children’s Bureau, we are committed to addressing persistent child welfare workforce challenges with data-driven solutions — empowering agencies to better support the children in their care.

Download Project Overview
a pair of photos with adults sitting in an office having a conversation while looking at a compute screen and a child playing with toys

Meet Our Team

The QIC-WA Site Consultants have experience working with public and tribal child welfare agencies. They bring expertise in evaluation, workforce, DEIB, implementation, dissemination, and data analytics to support our sites and create resources designed to build the capacity of child welfare and HR professionals to use data to make workforce decisions.

Angelique Day
Show more +
Angelique Day
Tribal Specialist, Implementation, Evaluation

“As a foster care alumni, I really struggled in my transition from alumni to professional when I accepted my 1st job as a CPS worker. I want others with lived experience to see themselves as a valued member of the child welfare workforce.

I have extensive experience working in tribal communities on federally funded Children's Bureau initiatives (including workforce training and indigenous evaluation) to ensure interventions that are implemented and evaluated in ways that are informed by indigenous ways of knowing and are relevant for use in tribal communities.”

Anna Henderer
Show more +
Anna Henderer
Evaluation

“I love utilizing data to drive action-oriented changes that support a greater sense of well-being.

I am a very strengths-based and creative person with a background in community-building and healing-centered work. These skills will help me support child welfare agencies in creating meaning out of data to shift workforce culture in becoming more wholistic.”

Ashley Long
Show more +
Ashley Long
Analytics & Visualization, Evaluation

“I love making data useful and bringing together the right ingredients to hopefully inspire and motivate child welfare leaders!

I am very strengths-based and creative person with a background in community-building, public health and healing-centered work. These skills will help me to support child welfare agencies in creating meaning out of data and orienting changes that will help shift workforce culture to be more wholistic."

Brad Stabio
Show more +
Brad Stabio
Dissemination

“It is exciting to use video to help explain how important it is to improve the public child welfare agencies and how they can strengthen the child welfare workforce!”

It can be hard to explain what a study like the QIC-WA is doing in simple, approachable terms. I bring my experience with video to the team to combine real stories of workers in the field and how these strategies affect them and the agencies in which they work.

Catherine Wayman
Show more +
Catherine Wayman
Evaluation

“I am excited to identify and evaluate data which promotes engagement and well-being of child welfare professionals.

I am looking forward to applying my experience in evaluation of human service programs and integrating the practice of organizational behavior management as a partner in this work.”

Christopher Cerasoli
Show more +
Christopher Cerasoli
Workforce, Analytics & Evaluation

“Making work better for people who change the lives of others.”

The right data can change everything about the workplace. By improving our data and telling better stories about our workforce, we can empower our child welfare agencies to better serve our mission. I am pleased to bring my passion to maximize impact for people-related business issues to the QIC-WA.

Courtney L. Harrison
Show more +
Courtney L. Harrison
Implementation, Dissemination

“I love to integrate research and evidence into human services policy and practice and am excited to be part of QIC-WA team where we can support data-informed decision making in the child welfare field.

I value being in child welfare agencies to listen to the needs to the workforce and support the implementation of an initiative. The experiences and stories they share help shape the products we develop and disseminate so that other agencies can benefit from the QIC-WA too.”

Dana Reiss
Show more +
Dana Reiss
Evaluation

“I am passionate about the work of the QIC-WA because it involves the use of data to inform solutions to challenges faced by child welfare agencies, thereby promoting a strong and healthy workforce.

My expertise in research and program evaluation will support efforts to analyze and evaluate the implementation and outcomes of strategies that aim to improve the child welfare workforce. I will help child welfare agencies understand the meaning of the findings and how these efforts can improve their agencies so they can incorporate data-informed decision-making into their practice.”

David Huh
Show more +
David Huh
Tribal Specialist

“I'm passionate about making data more accessible to child welfare workers and agencies to empower their critical work with families, particularly those in tribal and other underserved communities.

I am a clinical and quantitative psychologist with over 15 years of experience in data science methods and community-based research with tribal populations. I will be supporting evaluation and data-related efforts to strengthen tribal child welfare agencies and workforces.”

Jessica Elm
Show more +
Jessica Elm
Tribal Specialist

“I am passionate about the work of QIC-WA because tribes and their citizens ultimately benefit from data driven decision making for improved child and family services by way of a stronger workforce.

I view my role as a team member to build on the existing strengths of tribal systems. By building on existing strengths, we can work collaboratively to use data systems and identify areas of need for strengthening the child welfare workforce.”

