Adoption/Permanency Professionals

Jackie is a youth worker at EVOLVE Family Services. She works with the STAY program, providing support and independent living skills to youth ages 14-23 who have experienced out of home placement. Jackie also works with youth currently in foster care with a TPR as a child specific recruiter, searching for potential families and advocating for the youth's wants and needs regarding permanency. 

Address:
EVOLVE Family Services
5850 Omaha Ave N
Stillwater, MN 55082

I am currently a Adoptions Case Manager in a county setting. My role includes partnering with caregivers, coordinating services, and promoting child safety and well-being. I am responsible for locating permanency options and completing adoptions post TPR.v

Child protection through CHIPS, child welfare to support family preservation, permanency and post permanency, adoption and transfer of custody as well as extended foster care services.

Address:
Mower County Health and Human Services
201 1st Street NE Suite 18
Austin, MN 55912

Address:
14955 Galaxie Ave.
Apple Valley, MN 55124

Deirdre Otis is a licensed social worker with broad experience across child welfare, school-based, and healthcare settings. She earned her undergraduate degree from the College of Saint Benedict and her Master of Social Work from Saint Catherine University, where her academic focus included grief counseling and child welfare. She also completed a clinical internship utilizing the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT), strengthening her trauma-informed practice.

Case Manager

Address:
Hennepin County Adult Representation Services
525 Portland Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55412

I am a child welfare/Permanency social worker in a county human services setting, with a primary focus on achieving permanency for children involved in the child welfare system. My work includes supporting foster care and kinship placements, coordinating services, and guiding families through the permanency process, including reunification and adoption.

Hi! I am Teresa, a clinical social worker who is passionate about supporting adoptees, first/birth families and adoptive families. I am an adoptive parent with extensive experience supporting my child through relational trauma, transitions, neurodevelopment differences and sensory. I also have a long professional history of supporting family reunification, birth parent rights, open permanency set ups and culturally appropriate permanency outcomes.

I am an outpatient therapist who is also a transracial adoptee. I work with populations ages 9-35 at this moment. I apply multi approaches and modalities such as ACT, DBT Skills, IFS, Interpersonal therapy, CBT/TF-CBT. I will be certified in PCIT fairly soon. I strive to be culturally competent and incorporate faiths of all backgrounds to support my clients. I also incorporate parents into my sessions with working with kids. I work with a lot of children and adults who have been been adopted or part of the child welfare system. I also will be trained in EMDR in the next few years.

I am currently a licensing compliance coordinator/licensing social worker at Family Alternatives. I have been working in Child Welfare for the past 5 years as a foster care licensor. I have background with working within Native American Communities and ICWA compliance throughout the state of Minnesota. I prefer working with the teen population, but my caseload currently consists of young children to young teenagers. I focus on positive reinforcement of strengths based frameworks with youth and empowerment.