Speaker Bios
Dr. Barry Steiner Ball
Barry Steiner Ball graduated from The Citadel with a B.A. in Psychology and then from Duke University with a Master of Divinity. Dr. Ball was then ordained as a United Methodist Minister. Dr. Ball served three different charges on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in Talbot County. In 1998 Dr. Ball was offered a position with the Maryland Natural Resources Police (game wardens and marine police), working Talbot and Caroline counties and serving as the NRP’s chaplain when needed. In 2008 Dr. Ball was moved into the investigative unit for NRP and worked boating and hunting accidents and larger commercial fishing cases. During this time Dr. Ball also served in the Air Force Reserves as a chaplain at Dover Air Force Base, supporting the work of the Port Mortuary. Dr. Ball began a Doctor of Ministry program at Wesley Seminary in Washington DC focusing on Military Chaplaincy. In 2012 Dr. Ball’s wife, Sandra, also a United Methodist Minister, was elected into the office of Bishop and moved to West Virginia where she oversees all the United Methodist Churches in West Virginia and Garrett County MD. With the move west, Dr. Ball was offered by the NRP a position on a Drug Enforcement Administration’s Task Force in Hagerstown Maryland. In this position Dr. Ball worked larger drug cases in Western Maryland and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. During this assignment Dr. Ball was exposed to the plight of Drug Endangered Children and changed his doctoral project and began working with local United Methodist Churches helping them discover how they can support these children. Dr. Ball earned his doctoral degree finally in 2017! Dr. Ball retired from the Maryland Natural Resources Police on Oct. 1, 2017 to work full time with local churches in helping them find their ministry in response to the opioid epidemic. Dr. Ball and Sandra have two grown daughters, Sarah a high school math teacher in Talbot County Maryland and Becky, an aspiring princess at Walt Disney World.
Dr. Justin Bowers
Dr. Justin Bowers is a leader and thinker committed to helping others willingly engage the tensions surrounding leadership. He defines his full-time job(s) as a: Creative Idealist Specializing in Community Redevelopment and Spiritual Discovery. Practically speaking, that means he is found most Sunday mornings serving as the Lead Pastor and Teacher of New Community. He also works as the Director and Lead Facilitator of Intensional Coaching & Consulting and the Founder of Appalachian Impact, an organization committed to building hope for at-risk students in North Central West Virginia. As much as he can, he sneaks away from work to run the mountains of West Virginia or enjoy life with his wife Carrie and three daughters. Dr. Bowers holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership from Regent University.
Dr. Michael Brumage
Dr. Michael Brumage is the Assistant Dean for Public Health Practice and Service in the WVU School of Public Health and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine in the WVU School of Medicine. He is formerly the Executive Director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department and Health Officer for Kanawha County and Putnam County, West Virginia and Director, Office of Drug Control Policy for West Virginia. He has worked as a consultant for five seasons with the West Virginia University Mountaineer Football Strength and Conditioning Staff teaching mindfulness as a means to improve performance and concentration. His prior student-athlete participants include All Americans, All Big XII, and current NFL players. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry (cum Laude) from West Virginia University (WVU) in 1982 and graduated from the WVU School of Medicine in 1986. He received his Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Washington in 2003. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Brumage retired as a Colonel from the United States Army in 2015 after 25 years of service as an internal medicine physician and later as a public health physician. He deployed twice to the Balkans and from 2004-2005 to Tikrit, Iraq with the First Infantry Division as the Division Surgeon, the equivalent of chief medical officer. He holds three Legion of Merit medals and a Bronze Star, among other awards, from his service.
Kristine Buffington
Kristine Buffington, MSW, LISW, specializes in clinical treatment of traumatized children involved in the public health, child protection, and juvenile justice systems. A particular focus of her work has been training professionals in best practices in trauma treatment and trauma-informed care. Over the course of her career, she has played a leading role in developing and managing initiatives to promote systemic change. Ms. Buffington served as the Chair of the Juvenile Justice Committee of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and is currently Co-Chair of the Ohio Trauma Task Force Training subcommittee.