Jessica Humer
Show more +
Jessica Humer
Evaluation

“I am really interested in retention of workers in child welfare as well as other human services fields (I am no longer working in direct service but remember how difficult it was).

I look forward to seeing how my role will flourish on this project as we proceed. I hope that my background in social work will assist in this project.”

Jianchao Lai
Show more +
Jianchao Lai
Analytics & Visualization, Evaluation

“I am deeply committed to the mission of the QIC-WA due to its pivotal role in addressing the pressing need for workforce support and its potential for scalable impact across various systems.

Utilizing my research background in community-based and government welfare agencies, along with skills in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, I will support the QIC-WA by contributing to data collection, analysis and visualization.”

Jonathan Litt
Show more +
Jonathan Litt
Analytics & Visualization, Evaluation, Dissemination

“I'm excited about the unique opportunity to work with child welfare agencies on using data to better understand and address the dynamic needs of their workforces.

As the project-level evaluator, I'll be working with child welfare agencies to assess the implementation and impact of the workforce analytics framework and data visualizations strategies. The project-level evaluation will help to inform how the QIC-WA builds capacities, as well as to drive the national conversation about the application of workforce analytics frameworks and data visualization within child welfare agencies.”

Kaitlyn Childs
Show more +
Kaitlyn Childs
Analytics & Visualization, Evaluation

“I am excited to use my data analytics and visualization skills to help address child welfare workforce challenges.

My background is in data analytics, data visualization, and evaluation. My role on the project is to build data analytics tools and visualize key data points to help monitor the success of workforce interventions.”

Karly Schleicher
Show more +
Karly Schleicher
Evaluation

“As a researcher and evaluator, I am passionate about using workforce analytics as a tool to facilitate data informed decision-making to strengthen the child welfare workforce.

My experience in research and evaluation will support our efforts to test and evaluate workforce strategies and interventions. My skillset will enhance our capacity to advance child welfare workforce innovation using strong, evidence-based data analytics.”

Lanz Christian Bañes
Show more +
Lanz Christian Bañes
Tribal Specialist

“As a former child welfare worker in two states, I have seen firsthand how issues with the workforce affect the quality of service to our families and youth — and they deserve better.

As part of the evaluation team, I hope to leverage my child welfare worker experience to develop clear, effective tools to ensure the agency's chosen intervention is supporting their goals.”

Marlo Perry
Show more +
Marlo Perry
Evaluation

“Data are powerful, and I’m excited to work alongside jurisdictions as they better learn how to utilize data to strengthen their workforce.

My career has been devoted to conducting research and evaluation with people-serving organizations – helping them build their capacity to gather and use data to answer questions they have about their training, programs, and/or staff. I’m eager to use the experience I’ve gained leading Pennsylvania initiatives to support other jurisdictions as they work toward improving their workforce recruitment, retention, and well-being efforts.”

Megan Paul
Show more +
Megan Paul
Workforce, DEIB, Analytics & Visualization

“Helping organizations improve individual and collective success is my passion, and doing so for the sake of children and families makes the work all the more important and meaningful.

I am an industrial-organizational psychologist and have spent the last 24 years working exclusively in child welfare. Using my workforce expertise and experience with a variety of public child welfare agencies, I will help agencies explore and begin to better manage the many factors that contribute to employee performance, retention, and well-being.”

Michelle Graef
Show more +
Michelle Graef
Workforce

“I'm interested in child welfare workforce issues, the evaluation of human services agency programs and operations, and implementation of systemic change. Projects such as the QIC-WA combine all three!

Throughout my career I have engaged a diverse array of child welfare leaders and professionals with significant impact and have built enduring capacity in child welfare agencies located in more than 20 states. My academic expertise is in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology, which involves the application of psychological principles to human resource management issues such as hiring, training, and retaining staff, and organizational development and change.”

Paul Elam
Show more +
Paul Elam
DEIB

“This effort is vital in helping to establish a workforce that is capable of providing equitable, culturally sensitive, and effective services to children and families.”

By leveraging the expertise of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion subject matter experts, child welfare agencies can create a more supportive environment for their staff and deliver services that are culturally responsive, racially equitable, and effective for the diverse populations they serve. On this project I will support resource development and provide assistance to help build capacity for collaboration between child welfare agencies and the communities they serve.

Penny Putnam Collins
Show more +
Penny Putnam Collins
Implementation, Dissemination

“Having worked in a child welfare agency for many years, I understand the importance of providing support to our workforce and addressing the challenges that are affecting agencies across the country.

I have more than 35 years of working in child welfare from direct service and supervision to training and technical assistance at the national level. My experience will allow me to work shoulder to shoulder with our sites to assess ongoing workforce challenges and explore solutions that may help other agencies in the future.”

