Strategic Guidance.
Stronger Outcomes.

Child Welfare, Dual-Status Matters, and Record Review

For more than a decade, my work sat at the intersection of social work practice, state and federal mandates, and ongoing court involvement, for every client I served. I bring inside experience in Texas child welfare, including high-acuity adolescents, transition-age youth, and dual-status cases. That work included more than 3,000 direct safety assessment and care coordination meetings with children, youth, and family members. I understand how placement, permanency, visitation, and service decisions are actually made, and what a case record should show when they are made well.

I review the full case record and report what it shows about agency practice, measured against statute, policy, and accepted standards. That includes reasonable efforts, placement stability and least-restrictive alternatives, sibling and family contact, and permanency planning, and what the record does and does not document. My analysis follows the record, wherever it leads.

Juvenile Justice

I provide assessment and recommendations at each stage of juvenile court involvement: conditions of release, deferred prosecution, judicial confession, probation in the community or in secure placement, and reentry following out-of-home placement. I have done this work in more than a dozen Texas counties and with youth facing a wide range of offenses and sanction levels.

That work extends to youth committed to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, from commitment through reentry on TJJD parole. I have advocated for youth in TJJD disciplinary hearings and Office of Inspector General investigations, and I have successfully appealed for a reduction in a youth's minimum length of stay after their treatment goals had been met. From a youth's first day in TJJD custody, my focus is reentry: setting individualized treatment and transition goals, advocating for the services needed to meet them, and building a plan for a safe return home with the services, supports, and connections that make it last.

I have worked serious felony matters and with youth who have problematic sexual behavior. I support young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who become involved in the juvenile and adult systems, as their social worker and advocate, including through Chapter 55 evaluations and proceedings. My role includes maintaining continuity of disability services while a young person is in custody, coordinating state hospital and State Supported Living Center admissions, working to ensure that education in custody fits the young person's disability, confirming that out-of-home placements match disability-related needs, and mapping long-term IDD service access so that future needs are met by the disability-serving system and not the justice system.

Release, Diversion, and Reentry Planning

In both juvenile and adult matters, I build plans that give a court a safe, realistic reason to keep a person in the community. I assess needs and history, identify treatment and community-based options, and put together plans for diversion, release, and reentry that a court can approve, so a young person or young adult can access support while staying connected to family and community. Attorneys and courts have relied on these plans in juvenile disposition and modification proceedings and in adult bond reduction and diversion proceedings. My adult-system work includes more than ten felony matters, with a focus on transition-age youth.

Placement Vetting and Kinship Approval

I help attorneys and courts identify and evaluate residential placements, including out-of-state programs, and assess whether they can safely meet a young person's needs. For relatives seeking approval as kinship placements, including where criminal or CPS history has been a barrier, I help present the context, changes, and safeguards that allow a decision-maker to reconsider, when the facts support it. I have coordinated placements and services across 34 Texas counties and 14 states, with extensive ICPC experience in public-agency, residential, and expedited placements (Regulations 2, 4, and 7).

Assessment, Testimony, and Court Appointments

For more than a decade, I investigated the case, analyzed the record, and delivered assessment and recommendations to the Court in more than 750 child welfare, juvenile, and dual-status hearings, including more than 150 in juvenile court. I appeared in each as a party representative, and I have participated in more than 40 mediations and testified under oath in more than 75 trials and merits settings in the same role.

Now, when the Court calls, I serve as an appointed Guardian ad Litem or Friend of the Court, and when an attorney needs it, I can testify to my analysis and recommendations. In my appointed and consulting roles, I present my analysis to the Court clearly and independently.

When CPS Becomes Involved With Your Family

CPS involvement can feel overwhelming, and what a family does early often shapes what follows. I help families understand what is happening and why, what their rights are at each stage, and what to expect from the agency and the Court. That includes safety plans, family-based safety services, court-ordered services, and situations where removal is being considered. I prepare families for meetings and hearings, help them work constructively with caseworkers, and help them show that services were completed and changes were made. I spent more than a decade on the agency side of these cases, so I know what a strong plan looks like. When a family has an attorney, I work alongside them so nothing important is missed.

Kinship Placement, Denial Appeals, and Interstate Placement (ICPC)

When a relative or caregiver wants to take in a child in Texas foster care and has been denied, there are formal pathways most families, and even many attorneys, do not know exist. I guide families through the Kinship Safety Evaluation process and ARIF (Applicant Review and Investigation Findings) reviews, where a denied placement can be reconsidered, including when a criminal or CPS history was the barrier and the facts support a second look. When a child is in foster care in another state and the relative is in Texas, I guide the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) process, including the Texas home study and approval that must be completed before the child can be placed here. I have extensive ICPC experience, and I help families stay in the process and keep it moving.

When Your Child Is Involved With Juvenile Probation

Juvenile justice moves quickly and uses terms families are never taught. I support families and young people at each stage of juvenile court involvement, from conditions of release and deferred prosecution through probation in the community. I help build the plan that keeps a young person safe at home and out of a secure facility whenever that can be done safely. That means identifying treatment and community-based options, helping families understand what the Court and probation require, and showing the Court a realistic plan it can approve. I work with the young person's attorney to protect their record and future opportunities whenever possible.

