Coffee Breaks with TXICFW: Opioid Use and The Texas Child Welfare System: Fostering the whole family as prevention
We know substance use is involved in more than 2/3rds of child welfare situations and that an opioid drug crisis is currently plaguing communities across the nation. So far Texas has stayed “ahead” of the crisis, but that doesn’t mean it won’t potentially effect families involved in the child welfare system here. Jesse Booher, MA, SSBB, Director of Policy and Research at The Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services joins our Director Monica Faulkner to discuss some ways Texas can address this by shifting the focus away from just “saving our children” to helping the whole family.
Join us a for a live session on May 8th, 2018 from 11:30-12 pm on our Facebook Page!
About Our Guest:
Jesse Booher, MA, SSBB – Director of Policy and Research for the Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services (TACFS)
Jesse joined TACFS as the Director of Policy and Research in November 2017. Jesse comes to TACFS from The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services where he served as the Division Administrator of the Child Protective Services (CPS) Regional Systems Improvement team. Jesse was the creator of this continuous quality improvement (CQI) team which supported CPS regional management in understanding which assets (people, policy, process, etc.) contributed to a particular area’s performance and using those assets to address issues before they became crises. Jesse previously served as a CPS Investigator and supervisor in Region 3, as well as a member of the CPS Analytics and Evaluation team. He has a BA in Sociology and Political Science from Austin College in Sherman Texas, two masters’ degrees in Sociology and Urban Affairs from the University of Texas-Arlington, and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.
Jesse was recently published in The Handbook of Foster Youth, an edited book which brings together a prominent group of multidisciplinary experts to provide nuanced insights on the complex dynamics of the foster care system, its impact on youth’s lives, and the roles of institutions and policies in the foster care system. He and his fellow co-authors discuss CQI in the context of public child welfare agencies and recommendations for child welfare agencies making the transition from a traditional quality assurance system to CQI.
Jesse lives in Austin with his wife Elise and dachshund Wrangler. They (minus Wrangler) enjoy running marathons and triathlons as well as exploring all the weirdness Austin has to offer.
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