JoDonna Burdoff
JoDonna Burdoff is currently the Behavior Specialist for the WVDE/ODTP and Adjunct Professor for Fairmont State University. She received her Master’s in Behavior Disorders from WVU and certification on Autism from Marshall University. After a ten-year teaching career as a teacher for children with Autism at all grade levels, Ms. Burdoff began a six-year career as a Senior Educational Specialist for Marshall University Autism Training Center. While there, she trained in SCERTS, and TEACCH. In 2003 Ms. Burdoff rejoined the County Schools System as an Autism Liaison for Marion County Schools. Ms. Burdoff became a trainer of trainers for School Wide Positive Behavior Support, Classroom Wide Positive Behavior Support, and Early Childhood Positive Behavior Support. Ms. Burdoff assisted the Department of Education in the development of the WV Autism Guidance document and WV Team Autism. She has worked in every county in WV and Several States. She has been involved in the development and facilitation of the Autism Academies and the Pre-K Autism Academies. She is involved in the facilitation and development of WV PBIS Academies. Currently she is responsible for providing Facility Wide Positive Behavior Support training for all 22 schools associated with the Office of Diversion and Transition. She can be contacted at Jburdoff@access.k12.wv.us
Rebecah Carson
Rebecah Carson is the Director of WV DHHR's Centralized Intake (CI) Unit. She oversees both call centers and up to 57 workers and 11 supervisors. Centralized Intake uses an internet based call center to take abuse/neglect referrals involving children and incapacitated adults for all 55 counties. Ms. Carson is a licensed social worker with a wide range of child welfare experience within WV DHHR. She began her career in 1994 as a field worker and has held various positions, including Health and Human Resource Specialist, Senior in the Division of Planning and Quality Improvement, a Child Welfare Consultant for Region 3, and has been the Director of CI since November 2015.
Andrea Darr
Andrea Darr is the director of the West Virginia Center for Children’s Justice which promotes and supports a statewide trauma informed response to child maltreatment and children’s exposure to violence. The Center, housed in the Crimes Against Children Unit at the WV State Police, streamlines resources and minimizes duplicative efforts to address challenges, barriers, gaps and needed improvements in working child maltreatment cases. The Center includes the WV Children’s Justice Task Force and the WV Handle with Care Initiative. Before devoting her work full time on children’s initiatives, Andrea served as the Coordinator of Victim Witness Services for the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute from 2005-2015. In that capacity she coordinated with prosecution based victim witness assistance programs as well as community based programs to improve their collective knowledge concerning available resources and information and to establish a bridge between local, state and federal agencies regarding victim issues. Andrea has also worked in direct services with victims of crime, violence and abuse while serving as the Victim Liaison at the Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Lieutenant Mark Davis
With a career spanning 30 years, Mark Davis has served with the Upshur County Sheriff’s Office starting out as a correctional officer and working up through the ranks to his current position as Lieutenant, and Chief Investigator. He has worked with the Upshur / Lewis Drug Task Force, the Upshur County Child Abuse Task Force, and the West Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Additionally, Lt. Davis has worked as a primary investigator of child abuse cases over the last two decades and is recognized by the law enforcement community and the court as a subject matter expert in that field.
Bonnie Dunn
Bonnie Dunn was born, raised and educated in Kanawha County, West Virginia. Ms. Dunn received a BS in Education Comprehensive Vocational Home Economics from West Virginia State (College) University and an MS in Vocational Education /Minor Adult Education from Marshall University. Her career spans 55 years in the field of education and her life-long passion has been teaching. She has worked as a middle-school teacher, an entrepreneur, teacher-educator, vocational evaluator, single parent, an Extension Agent, statewide coordinator for the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, and finally returning to her roots at West Virginia State University where she now serves as an Extension Specialist for Family and Consumer Sciences. Her passion for the last five years has been helping people navigate the health care system. She has been involved in the area of behavioral health issues particularly substance abuse and recovery. Her most recent initiative, funded through a three-year capacity building grant, has been working with Grandparents who are raising grandchildren.
Barri Faucett
Barri Faucett, M.A. received her Master of Arts degree in clinical psychology from Marshall University in 2003. Currently serving as the Director of Prevent Suicide WV, as well as West Virginia’s Suicide Prevention and Intervention project, Mrs. Faucett oversees and implements directives designed to address suicide prevention and intervention for all West Virginians. Her work involves facilitation, monitoring and evaluation of suicide prevention efforts throughout the state. Her clinical experience includes direct service in intensive outpatient programs related to children and adolescents with mental health and substance abuse issues, covering a broad array of diagnoses. Mrs. Faucett is a Master Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR), safeTALK, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), and Youth Mental Health First Aid Trainer, providing trainings for over 10,000 professionals, consumers, and community members for increased awareness and efficient referral intervention procedures for at risk individuals.
Dr. Marianna Footo Linz
Marianna Footo Linz is currently a Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychology at Marshall University. She holds a masters degree in clinical psychology from Marshall University and a doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research and teaching interests include general topics in child development as well as the impacts of substance use on children and families in Appalachia, the impacts of in-utero substance exposure on later development, and family/systems focused evidence based practices in low resource environments. Dr. Linz has authored/co-authored a number of funded federal grants through HRSA, SAMHSA, and other mechanism for projects related to training in clinical psychology, programs addressing substance abuse and its impacts in children and families, substance abuse treatment, and behavioral health workforce expansion. She served as the director of the APA-accredited doctoral program in clinical psychology (Psy.D.) at Marshall for its first 12 years.