When Your Child Is in a Secure Facility or Committed to TJJD

When a young person is placed in a secure facility or committed to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, families often struggle to understand how decisions about treatment, placement, and release are made. I help families follow that process, advocate for the young person in disciplinary hearings and investigations inside TJJD, and document that treatment goals have been met. My focus is reentry: building the plan, with the services, supports, and connections, that lets a young person return to their community safely and stay there, including on TJJD parole. When a young person has an intellectual or developmental disability, I work to keep their disability services and education in place while they are in custody.

Your Family Believes a More Intensive Level of Care May Be Needed

When a young person's mental health needs have outgrown what home and outpatient support can provide, families often face a residential decision 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 the state-administered Residential Treatment Center Project, which can fund residential treatment without requiring a family to give up custody or medical decision-making rights. When residential care is the right path, I help vet programs, including out-of-state programs, and advocate for the young person's safety and progress throughout their stay.

How a child's needs are understood and documented can open or close doors to mental health services, intensive supports, and disability programs. I help families share what they know about their child in a way that is honest, complete, and grounded in love, so the depth of a parent's knowledge translates into the level of support their child needs instead of getting lost in the process.

Families Navigating Voluntary CPS Placement for Residential Mental Health Treatment

Some biological and adoptive families reach a point where placing their child through Child Protective Services is the only way to reach the level of residential mental health care their child needs. The 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, make sure what they know about their child is heard by child protection staff, support their meaningful involvement in their child's care, and keep the plan centered on the child's wellbeing and the family's long-term connection.

Housing Rights and Disability Accommodations

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 not responded appropriately. I have helped people secure housing accommodations they could not get on their own. I also help people use disability-related housing resources, including Section 811 project rental assistance and Housing Choice Vouchers, and combine them with disability service funding to support truly independent community living.

Benefits Navigation and Building a Unified Support Plan

Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, housing assistance, and disability services each have their own eligibility rules, application processes, and renewal requirements. Most families are piecing them together without a map. I help families understand how the programs interact, access what they qualify for, and build one coordinated plan that supports a person's independence and goals.

Your Child Is Struggling at School and You're Not Sure What to Do Next

Many parents can see their child struggling and sense that more could be done, but few are told where to start. I help families request an evaluation in writing, understand what it should look at, and make sense of the results. When you and the school see your child differently, whether on eligibility or on the services your child needs, I can secure and coordinate an independent, second-opinion evaluation so decisions rest on a fuller picture.

Getting the Plan Right: ARD Meetings and the IEP

Before an ARD meeting, I help families prepare. At the meeting, I advocate alongside them, and afterward I follow up so what was agreed is written down and carried out. I have advocated at more than 150 ARD meetings. A plan built for your child 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. It also settles the questions families ask most: inclusion, resource room, or modified curriculum; whether your child must take state tests to graduate; a behavioral assessment and an intervention plan that is actually followed; staying at their home campus with their peers; and full participation in extracurricular activities.

When Behavior Threatens Your Child's Place at School: Manifestation Reviews and DAEP Hearings

When a child with a disability faces removal from their campus for behavior, the school must meet to decide whether the behavior was connected to the disability or to a failure to follow the plan. That meeting is called a manifestation determination review, and it is often a family's best chance to change the outcome. I prepare families for these reviews and for hearings on placement in a disciplinary alternative education program (DAEP), and I work with the district on the added supports that let a child stay in school, such as a behavioral assessment and an intervention plan. I have navigated more than 25 manifestation reviews and DAEP hearings with positive outcomes for students, most often keeping them at their home campus with increased support.

When the School Isn't Following the Plan

When informal advocacy isn't enough, whether a school has denied an evaluation or failed to carry out a plan already in place, families have formal options. I identify the issue, draft and file the complaint with the Texas Education Agency, and monitor TEA's follow-through on the relief ordered. I have filed more than ten complaints and followed each through to resolution. Among the results are multi-year compensatory services (services owed to make up for what a student missed) for individual students.

A due process hearing is a formal legal proceeding. Texas allows parents to represent themselves or use a qualified non-attorney representative, but I recommend legal counsel for these matters. If a family ever needs a hearing, I coordinate the handoff to an attorney and support the process alongside counsel. Every matter I have handled has been resolved without a due process hearing.

Students in Foster Care and Other Multi-System Youth

Students in foster care and other multi-system youth often change schools, lose records, and fall between agencies that each assume someone else is responsible for their education. I bring more than a decade of child welfare experience to these cases. I work with caregivers, caseworkers, and attorneys to keep a student's education stable and their services in place through placement, court, and school changes.

Navigating Disability Service Programs (IDD)

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 a service plan 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.

Preparing for the Transition to 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 through age 21, 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.

Employment, Benefits, and Financial Independence

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.

Training and Professional Development

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, sessions for legal teams, and onboarding support for organizations working with multi-system families.

Program and Process Evaluation

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.

Program Design and Consultation

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.

Case Consultation

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.