• Eric Brettschneider, Executive Director
• Anthea McLaughlin, Associate Executive Director
• Dale Joseph, Director, One City One Community
• Deborah Rubien, Director, Community Planning and Training
• LaTrella Penny, Director, Integrative Services, Family Engagement, and Training
• Loren Miller, Project Director, Bushwick IMPACT
• Winette Saunders-Halyard, Director of Case Conferencing, One City One Community
• Maritza Villa, Program Assistant, One City/One Community
• Lauren McLaughlin, Program Assistant, Bushwick IMPACT
• Cynthia Velez, Parent Advocate Team Leader, Bushwick IMPACT
• Sandy March, Research, Communications and Special Projects
• Kenia Ortiz, Special Assistant to the Executive Director
• Brian McGowan, Administrative Assistant
• Osman Boakye, Brownsville/East New York Child Welfare Neighborhood Network Liaison
  
  

Eric Brettschneider, Executive Director
ERIC BRETTSCHNEIDER, Executive Director.  Eric Brettschneider has enjoyed a distinguished career in child welfare and human services, since his entry into the field in 1967 as a family court intake worker and child care worker.  He spent 10 years as director of The Queens Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a non-profit agency, where he concentrated his efforts on complementing foster care and child protective services with preventive strategies.  In 1980, he joined the New York State Department of Social Services, where he was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Child Welfare Reform Act.  During his tenure as Deputy Commissioner for The New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA), Eric promoted this progressive vision of comprehensive, preventive services and was instrumental in creating a Child Protective Training Academy; advocating for the avoidance of sibling separation in foster care; starting minority controlled child welfare agencies; and beginning the movement toward decentralized, community driven, and integrated social service provision within that agency.  As Executive Director of the Agenda for Children Tomorrow, Eric continues this work on behalf of New York City children and their families.  
           Mr. Brettschneider holds a B.A. and an M.A. degree in Psychology from Colgate University and the Graduate Faculty of New School University, respectively, as well as a law degree from Hofstra University.  He teaches in NYU’s Department of Metropolitan Studies, Gallatin School and NYU School of Social Work, and has previously taught at Fordham University and Hunter College School of Social Work.  He serves as Counsel to Eisner & Associates; chairs the Council on Children of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; is a member of the New York City Citizen Review Panel for New York City, and is also on the Advisory Committee of the NonProfit Finance Fund, New York Program.  He is also a member of the Board of New Yorkers for Children, and is the founding President of the Board of Jumpstart, New York.  Eric is a recipient of the 2005 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship from Harvard Law School. 
Eric’s wife, Jeanne Rostaing is a producer with ABC-TV.  His son, Corey is now serving on the Political Science faculty at Brown University.  This year Corey is a faculty fellow in Ethics at Harvard’s JFK School.  Corey’s wife Allison is at the Educational Alliance at Brown.  They became the parents of Sophie in November, 2006.  His daughter, Kim, who graduated from Pomona College, is now the Acting Director of Children’s Defense Fund in California.

Anthea McLaughlin, Associate Executive Director
Anthea has 15 years of accumulated knowledge of government-community partnerships and over ten years experience working in partnership with the Administration for Children’s Services and other city agencies.  Anthea co-leads and manages the day to day operations of  the organization and oversees a range of government, foundation, private agency programs,  special projects and initiatives within the areas of early-care and education, child welfare, family involvement, mental health, community building, youth development and other related areas.  Her current management tasks capitalizes on her expertise in organizational development, consensus building,  strategic planning, collaborative building and draws from other past work experiences where she performed program development, case work and technical assistance responsibilities respectively at Good Shepherd Services, Harlem Dowling Children Services, Community Resource Exchange and Edward Hazen Foundation. Anthea has a Masters both in Public Administration and Social Work and recently was a lecturer at Hunter College School of Social Work.

Dale P. Joseph, MPA One City/One Community Project Director
Since 1992, Dale Joseph has worked in the fields of community development, organization development, strategic planning and non-profit management. In 2004 she returned to ACT as Project Director for the One City/One Community Project, a three-year city government systems reform pilot. Prior to joining ACT, she was the Senior Consultant at Dudley Hamilton Associates, Inc., a change management consulting firm where she specialized in organizational assessments and strategic planning for non-profit organizations. She has also held positions as Consultant at Community Development Associates, Inc. and Director of Programs at WHEDCO. Her non-profit community development career began at ACT in 1992 with ACT where she facilitated and managed two community-based coalitions in Bushwick and later in Mott Haven. In Bushwick she organized a coalition of early childhood providers. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Center for Latin American Arts, the Bushwick Community Service Society (Family Services Network) and The Ghetto Film School. She is currently the Board Chairperson for the New Perspectives Theatre. Ms. Joseph received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Columbia University.

Deborah Rubien, Director, Community Planning and Training
Deborah Rubien - Director of Community Planning, Training and Supervision Ms. Rubien has over 20 years experience working in public and private sector human services, with an expertise in child welfare, parent education and program development. As the former Assistant Executive Director at Talbot Perkins Children's Services, Ms. Rubien directed the Lower East Side office and a staff of 20. She was responsible for a community-based child welfare program offering a range of services, including foster care, prevention services, substance abuse treatment support and respite services. Ms. Rubien also served as a policy analyst with the Mayor’s Office for Children and Families and the Citizen’s Committee for Children. Ms. Rubien has taught at LaGuardia Community College and teaches peer counseling to adults and children. She earned a Masters of Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work and a Bachelors of Science from Cornell University.