Jodi Grove
Jodi Grove started her teaching career as a traditional Kindergarten teacher for six years. She remembers her dad talking about a conference he went to where John Medina presented on brain research. She was always listening with a close ear but never fully understood what he was talking about until her dad gave her Heather Forbes’ book, Help for Billy. She could not put it down; it was a life changing moment for her. From that moment on, she became a trauma informed teacher and has never looked back. She began her journey as a trauma informed first grade teacher. She was able to lead staff in a book study of Help for Billy, as well as share with staff and teachers outside her school district the strategies and success stories she had in her classroom. Then her principal approached her with her dream job. She is the Trauma Coach/Behavior Specialist for her elementary school. She has created a calm room that has been very effective in helping their struggling students learn to self-regulate in a safe and loving environment. She finds her joy when she sees a student begin to use the strategies and systems from the calm room to help them self-regulate. She believes she can help other teachers with classroom strategies and systems that help build caring adult relationships with students who need that connection and support.
Jeannie Harrison
Jeannie Harrison, M.A., RTY-200, has dedicated the last decade to prevention and recovery efforts. She is the Founder and Director of the Karma Yoga Institute, and the mind behind Yoga for Emotional Intelligence (Yoga EQ), a recovery and prevention program taught in schools, recovery centers, and companies across the country. Ms. Harrison’s career began in prevention, spending five years as the Student Coordinator of West Virginia SADD, Students Against Destructive Decisions, while earning degrees in Political Science and Psychology from Marshall University. Her years with WV SADD marked significant growth for the program, as its push to magnify student voices propelled it to one of the top state programs in the nation. In 2014, Ms. Harrison earned her M.A. in American Government from Georgetown University, where she specialized in youth engagement and marketing for nonprofits. After a couple years consulting in the D.C., she felt a call to return home, and founded Gro Huntington, a nonprofit that uses urban farming, yoga and other natural healing modalities to aid in addiction recovery.
Dr. Rikki McCormick
Dr. Rikki McCormick is the Director of Special Education for Lincoln County Schools in Hamlin, WV. In addition to all things Special Education, she oversees and coordinates the trauma-informed/trauma-sensitive initiative in Lincoln County. She completed her undergraduate degree in Sports Medicine/Athletic Training at Concord University and has done her graduate work through Marshall University (M.A. Special Education, Ed.S. Curriculum and Instruction, Ed.D. Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Educational Technology). Dr. McCormick’s dissertation focused on Twitter’s uses in education. Her research interests have been in auditory processing disorder, D/deaf education, drug endangered children, youth mental health, educational technology, and digital citizenship with international, national, regional, and state presentations. She can be reached by email,relowe@k12.wv.us , or Twitter @DrRikki908
Laura McDaniels
Biography Pending
Chad Napier
Chad Napier is the Prevention Coordination for Appalachia HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) for West Virginia and Virginia. He started this position November 1, 2015. Prior to this, he spent twenty years in law enforcement and retired on October 30, 2015. He began his career in 1995 with the Boone County Sheriff’s Department. He moved to the Charleston Police Department (CPD) in 1997 and from then until 2000, he was assigned to the CPD Street Crimes Unit with the primary duties of investigation, arrest and prosecution of street level drug dealers. From November of 2000 to September of 2002, he was assigned as a detective with the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team (MDENT) with the primary duties of investigation and prosecution of state and federal drug violations. In 2002 he was assigned as a Task Force Officer with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Charleston, WV and remained until 2005. From 2005 to January of 2006, he was assigned to MDENT as a supervisor. His primary duty with MDENT was the supervision of drug unit investigators and investigations. In January of 2006, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and was assigned to the CPD Patrol Division as a shift commander. After graduating the FBI National Academy in September of 2007, he was transferred to the Housing Division as the commander. On March 2, 2009 he was appointed as the Commander of the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team (MDENT). Mr. Napier has worked on hundreds of drug related arrests and drug violations. He has also been declared as an expert witness in illegal drug possession and distribution in many state and federal courts.
Robert Peters
Robert J. Peters is the Senior Cyber and Economic Crime Attorney with the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Mr. Peter’s efforts include serving as a subject matter expert on topics and trainings related to child abuse, human trafficking, and internet-facilitated child exploitation; and acting as lead instructor for NW3C’s Judges and Prosecutors courses. Mr. Peters served as Assistant Prosecuting Attorney and Special Prosecutor in multiple West Virginia jurisdictions where he specialized in the prosecution of sexual offenses, child pornography, and juvenile crime. Mr. Peters created and designed the S.H.I.E.L.D. Reporting Initiative, which partners with Child Advocacy Centers and stakeholders to encourage reporting of abuse and online safety. This initiative has brought age-appropriate abuse prevention training to over 3,000 school-aged children and numerous civic and community groups.
