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William Gladden Foundation Speakers and Consultants

The William Gladden Foundation enables you to contract for speaking, training, program evaluation and consulting with leading experts in the fields of  foster care, juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice, child abuse and neglect, family dysfunction, mental health, education, treatment and youth development.  Presenters listed below bring rich careers of direct work, program administration and research with troubled children and families.  Many of our presenters experienced the childhood problems about which they speak and train, including out-of-home placements, providing a unique combination of personal experience and professional expertise.  We also offer professional editing and grant writing services.  For more information call (850) 668-8574 or email walnbrown@comcast.net.

Dr. Waln Brown, Founder & CEO of the William Gladden Foundation, spent his adolescence in a series of out-of-home placements, including an orphanage, juvenile detention facility, state psychiatric hospital and reform school.  A special education student who failed the 9th grade and graduated 187th in a class of 192 students, Waln went on to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.  He has authored over 230 publications, including the books The Other Side of Delinquency (Rutgers University Press), The Abandonment of Delinquent Behavior: Promoting the Turnaround (Praeger Publishers) and Why Some Children Succeed Despite the Odds (Praeger Publishers).  Prior to founding the William Gladden Foundation in 1983, Waln held positions with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the National Center for Juvenile Justice and the Sonia Shenkman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago.  An acclaimed keynote speaker and trainer, Dr. Brown marries his personal experience of growing up in multiple placements and overcoming a difficult childhood with decades of researching and writing about the recovery process.

Like few others, Dr. John Seita understands the challenges facing disconnected young people. Academically challenged students and youth who are in out of home settings, such as foster care, residential care and group care are his specialty.  John is a former youth at risk who beat the odds.  He was removed from his mother's home at the age of eight and spent the remainder of his youth in multiple foster homes, detention facilities, group care settings and on the streets.  Abused and neglected as a child, his journey though children's institutions and countless foster homes was a litany of degradation and humiliation.  Few trainers and speakers have lived in the dependent care system and now share both their insider’s view linked with the latest research in positive youth development, resilience, strength based approaches and brain research. His presentations have been called "powerful," "honest," "useful," "practical" and "visionary."  Dr. Seita's keynote speeches and training add value to your organization and staff by providing rare and unique insight.  He is the author of In Whose Best Interest?, God is in the Kitchen, Kids Who Outwit Adults and dozens of scholarly articles about foster care.  Because of Dr. Seita's advocacy on behalf of foster children, his alma mater, Western Michigan University, recently developed the John Seita Scholarship to help undergraduate students who have aged out of foster care pursue their educational goals.  Click here to learn more http://www.wmich.edu/finaid/Publication/pdfs/seita%202008.pdf.  Listen to Dr. Seita's podcast on the state of foster care in America by clicking on this link http://spartanpodcast.com/?p=356

With the loss of her mother at the age of seven, Dr. Debraha Watson became an orphan.  Separated from her siblings and reared in several foster homes in the Detroit Metropolitan area, she experienced physical, sexual and emotional abuse.  As an adult, Debraha admits to having had to pass through several stages to recover from the events of her childhood, a journey that continues to be a “work in progress.”  Survival and coping skills became essential as she developed along the way.  Oftentimes difficult, the recovery process and the road to a healthy resolution of an abusive childhood involves intense self-reflection and painful recollection of past events and people.  Dr. Watson is the Vice Chancellor of Educational Affairs/Provost of the Northwest Campus at the Wayne County Community College District.  She lectures at community based organizations, hospitals, churches, colleges, foster care agencies and transitional housing on her experiences growing up in the foster care system, characterizing the psychological and emotional realities that resulted.  Dr. Watson has developed workshops related to the topic of overcoming adversity and childhood abuse.  She uses her personal experiences to examine why and how children fall through the grasp of society within a system that is designed to provide foster children and abused and neglected children with safety, permanency and well-being.  Debraha uses her knowledge about social and political reform to assist those in society who have suffered abuse by fighting to change laws, policies and practices.

