Rhea V. Almeida, MS, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., founder of the Institute for Family Services (IFS) in Somerset, New Jersey, is a family therapist and Columbia University graduate. She has 25 years of experience as a teacher, therapist, consultant, speaker and author. Creator of the Cultural Context Model (CCM), Dr. Almeida is the author of three books Expansions of Feminist Theory Through Diversity, Transformations in Gender and Race: Family and Developmental Perspectives and co-author of Transformative Family Therapy: Just Families in a Just Society and numerous journal articles. Her interests include evolving paradigms that have social justice at their center; providing creative access to resources for diverse couples balancing work and family life; working with families around the reunification of their children in state foster care; providing supervised therapeutic parenting for fathers and their children towards restoring parental rights; working with families and children who are confronted with inaccurate diagnosis and drug remedies by school systems; providing innovative services for men with a range of life difficulties. She also oversees a training and mentoring program for graduate students. Dr. Almeida has also received the American Family Therapy Innovative Contributions to Family Therapy award. She is annually honored by the Award from the Domestic Violence Hotline for her work with women and families with domestic violence. She has served on the editorial boards of several distinguished journals in the field including The Journal of Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, The Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and The Journal of Feminist Family Therapy. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Department of Counseling and Human Services at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Cultural Diversity Committee for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), New Jersey Chapter. She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today and on CNBC, National Public Radio, and Pure Oxygen Network.
Andraé L. Brown, Ph.D.
Andraé L. Brown, PhD., is Co-Director of Affinity Counseling Group in New Jersey, an Assistant Professor in the Marriage, Couples and Family Therapy program at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon, and a Council on Contemporary Families Research Fellow. Dr. Brown earned an M.A. in Education in School Counseling at The University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Ph.D. in Marriage and Family at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Dr. Brown's research agenda focuses on the development of treatment modalities that use the social ecology of families, schools and communities to address trauma, violence and substance abuse. Research and clinical interests also include resilience in street-life-oriented Black men, participatory action research, the psychosocial development of adolescents living in the urban context, liberation psychology, social justice and cultural competence in service provision.
Caroline Hann, L.C.S.W.
Caroline Hann, L.C.S.W. is a team member at The Institute for Family Services (IFS) in Somerset, New Jersey, as well as Affinity Counseling Group in North Brunswick, New Jersey. Ms. Hann earned a MSW from Hunter College School of Social Work in New York City and completed a two-year post graduate program at IFS in Transformative Family Therapy. At IFS, Ms. Hann is director of the children and adolescent program and is currently authoring an article "Remembering children within a social justice landscape: therapeutic strategies of intervening with children". In addition to her work with families, Ms. Hann has consulted ARSJ in its committed to anti-racism and liberation work around the issue of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and white privilege.
Judith Lockard, L.C.S.W.
Judith Lockard, L.C.S.W., has been working in the field of family therapy and addictions since 1981. She has maintained a private practice in Rocky Hill, New Jersey, since 1988, and has been a Senior Clinician at the Institute for Family Services (IFS) in Somerset, New Jersey, working with domestic violence in a family therapy context since 1997. She was the Director of the Family Program at Crawford House, a residential treatment program for women addicts. She has done training and published on the topics of addiction and domestic violence. She is a graduate of the New School for Social Research in New York City and the Rutgers University School of Social Work in Group Work and received a stipend to study women and addictions while at Rutgers. She has served as a facilitator for the Alliance for Racial and Social Justice since 2003.
Carolyn Tubbs, Ph.D.
Carolyn Tubbs, Ph.D., Co-director of Research and Publications at IFS, is an Associate Professor in the Programs in Couple and Family Therapy Program at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned a M.A. in Human Development and Family Studies at Texas Tech University and a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy at Purdue University. Dr. Tubbs completed her doctoral internship in marriage and family therapy at the Houston-Galveston Institute. She is an Approved Supervisor and Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). In addition, she is a member of AAMFT's Minority Fellowship Program Advisory Committee and Elections Council, as well as a Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE) site visitor. She also served on the board of the Ontario Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and was its annual general meeting chair. Dr. Tubbs was a Research Scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State University for the Welfare, Children and Families: A Three City-Study, a multi-site ethnographic study on welfare reform. As part of her work, Dr. Tubbs has examined facilitators of family stability, family rituals, and parenting in low-income families. Dr. Tubbs has also been involved with the National Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community in researching the causes and solutions to domestic violence in African American communities located in both urban and rural regions throughout the United State, including San Francisco, Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and Detroit. Her research interests include qualitative research methodology, shared parenting among couples with a history of intimate partner violence, health care disparities, mental and physical health issues, and parenting in low-income populations.