Strategic Guidance.
Stronger Outcomes.

I am available to testify as an expert witness in child welfare, family law, juvenile justice, and special education matters, providing the court with an independent social work perspective on agency practice, service delivery, family functioning, and systemic context.

I review the full case record and provide written analysis of whether a child welfare agency met its obligations — including whether reasonable efforts were made to prevent removal, maintain placement stability, and support reunification. I know what should be in these records, what its absence means, and how agency practice compares to what policy required.

Were least-restrictive alternatives genuinely explored before removal? Were siblings appropriately considered for joint placement? Was concurrent planning implemented the way it should have been? Was family contact and visitation facilitated in a way that meaningfully supported reunification — or was it being used to create distance? I document the gaps between what the agency was required to do and what actually happened.

For clients facing disposition or sentencing in juvenile or family court, I provide context, history, and systemic analysis — helping the court understand the full picture of a person's life, needs, and circumstances.

I consult on special education matters including whether a district met its obligations under IDEA and Section 504, review of evaluation adequacy, analysis of placement and service decisions, and expert support for families and their attorneys in due process proceedings and TEA complaints.

I consult on matters involving youth in the juvenile justice system, including competency context, diversion candidacy, mental health treatment history, and whether appropriate community-based alternatives were available and offered.

I consult on matters involving access to disability services, Medicaid waiver programs, and supported decision-making — including guardianship alternatives for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. I have consulted with disability rights legal organizations on complex service navigation and special education matters.

I am available to consult on Fair Housing Act matters and disability accommodation cases requiring an expert social work perspective on necessity, reasonableness, and the impact of a denial.

When a young person's mental health needs have exceeded what home and outpatient support can address, families are often pushed toward residential placement without knowing what to look for — or how to tell a genuinely therapeutic program from one that could cause harm. I have spent extensive time inside these facilities and know the difference. I help families do everything possible to keep their child safe at home first — including county-funded community placements, crisis stabilization resources, and a state-administered pathway that can fund residential treatment without requiring a family to give up custody or medical decision-making rights. When residential care is truly the right path, I help vet programs and advocate for the young person's safety and progress throughout their stay.

When families are seeking access to mental health services, intensive supports, or disability programs, the way a child's needs are understood and documented by the systems involved can open or close doors. I help families think through how to share what they know about their child in a way that is honest, complete, and grounded in love — so that the depth of a parent's knowledge actually translates into the level of support their child needs, rather than getting lost in the process.

Some biological and adoptive families reach a point where placing their child through Child Protective Services is the only pathway to accessing the level of residential mental health care their child needs. This process — which involves temporarily sharing legal and medical decision-making with the state — is one of the most complex, painful, and misunderstood situations a family can face. I help families understand their options at every step, ensure that their knowledge and expertise about their child is heard and honored by child protection authorities, advocate for their meaningful involvement in their child's care, and work to ensure the plan stays centered on their child's wellbeing and the family's long-term connection.

I help individuals and families understand their rights under the Fair Housing Act, draft and pursue reasonable accommodation requests, and prepare complaints when a housing provider has failed to respond appropriately. I also help people navigate disability-related housing resources including Section 811 project rental assistance and Housing Choice Vouchers, and understand how these can be combined with disability service funding to support truly independent community living.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, housing assistance, disability services — each program has its own eligibility rules, application processes, and renewal requirements. Most families are trying to piece these together without a map. I help families understand how these programs interact, access what they qualify for, and build a unified plan that coordinates all of these resources into something that actually supports a person's independence and goals.

When Child Protective Services becomes involved with a family, the process can feel overwhelming, opaque, and one-sided. I help families understand what is happening and why, what their rights are at each stage, and how to engage with the process in a way that keeps their family's voice and interests central. For families navigating safety plans, family-based safety services, court-ordered services, or the threat of removal, I provide informed support and help ensure nothing important gets missed.

When a relative or caregiver wants to serve as a placement for a child in Texas foster care but has been denied, there are formal pathways most families — and even many attorneys — don't know exist. I help navigate the Kinship Safety Evaluation process and ARIF (Applicant Review and Investigation Findings) reviews, which provide a due process path to challenge a denial and make the case for why a family should be approved. For Texas families seeking to bring a relative child home from foster care in another state, I help navigate the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) — including the Texas home study and approval process that must be completed before an out-of-state child can be placed here. These cases involve multiple agencies, unclear timelines, and requirements that are genuinely difficult to navigate without someone who knows the system. I help families stay in the process and move it forward.