Dr. Phil Quinn was born out of the union of a Native American soldier and British mother in the aftermath of World War II. Phil entered foster care at age five and experienced multiple group and individual placements until adopted at the age of eleven. For the next six years, Phil suffered severe physical, emotional and sexual abuse from his adoptive parents, until they kicked him out at age seventeen and told him never to return. He survived on the streets alone until rescued by a biker club. Faced with the prospects of life imprisonment or an early death, he escaped the bikers and pursued an education, earning a doctorate from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Quinn is founder, and until recently, CEO of ICARE, a nonprofit organization focusing on child abuse and foster care issues. In addition to keynoting and presenting at hundreds of child welfare conferences, he has appeared on numerous radio and television talk shows and authored six books with Abingdon Press, including Cry Out!, Renegade Saint, From Victim to Victory, The Well-Adjusted Child, The Golden Rule of Parenting and Spare the Rod.

Angelique Day, MSW, is a former youth at risk.  She was removed from her mother's home at the age of 12 for neglect, and spent over a year in out-of home care before being reunified with her father.  Angelique divides her time between a half time appointment as a research specialist at Michigan State University and as a policy and outreach associate at Michigan's Children, a private, nonprofit children's advocacy organization.  Prior to working in her current positions, she worked for the Michigan Department of Human Services as a child protective services worker.  Mrs.Day has published in the areas of mentoring at-risk youth and kinship care.  Additional research interests include issues that impact youth in transition and issues that impact American Indian families and communities.  Angelique currently serves as a member of the Michigan Statewide Interdepartmental Task Force on Permanency for Youth in Transition.

Maurice Webb, BSW, is a former foster child who experienced poverty, homelessness, starvation, domestic violence, physical abuse and depression. Maurice spent his adolescence in three foster homes, a group home and even jail as a delinquent. He aged out and was once again homeless after funding stopped at age 18. Maurice worked his way through college, and with the financial help of the prestigious William Tilton Award, earned a baccalaureate degree in social work. He then combined his childhood experience with his education and professional expertise to work on behalf of foster children. Maurice has worked for leading foster care organizations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Jim Casey Foundation.  Today, Maurice is an ordained minister who consults with child welfare agencies as a staff trainer and program technical assistant.

Meloney Barney, B.A., is a former "Ward of the State" that seemed destined to repeat the family tradition of failure. It was not unusual to lose custody of children within Meloney's bloodline, beginning with her great grandmother, who was the first to forfeit parental rights, followed by her grandmother, whose daughter, Meloney’s mother, would later repeat the act. Prior to Meloney’s placement in foster care, she suffered through years of domestic violence and abuse. Her stepfather and mother devoted their time to drugs and running from drug dealers for unpaid debts. For a year, drug dealers used the family home to conduct illegal business. At the age of ten, Meloney’s stepfather allowed the drug dealers to sexually abuse her in exchange for drugs. Once removed from her mother’s custody, Meloney experienced multiple placements and years of emotional abuse. Education became Meloney’s lifeline. Inducted into the National Honor Society, she graduated high school summa cum laude and then earned her undergraduate degree from Wayne State University. Today, Meloney is married, with two beautiful children, and aspiring to become a special education teacher. She continues to pursue a master’s degree in Elementary English Language Arts while focusing on obtaining an endorsement in Emotional Impaired Special Education. Ultimately, Meloney intends to pursue a doctorate in Rehabilitation Counseling and establish a rehabilitation youth resource unit for children in and transitioning from foster care. 