Dr. Christine Schimmel
Dr. Christine Schimmel is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Rehabilitation Counseling, and Counseling Psychology at West Virginia University. Dr. Schimmel coordinates the school counseling program and specifically focuses on working with and training school counselors. Prior to becoming a counselor educator, she was a school counselor. Dr. Schimmel has devoted over 20 years to providing staff development and workshops on topics relevant to both clinical mental health and school counselors. She has presented on topics such as impact therapy, creative counseling techniques, counseling theory, dealing with challenging students, and group counseling. Dr. Schimmel has published more than 10 articles, book chapters and monographs on these subjects as well. along with her colleague, Dr. Education Jacoubs, they have published one of the most widely used group counseling textbooks on the market, Group Counseling: Strategies and Skills, which is now in its eighth edition. In December 2018, her newest text book with co-editor Dr. Ann Vernon, Counseling Children & Adolescents was released.
Holly Glick Sly
Biography Pending
Jim Sporleder
Jim Sporleder retired in 2014 as Principal of Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA. Under Mr. Sporleder’s leadership, Lincoln High School became a “Trauma Informed” school, gaining national attention due to a dramatic drop in out of school suspensions, increased graduation rates and the number of students going on to post-secondary education. These dramatic changes at Lincoln caught the attention of Jamie Redford, who spent a year filming the documentary, Paper Tigers, which tells the Lincoln story. The documentary was released at the May 2015 Seattle International Film Festival and received positive reviews. Mr. Sporleder is currently working as a trauma-informed coach / consultant as well as a trainer with the Children’s Resilience Initiative, based in Walla Walla. His travels as a consultant, keynote speaker, presenter and trainer have taken him all over the United States. Mr. Sporleder is married, has three daughters and five granddaughters. In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, hunting, but most of all spending time with family.
Kathy Szafran
Kathy F. Szafran, MA, LPC, is the President and CEO of Crittenton Services of West Virginia. She has over 25 years of behavioral health experience encompassing clinical practice, senior level management, and program and policy development. Under her leadership, Crittenton has integrated trauma-informed treatment into residential and rural, community-based behavioral health services. The agency has been a participant in national research studies on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and a partner in nation-wide initiatives to advance best practices in the assessment and treatment of trauma. Ms. Szafran is a nationally recognized speaker. She has presented at Congressional Briefings and the White House Council on Women and Girls, focusing on gender-responsive, trauma-focused treatment for marginalized girls. Recently, she was a member of the Appalachian ACEs Expert Working Group, formed by the Appalachian Regional Commission and the CDC. She is an active collaborator with the National Crittenton Foundation, which advocates for girls and young women impacted by chronic adversity. Ms. Szafran is the co-chair of the West Virginia ACEs Coalition and serves on the boards of WV Kids Count and the Upper Ohio Valley Sexual Assault Help Center. She earned her master’s degree from West Virginia University and Certification in Traumatic Stress Studies from the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute. She is a Multi-System Integration Certificate Fellow, Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, Georgetown University.
Barb Tucker
Barb Tucker was born and raised on a small farm in a southwestern Pennsylvania coal community. The youngest of six children, she left for West Virginia University in 1979 to earn her degree in agriculture/horticulture. In 1983, she secured a teaching position with Lewis County Schools in Weston, teaching Agriculture Education. From that, she pursued a master’s degree in Behaviors Disorders and Emotional Disturbance while teaching at the Lewis County Alternative Learning Center for 10 years. Although the job was rewarding and exciting every day, a change back to regular education came for the next 17 years, garnering new certifications and teaching physics, environmental science and general science in middle school and high school. Nearing retirement, a job in special education at the elementary level came up and Ms. Tucker finished her teaching career in that capacity. Directly following retirement, Ms. Tucker was the supervisor of Lewis-Upshur Parents as Teachers home visitation program through the Lewis County Family Resource Network. Recently, the position of Region 7 Adolescent Health Initiative Coordinator became available and she acquired that position to work with schools and communities to promote positive youth asset development through the State of West Virginia. This varied background has allowed Ms. Tucker to collect stories and experiences to share with fellow service providers. She juxtaposes evidence based practices and philosophies with practical humor and life’s wisdom. Her intent in her public speaking is to lift the heart through love and laughter.
Upshur County Handle with Care Conference
August 8, 2019 | 7:00 am - 4:00 pm
Buckhannon-Upshur High School
270 BU Drive, Buckhannon, WV 26201