Priya Kanneboyina
Show more +
Priya Kanneboyina
Evaluation

“I am passionate about being able to empower staff that may feel stressed, burnt out, and unable to provide services to the best of their abilities and provide them with data and analytics that allow them to make more calculated, informed decisions and improve their not only their work capacity but their workplace environments.

My role of helping to evaluate and better understand workforce analytics data will help child welfare agencies to clearly understand where they can start in strengthening their workforce and how to do it. My experience with public facing visualizations and presentations will help me to communicate these needs to a wide audience in a way that will empower them regardless of how much experience they have with using workforce analytics to improve their services.”

Robert Blagg
Show more +
Robert Blagg
Co-Principal Investigator, Analytics & Visualization

“I'm dedicated to empowering stakeholders to use data to make timely and sound program and policy decisions.

Through my experience in evaluation data visualization, I've honed the skills to assist leaders in leveraging data effectively. By translating complex findings into actionable insights, I support leaders to make informed decisions grounded in evidence.”

Sarah Stepanek
Show more +
Sarah Stepanek
Workforce

“I’m passionate about the work of the QIC-WA because it’s a chance to make a meaningful difference in others’ lives—both those in the child welfare workforce and the children and families that they serve.

My experience throughout my graduate school program in industrial/organizational psychology has focused on addressing workforce issues such as recruitment, selection, training, leadership, DEI, and more. I’m excited to take my knowledge and expertise gained from classes, applied work, my time at CCFL, and the vast amount of academic literature and research findings at our disposal and translate these in a new way into this project in order to meet workforce needs, enact change, and improve outcomes.”

Sarah Thurston
Show more +
Sarah Thurston
Analytics & Visualization, Evaluation

“I love collecting data and translating it into actionable insights!

I bring 15 years of experience supporting child welfare systems as an evaluator/analyst, including three years focused on workforce data and issues. I hope to share this expertise in development of sustainable data management and reporting to concentrate efforts to build a healthier, thriving child welfare workforce.”

Sitao Chen
Show more +
Sitao Chen
Evaluation

“I am deeply committed to supporting child welfare professionals and believe that a well-supported workforce is essential for the success and well-being of children and families.

As a doctoral student, I will be assisting the evaluation team. I aim to leverage my research in workforce well-being and my experience in policy evaluation to advance a workplace environment that better retains and supports our dedicated workers.”

Tessa Evans-Campbell
Show more +
Tessa Evans-Campbell
Tribal Specialist

Todd Franke
Show more +
Todd Franke
Co-Principal Investigator

“I have been involved with agencies that serve thousands of families representing unique geographic and cultural communities. Through this project we will support agencies to use data to help their workforces grow and better serve children and families.

Trained in social work and educational psychology, Professor Franke seeks to achieve a better understanding of, and improve the responsiveness of service systems in the fields of social services, education and health.”

Victoria Mattingly
Show more +
Victoria Mattingly
DEIB

“I'm honored to bring DEI expertise to the QIC-WA in order to equip our end users with the tools they need to better serve diverse communities, promoting equitable treatment of all individuals.”

With our data-driven approach to DEI, my hope is that child welfare agencies will be able to take a more quantitative approach to fostering an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. As an organizational psychologist, I turn otherwise abstract concepts like inclusion and allyship into quantifiable metrics.

Wyntre Stout
Show more +
Wyntre Stout
Evaluation

“I am passionate about building the capacity to use data to inform solutions to real-world problems.

I will draw on my background in empirical and institutional research, including data analytics and visualization, and commitment to continuous improvement to support the QIC-WA approach.”

Show team members +

Tribal Advisory Board

The Tribal Advisory Board brings a vast array of child welfare and policy, management, and training expertise to the QIC-WA. They suggest strategies to improve engagement with our tribal sites and provide guidance on products to inform a wider audience of tribal child welfare leaders.

Becky Main
Show more +
Becky Main
Tribal Child Welfare Specialist

“Having been a Tribal Child Welfare Director for my tribe for many years I understand the need to be mindful of developing child welfare staff so that they are meeting the needs of children, parents, and their families while also being intentional of integrating culture and tribal values that are wrapped in respect, honoring one another, and being relational.”

Heather LaForme-Maldonado
Show more +
Heather LaForme-Maldonado

Jeri Jasken
Show more +
Jeri Jasken
Director of the Tribal Training and Certification Partnership, Department of Social Work, University of Minnesota Duluth

"Having a healthy and well trained child welfare workforce is one of the keys to operating a successful agency that works in the best interests of children and families."