Many parents watching their child struggle have a deep sense that something more could be done — but the process of getting an evaluation, understanding what your child might qualify for, and knowing how to move things forward is one most families are left to navigate without a clear roadmap. I help parents translate that instinct into informed, confident action. That means understanding how the evaluation process works and how to request one, how to pursue an independent educational evaluation or second opinion when the picture still isn't clear, and how to work with schools as an empowered partner — with a clear understanding of the due process protections that exist when families and schools can't find common ground.

If your child qualifies for services, the scope of what's available is far larger than most parents realize. Related services under federal education law can include school-based counseling, social skills and life skills training, speech and language therapy, transportation, adaptive equipment and technology, a personal aide, extended school year services, and parent training and support funded by the school itself. I help families understand the real differences between inclusion support in the general classroom, resource room instruction, and modified curriculum — and which path actually serves their child. Whether your child should be required to take state standardized tests to graduate. How to get an appropriate behavioral assessment and ensure a behavioral intervention plan is developed and actually followed. How to keep your child at their home campus and with their peers. How to ensure full participation in extracurricular activities with the right accommodations and supports. And how to make sure any plan is genuinely built for your child — not a generic checklist. When families and schools can't find common ground, there are formal due process protections available — and I help families understand and use them.

When informal advocacy isn't enough — whether a school has failed a student, denied an evaluation, or failed to implement a plan that's already in place — families have formal options. I help families navigate the complaint process through the Texas Education Agency, understand when and how to request a due process hearing, and pursue the most appropriate pathway given what has happened and what outcome they need.

Texas funds several Medicaid waiver and state programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but most families have never heard of them — and navigating eligibility, enrollment, and multi-year waitlists without guidance is overwhelming. I help families understand and access programs including Home and Community-Based Services (HCS), Community Living Assistance and Support Services (CLASS), Texas Home Living (TxHmL), and Intermediate Care Facilities (ICF/ID) — from the initial eligibility determination and waitlist enrollment through to developing an Individual Service Plan (ISP) that genuinely reflects the person's goals. For young people, I bring particular expertise in bridging these programs with special education transition planning to build a pathway toward maximum independence, autonomy, and community inclusion in adulthood.

As a young person approaches adulthood, the systems that have supported them begin to change — and families need to be actively planning well before those changes arrive. Special education in Texas can continue until age 22, but many families don't know this and don't plan accordingly. Child-serving mental health programs hand off to adult systems, disability service programs shift, and federal education protections expire — often all in a compressed window of time. I help families understand what changes and when, begin transition planning early, and pursue options like supported decision-making agreements and alternatives to full guardianship that preserve a young person's autonomy while ensuring they have the support they need to thrive.

For people with disabilities, building economic independence requires navigating a set of programs and incentives that most people have never heard of. I help individuals and families access Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) Vocational Rehabilitation services, explore supported employment options, understand the Social Security Ticket to Work program, and open ABLE accounts — tax-advantaged savings tools that allow people with disabilities to build financial stability without losing access to benefits. The goal is a plan where work, benefits, savings, and services work together rather than against each other.

I offer training for child welfare agencies, school districts, legal aid organizations, and nonprofits on topics including reasonable efforts and family preservation practice, special education rights and process, navigating disability services, trauma-informed approaches, and the intersections between these systems. Formats include staff trainings, CLE-eligible sessions for legal teams, and onboarding support for organizations working with multi-system families.

An outside perspective on how your programs and practices are actually serving the families you work with — identifying gaps, documenting what's working, and surfacing opportunities to improve. Particularly useful for organizations navigating growth, funder requirements, or questions about practice quality.

Supporting organizations in designing new programs or strengthening existing ones — especially those serving families involved in child welfare, special education, behavioral health, or disability systems. I bring a practitioner's understanding of how these systems actually work, and what families navigating them actually need.

For organizations whose staff are working through a particularly complex matter in child welfare, special education, behavioral health, or disability services — a structured consultation with someone who knows these systems from multiple angles.