Dr. Rosalind Folman entered out of home care prior to de-institutionalization, when orphanages were the primary placement. After repeatedly being shunted back and forth between her parents’ and relatives’ homes, Dr. Folman, at age seven, entered an institution for children, where she was relatively happy and secure for about three years. She then went to various kinship care homes, which, unlike the institution, were places of rejection and emotional neglect. The negative effects of these placements handicapped her development throughout childhood and into adulthood. Nevertheless, she earned a B.A. from Barnard College and a doctorate from the University of Michigan. As a psychologist, Dr Folman has worked in child welfare as a researcher, evaluator, consultant, therapist and national speaker on the psychological issues of children in care. Her research focus is the psychological development of foster children. She emphasizes the critical importance of listening to foster children's voices to learn how they understand and cope with their situation and advocates using this information to develop policy and programs to assist foster children in overcoming their adversities. Based on feedback from foster children, Dr. Folman has given keynote presentations throughout the country to child welfare personnel, judges, lawyers, educators, program developers and policy makers. She has also consulted with agency personnel on practices that lessen the trauma of foster care placement and facilitate children’s development. Currently, she is seeking funding and collaborators to realize her vision of creating "A Place to Belong," a unique program designed to assist foster children in overcoming their adversities. 

Elizabeth Sutherland, BS, was born in Rota, Spain, where her mother traded her and her two siblings to a street prostitute who turned the three children into panhandlers and burned them with cigarettes. At age five, a man who Elizabeth mistakenly believed was her biological father brought the siblings to the United States, deposited them in the care of his mother and disappeared forever. For the next seven years, Elizabeth, her brother and sister lived in an overcrowded singlewide trailer with an abusive grandmother. At age 12, the North Carolina Department of Social Services placed Elizabeth and her siblings in foster care. Elizabeth lost touch with her brother and sister as she moved from one foster home to another, during which time she suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse. She purposely acted out until DSS moved her to a foster placement at age 15 where she received the care she needed to flourish. Elizabeth earned her B.A. in Business Administration and Computer Information Systems from Western Carolina University. She is currently pursuing a B.A. in Criminal Justice from Western Carolina University and works in banking. Elizabeth remains active in helping foster children by speaking to potential adoptive parents and foster parents.

Dr. Eugene Emory grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother abandoned Eugene at the tender age of 4 ½, along with his two younger brothers. He lived in several foster homes before spending the final 14 years in placement through the Woman’s Christian Alliance. Although Dr. Emory failed the 8th grade and was advised not to aspire to college, he graduated from Overbrook High School and won an athletic scholarship to Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida. Eugene then went on to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in Clinical and Neuropsychology, specializing in early child development. In 1997 he was recognized as the “Outstanding Alumnus” from the College of Health Professions at the University of Florida. An experienced researcher, Dr. Emory has published widely in the field of early brain development and stress reactivity. He has been a principal investigator for the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health. He is also a former member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Behavioral, Cognitive and Sensory Sciences, and currently serves on the Woman’s Christian Alliance board of directors. Dr, Emory is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he continues to conduct empirical research on perinatal stress and early brain development. He also mentors youth in foster and out-of-home placement, and conducts seminars and informal talks to foster care and child welfare agencies related to the emotional traumas of life in foster care.

Born and raised in Southern California, Rhonda Sciortino’s childhood did not reflect the sunny future of children of the 1960s. Rhonda was a ward of the court from age six months until she was emancipated at age 16. Other than a brief time with a wonderful foster family, Rhonda lived most of those 16 years in a filthy, rodent infested, 500 square foot house that had no heating, questionable plumbing and a cesspool that regularly overflowed down the dirt driveway. The neighborhood was rough, but what happened inside the house was much more terrifying than the Hell’s Angel’s house three doors down or that of the people who bragged about their drive-by shootings two houses up. The alcoholic woman and mentally ill man with whom Rhonda was placed, beat her for any reason or no reason at all. After emancipation, Rhonda founded two companies: Human Services Insurance, the only retail insurance agency in the US founded solely to protect people and organizations that care for abused children, and Child Welfare Insurance Services, an insurance program administrator, to work with local brokers to protect child welfare organizations throughout the US. She served as a board member of the David & Margaret Home, Hillview Acres Children's Home, the National Foundation for Services to Children and was a founding board member of the Western Child Welfare Law Center. Rhonda’s wonderful book, From Foster Care to Millionaire, is a must-read.