Kendra Lowden
Show more +
Kendra Lowden
Director of Leadership and Tribal Initiatives at the Center for Workforce Leadership

“Tribal child welfare professionals act as a shield for tribal sovereignty and I am passionate about supporting them as they work to protect Native families.”

Lauretta Blakely
Show more +
Lauretta Blakely
Program Director White Earth Nation

“A strong workforce improves outcomes and success for our families.”

Lucille Echohawk
Show more +
Lucille Echohawk
Co-founder Denver Indian Family Resource Center

“I am passionate about strengthening the child welfare workforce because their highly skilled work efforts are especially critical to the needs of vulnerable Native children and families caught up in the child welfare systems so that the goal of reunification can be achieved and sustained.”

Misty Flowers
Show more +
Misty Flowers
Former Executive Director of the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Coalition

“Our people have been affected by historical and international trauma and we are in a time of healing. Child welfare is a symptom of historical and intergenerational trauma and the workforce that work in this area are a vital resource for helping our children and families!”

Norma Hernandez
Show more +
Norma Hernandez

Vickie Bradley
Show more +
Vickie Bradley
Secretary of Public Health and Human Services for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI)

“I believe that strengthening child welfare workforce in Tribal communities is a way to exercise sovereignty; when Tribes can take care of their own families by having strong, responsive, competent, and responsive workforces then families can be supported in a better way.”

Hide team members +Show team members +

Workforce Champions

The Workforce Champions bring a breadth of child welfare, human resources, training, and public administration experience to enhance the QIC-WA team. They draw on their professional background and expertise to inform the development of products and resources that will help strengthen the child welfare workforce in a variety of agency settings.

Adrian Saldana
Show more +
Adrian Saldana
Organizational Effectiveness Consultant — American Public Human Services Association

“Child welfare workers make difficult decisions every day that deeply impact families and children, so they need all the support they can get to serve effectively and maintain their well-being.”

Deborah Wilson Gadsden
Show more +
Deborah Wilson Gadsden
Director of Equity, Inclusion and Belonging — Child Welfare League of America

“As a 50+ veteran of the child welfare workforce, I want to see the field use the best practices and procedures in our work with children and families.”

Jessica Pryce
Show more +
Jessica Pryce
Research Professor - Florida State University's College of Social Work

“I am passionate about strengthening the child welfare workforce because I see firsthand how much care and compassion these professionals have yet I also see the need to challenge them to see and do this work differently.”

Joel Odimba
Show more +
Joel Odimba
Child Welfare Workforce Support - Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families

“Workforce development and support are keys to staff wellness, high quality practice, and better child welfare outcomes.”

Juan Flores Cintron
Show more +
Juan Flores Cintron
Coach, Organizational Development Team - Grupo Nexos Inc.

“Just as the backbone supports the body, child welfare staff empower and lead efforts to ensure the well-being of every child as they become resilient leaders of the future. Let us support and protect the well-being of our valuable workforce to safeguard the future.”

Maximillian Lisembee
Show more +
Maximillian Lisembee
Indiana Department of Child Services – Project Manager, Strategic Solutions and Agency Transformation

“I am passionate about strengthening the child welfare workforce because it is filled with incredibly strong and passionate individuals and I am dedicated to supporting and empowering this dynamic community to achieve greater impact.”

Meon Stubbs
Show more +
Meon Stubbs
Michigan Department of Human Services – Division Manager, Office of Workforce Development and Training

“I am passionate about strengthening the child welfare workforce in order to improve better outcomes for children and families and increase specialized skill development in cultural competence and family.”

Nikita Smith
Show more +
Nikita Smith
Child Welfare Services Operation, Director - South Carolina Department of Social Services

“When staffed are supported and not overwhelmed by high caseloads or unhealthy work environments, they are able to support families and children in restoring healthy families.”

Robin Jenkins
Show more +
Robin Jenkins
Human Resources Manager, Oklahoma Department of Human Services

“A strong workforce helps ensure that children and families have stability while involved with Child Welfare.”

TaWanna French
Show more +
TaWanna French
Denver Department of Health and Human Services – Business Operations Administrator

“The child welfare workforce is vital to our society, so strengthening the workforce is needed to maintain strong, well-informed, compassionate leaders that are favorably disposed to supporting vulnerable children, their families and the community.”

Vincent Ciola
Show more +
Vincent Ciola
Children Services Practice Advancement Bureau Chief – Ohio Department of Job and Family Services

“A trained and experienced workforce is critical to achieving the best outcomes for our children and families.”

Show team members +