The National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support is funded by the Children’s Bureau, an office of the Administration for Children & Families within the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Partners
The National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support is a partnership composed of the following agencies:
Spaulding for Children
Melinda Lis, MSW
Post-Adoption Director
Melinda Lis, MSW
Melinda Lis, Vice President of the Academy at Spaulding for Children, serves as the Director for the Post-Adoption Center. Melinda has worked in child welfare over the past 30 years in both public and private child welfare agencies and Universities. Since 2013, Melinda has worked at Spaulding for Children. During this time she has helped to implement and direct numerous national initiatives. Melinda received her Master Degree from the University of Chicago and her Bachelor Degree from the University of Alabama. She is the recipient of the 2020 National Adoption Excellence Award. Melinda and her husband were licensed foster parents in Illinois and have adopted three children.
DaJari Patterson, MSW, JD
Program Director
DaJari Patterson, MSW, JD
DaJari Patterson serves as the Post-Adoption Center Resource Library Program Director. Ms. Patterson has over 25 years of experience working in child welfare in both the public and private sectors. She has expertise in the fields of adoption, foster care, kinship care, and resource development. She served at both the county and State levels with Georgia’s Department of Family and Children Services. Ms. Patterson holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Clark Atlanta University and a Juris Doctorate Degree from Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.
Faith Lee
Lead Site Technical Advisor
Faith Lee
Faith Lee has over 26 years of professional experience in child welfare and human services. Most recently, she served as a Child & Family Program Specialist for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Children’s Bureau, where she monitored federal reporting for child welfare services for the state of Kentucky. Additionally, Ms. Lee supported and assisted the additional states within Region 4 as needed.
Ms. Lee has applied her child welfare expertise in consultant roles as working in leadership roles in both South and North Carolina child welfare systems. Ms. Lee’s local social services experience in North and South Carolina spans intake, child protective services, in-home services, foster care, adoptions, and foster care supervision.
She holds an MSHS from Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and an MA from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Child Trends
Sharon Vandivere, MPP
Evaluation Lead
Sharon Vandivere, MPP
Sharon Vandivere is a senior research scientist in the child welfare program area at Child Trends, where she has carried out research and evaluation for 25 years. She serves as the evaluation lead for the Post-Adoption Center. She is a subject matter expert in child welfare and a methodological expert in the use and analysis of administrative, survey, and other quantitative data. Sharon and her husband were licensed foster parents in Maryland. They have one child through private domestic adoption and also adopted two of their former foster children.
National Adoption Association
Dondieneita Fleary-Simmons, MSW/AM
National Director of Community Engagement
Dondieneita Fleary-Simmons, MSW/AM
Dondieneita serves as the National Director of Community Engagement with the Post-Adoption Center. She brings over 30 years of dedicated service to children, youth, and families. She believes deeply that families and communities have the inherent ability to enhance their own well-being by drawing upon cultural and collective strengths. Dondieneita is recognized as an experienced child welfare administrator, speaker, therapist, and group facilitator. She earned her MSW/AM in Social Service Administration from Chicago. Dondieneita is a wife and mother to adult children – four daughters by blessing and two sons by birth. Her youngest son is diagnosed with Autism. She engages her family in disability advocacy and Special Olympics.
Harmony
Allison Douglas, M.S., IECMH-E®
Post-Adoption Program Specialist
Allison Douglas, M.S., IECMH-E®
Allison Cooke Douglas, M.S., IECMH-E®, is the Resource Center Director at Harmony Family Center in Knoxville, TN. She serves as a post-permanency expert at the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support. Over the past decade, Allison’s work has focused on post-permanency family support. She has written and presented curricula regarding therapeutic parenting, the impact of early trauma on the developing brain, and best practices in the child welfare system. In her work with Tennessee’s Adoption Support and Preservation (ASAP) program, Allison has coached adoptive families, facilitated parent support groups, designed therapeutic children’s programming, and provided consultation as a part of Harmony’s multidisciplinary ASAP team. Allison holds an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Endorsement, is certified in Phases I and II of The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics and is a Neurosequential Model in Education trainer. She is a Napa Infant-Parent & Early Childhood Mental Health Fellowship fellow and was selected for the 2022-23 All Educators cohort at The Fred Rogers Institute. Allison brings her lived experience as an adoptive mother of four children, adopted via foster care, to her work at the Center.
Sinead Love
Post-Adoption Program Specialist
Sinead Love
Sinead Love serves as a Post-Adoption Program Specialist with the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support. She has been a dedicated leader and therapist at Harmony Family Center since 2018, driving impactful initiatives that serve children and families. In her role as Team Leader, she has provided strategic supervision and administrative oversight, ensuring the delivery of high-quality services. As a Family Therapist, she has specialized in supporting adoptive and guardianship families, and as a Parent Educator, she has effectively implemented the AGPT curriculum. Sinead also leads the coordination of Therapeutic Day Camps and Rainbow Camp programs at Camp Montvale, fostering healing and growth for participants.
