SEATTLE, WA – Casey Family Programs, the nation’s largest operating foundation dedicated solely to providing and improving—and ultimately preventing the need for—foster care, announced today that Kathy Barbell and Dr. Jackie Contreras have joined the foundation and will help lead its work with public child welfare systems.
Barbell joins Casey Family Programs with 37 years of progressive experience in the administration of human services programs and direct practice in child welfare. Barbell will oversee the foundation’s general systems improvement work, which is based out of Casey’s Washington, D.C. office.
Prior to coming to Casey, Barbell was the senior vice president of operations for the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), where she developed the organization’s quality improvement process and redesigned the organization’s annual strategic planning process. She also held the post of director of foster care at CWLA, where one of her many achievements included partnering in the design and implementation of the National Foster Case Awareness Campaign. Barbell has also worked previously with Casey Family Programs, as director of the foundation’s National Center for Resource Family Support.
Dr. Jackie Contreras joins Casey Family Programs as senior director for strategic consulting.
Contreras is a licensed clinical psychologist, and for the past three years has worked as a deputy director for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), responsible for direct services provided to over 13,000 children and their families. Prior to her work with DCFS, Contreras worked for seven years as a psychologist and manager with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, where she directed intensive in-home mental health services and the management of contract agencies serving children and families, transitional age youth, adults and older adults.
Casey Family Programs operates across the country and collaborates with foster, kinship and adoptive parents to provide safe, permanent and loving families for youth in foster care. The foundation also works with counties, states, and American Indian and Alaska Native tribes to improve services and outcomes for the 500,000 children who live in foster care every year.