LaTrella Penny, Director of Integrative Services, Family Engagement and Training
LaTrella R. Penny, whose expertise is in the field of child welfare and human services, has served the children and families of New York City for over 17 years. She has a wide range of private and public sector experiences that include direct services to families, facilitation coordination of  interagency collaboration, strategic planning, technical assistance to, and capacity-building for, nonprofit organizations, policy research, training, program development, design, and management.  Ms. Penny received her Bachelor of Arts from Adelphi University and her Executive Masters Degree in Public Affairs from Bernard M. Baruch College.

Loren Miller, Project Director, Bushwick IMPACT
Loren has over twelve years of program experience both internationally and in the United States. She has worked as a trainer, educator, advocate, community organizer, researcher and strategic planner on diverse community development and human rights operations. Ms. Miller joined ACT in May 2004, coming from Women’s Network/Mujeres Unidas in East Harlem where she created and developed an advocacy program for immigrant women. Prior to settling in NYC to raise her son, Ms. Miller was in Ecuador as a graduate student, where she studied changes in social power and rates of domestic violence among women in cooperative work associations. She also monitored human rights and developed a civic-education training program in Haiti with the United Nations/Organization of American States International Civilian Mission, provided technical assistance to a women’s cooperative in Senegal with the Agencies Jeunesse Agricole de la Casamance and advocated for just human rights policies while working in the government affairs division of Human Rights Watch. Ms. Miller’s New York City based work includes a study on Haitian community and police relations in Brooklyn, legal and social services coordination for immigrants facing deportation, advocating for defendants in the Bronx Criminal Justice System, and developing a human rights education training-manual with the Center for the Study of Human Rights of Columbia University. Ms. Miller received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and has completed coursework towards her PhD in Anthropology with the University of Pittsburgh.

Winette Saunders-Halyard, Director of Case Conferencing,
One City/One Community
For the past thirteen years, Winette Saunders-Halyard has worked in the fields of higher education and social services within city government and the nonprofit arena.  Since 2004 she has been responsible for facilitating case conferences, identifying policy barriers, and providing service coordination interventions for families within the Bedford Stuyvesant community as the Director of Case Conferencing for the One City/One Community Project.
Prior to joining ACT, she was an Assistant Director of Hospitals at Rikers Island where she   managed a component of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s discharge planning program for the forensic mentally ill population. She has also held positions as a Psychiatric Social Worker at Housing Works and an adjunct faculty member at the College of New Rochelle. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at New York City College of Technology. Her non-profit community development career began in 1997 with Housing Works where she supervised case management services provided to formerly homeless people who had H.I.V. She also taught the essentials of case management to job trainee participants and new employees. Ms. Saunders-Halyard received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in African Studies from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Master’s Degree in Psychology from Long Island University.

Maritza Villa, Program Assistant, One City/One Community
Maritza Villa has been on the One City/One Community project team since September 2005, and coordinates all administrative and operational functions. Prior to joining One City/One Community, Maritza worked for a high volume, regional auto appraisal company where she was responsible for all administrative functions. Maritza has over 8 years experience working within the customer service industry. She loves working with children and has earned college credits in Early Childhood Education at Brooklyn College. She plans to achieve her goals of completing her Bachelor of Arts degree and educating young children.

Cynthia Velez, Parent Advocate Team Leader, Bushwick IMPACT
Cynthia Velez has been an IMPACT Parent Advocate since 2003, but has been a leader in her community, actively supporting other parents, since 2001. Cynthia had her start on the Parent Policy Commitee at her daughter's Head Start and has helped run the Parent Association for a local New Century High School (the New York Harbor School) for four years. She served as President for three years and Treasurer for one. She has helped hire many staff members in her children's schools. Cynthia is passionate about her focus as IMPACT: helping parents to get appropriate special education services for their children. She is the mother of six children, ages 16, 15, 14, 12, 8, and 4. Cynthia is now working towards her Child Development Associates degree in early childhood education. Cynthia speaks English and Spanish, and began working as a full time staff member in November 2006.

Sandy March, Research, Communications and Special Projects
Sandy has been with ACT since February 2004. She brings several years of experience as an administrative professional. Sandy holds a BA in Psychology from Baruch College.

Kenia Ortiz, Special Assistant to the Executive Director
Kenia joined the ACT team in March, 2007. She brings five years of administrative experience from Weill Cornell Medical Center. Kenia holds a Bachelors of Arts from Hunter College and is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Administration from Baruch College.

Brian McGowan, Administrative Assistant

LOCAL PLANNERS

Bushwick Local Planner: This Position is currently Vancant.
Mott Haven Local Planner: This position is currently vacant.
Washington Heights/Inwood Local Planner: This position is currently vacant.

ACS NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORK LIAISONS

Osman Boakye, Brownsville/East New York Child Welfare Neighborhood Network Liaison
Osman earned his Masters Degree in Public Administration from New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in 1998. His previous experiences have been in the field of international trade and community development. He has also worked with World Trade Consortium for nine years as a Program Coordinator and with a range of private and public organizations on the development of economic and community programs, ranging from heath, education, transportation and many socio-economic issues. Origanally from Ghana West Africa, Osman also helped to train two non profit organizations in Ghana, as well as in the coordination and production of many charitable deeds, the management of volunteers, and logistics coordination.