A highly trained professional, Sinead has expertise in evidence-based therapeutic modalities, including SMART, NMT Phase 1, EMDR, and play therapy. Her diverse experience spans school, community, and juvenile justice settings. She holds dual master’s degrees in clinical Mental Health Counseling and School Counseling from UTK, along with a certificate in Grief, Trauma, and Loss. Additionally, her lived experience as a therapeutic foster parent brings invaluable insight to her practice, further enhancing her ability to lead and serve with empathy and expertise.
CASE
Melissa Blau
Post-Adoption Program Specialist
Melissa Blau
Melissa Blau serves as the Post-Adoption Program Specialist with the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E) for the Post-Adoption Center. She is a licensed clinical social worker who, since 2010, has provided services that enhance the stability of youths and their caregivers. Recognizing that families have better outcomes when interacting with trauma-informed and community centered systems, she has devoted recent years to strengthening these systems on the local and state levels. Melissa co-led the implementation of Virginia’s post-adoption program and played an active role in the Trauma Informed Community Networks of Southwest Virginia. A passionate advocate for families affected by Aggression toward Family/Caregivers in Childhood & Adolescence (AFCCA), a complex and often overlooked issue that threatens family stability, Melissa raises awareness through conference presentations and offers specialized support as one of a handful of North American therapists trained in Non-Violent Resistance Therapy.
Cheryl Tirado
Post-Adoption Program Specialist
Cheryl Tirado
Cheryl Garafola Tirado, MSW, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker with a master’s degree in social work from Southern University at New Orleans. She serves as the Post-Adoption Program Specialist at the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E) for the Post-Adoption Center. She has been working in the field of foster care and adoption for 30 years. As the State Adoption Program Manager with the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, she was instrumental in leading and organizing the partnership between DCFS and the Center for Adoption Support and Education to bring Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) to Louisiana’s licensed mental health professionals throughout the state. Cheryl worked to enhance post adoption services to families, educate child welfare professionals and the community and help to identify system needs in child welfare services. Cheryl is a TAC Trainer providing adoption competent education to clinicians. She is trained in TBRI (Trust Based Relational Intervention) and completed the Post Graduate Certificate Program in Adoption Competency from Hunter College School of Social Work under Dr. Gary Mallon. Cheryl also served on the National Adoption Association Board of Directors and the Louisiana Adoption Advisory Board.
Laura A. Ornelas, MSW, LCSW
C.A.S.E. Team Lead
Laura A. Ornelas, MSW, LCSW
Laura is the Director of the Academy for Advancing Clinical Practice in Permanency at the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) and is the C.A.S.E. team lead for the Post-Adoption Center.
A graduate of the University of Southern California (USC), Laura is a licensed clinical social worker, and has been working in foster care and adoption for 30 years. After a decade of child placement work in Los Angeles, Laura was inspired to support families post placement/on their lifelong journeys and has started up numerous adoption/permanency specialty programs focused on relationally based healing throughout California. With a deep background serving diverse family systems, Laura is a nationally respected trainer and writer, contributing to numerous parenting and professional curricula including the NTDC, NTI and TAC.
Raise the Future
Michelle Warner, LMSW, TBRI®
Specialist in TBRI®
Michelle Warner, LMSW, TBRI®
Michelle is a Program Director at Raise the Future and has direct experience with statewide implementation of various policies and initiatives, as well as expertise on how TBRI ® (Trust Based Relational Intervention) can strengthen post-adoption services. Prior to joining Raise the Future, Michelle worked as the Permanency Administrator for the State of Kansas Department for Children and Families. In this role, she provided oversight and guidance to 18+ different agencies who provide foster care services in Kansas’ privatized system. Michelle is an experienced trainer, who has instructed parents, caregivers and the workforce in various curricula, including TBRI®, pre-service for foster/adoptive families and various adoption competency courses for those providing direct service. Michelle started her career social work 10 years ago providing an array of pre- and post-placement services for adoptive families.
Kimberly Bonham, LCSW
Post-Permenancy Strategic Advisor
Kimberly Bonham
Kimberly Bonham is the Post-Permanency Strategic Advisor at Raise the Future serving within the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support. As a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and a licensed clinical social worker with over 30 years of experience in private, public, and national child welfare, Kimberly has extensive experience supporting permanency for children and youth. She has been recognized throughout her career for delivering quality customer service, developing permanency preparedness tools for foster, kinship, and adoptive families, and facilitating professional trainings to improve permanency outcomes. Kimberly is a graduate of AdoptUSKids’ MPLD program where she completed an action research project focused on youth engagement and adoption ambivalence. Most recently, Kimberly worked in capacity building and engagement, and knowledge dissemination positions for AdoptUSKids’ projects and as an adoption search and reunion contractor within the state of Virginia. She is deeply passionate about the well-being and support of children and their families joined together through adoption and guardianship.
