CL22 - Baby Talks Group C: Cross-Discipline Family Services

Julia Yeary, LCSW, IMH-E® has been an advocate for children and their families since graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1980 with her master's in social work. Much of her work has been dedicated to military families, motivated by Julia's experience growing up as a child in a military family. Julia works to establish stronger support for families and their very young children experiencing stress and trauma. She provides training and consultation for communities throughout the country and has facilitated numerous webinars and distal trainings for multi-disciplinary professionals.

Julia has authored several articles including Promoting Equity and Support for the Whole Family Through the New NICU Discharge Preparation and Transition Planning Guidelines (Zero to Three, December 2022, co-author Vincent Smith, MD,), "Meeting the Needs of Children and Families of Veterans: A Report by the NCTSN-VA Subcommittee" (To be published by NCTSN 2023, co-author with Bellehsen, et.al), "Difficult Goodbyes: Supporting Toddlers Coping with Separation Anxiety" (Young Children, July 2020), "The Calm in the Storm: Supporting Young Children Before, During and After a Community Disaster or Trauma" (Young Child, November 2018), and the e-book Creating Activities for Strengthening Parent-Child Connections (ZERO TO THREE, 2011). While working at ZERO TO THREE for 16 years, she served as the Director of Military Family Projects and helped to create resources like Babies on the Homefront, a mobile application for Veteran and Military families with young children, and Baby Brigade, a psychoeducational parenting curriculum for Veteran parents of young children. Julia currently consults for ZERO TO THREE, serving as the primary liaison for their HealthySteps program with the Department of Defense, training infant mental health professionals and sites to ensure fidelity to the model. She is one of ZERO TO THREE's expert faculty for training on the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC:0-5). She also was a member of the working group who developed the new Interdisciplinary Guidelines and Recommendations for NICU Discharge Preparation and Transition Planning which includes supporting military families in the NICU. Since retiring from ZERO TO THREE, she has begun supporting Vibrant Emotional Health in their work with the Office of Refugee Resettlement consulting and offering training for shelters and foster care programs serving unaccompanied minor children from Afghanistan and central America

Julia is a graduate fellow of the Infant, Early Childhood, and Family Mental Health Capstone Certificate Program, University of Wisconsin, and is rostered in Trauma-Informed Child-Parent Psychotherapy. Julia has met the requirements for Infant Mental Health (IMH) Endorsement® for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-Focused Practice Promoting Infant Mental Health as a Mentor in both Clinical and Policy. She is very active in the Wisconsin Alliance for Infant Mental Health (WI-AIMH).

Heather Cohen Padratzikis a native Kansas Citian.  She earned a B.A. in Psychology from Vassar College and came to Saint Louis in 1999 to complete a JD/MHA at Saint Louis University.  

After earning her degrees, she practiced law at a firm  specializing in medical malpractice defense and subsequently became Director of Risk Management for three HCA hospitals.  She currently stays home with her two boys, Owen (9) and Max (13).  

After having had Owen at 28 weeks, and experiencing the NICU firsthand through his 82day stay, Heather has been a volunteer in the Mercy NICU.  She is also currently a Board member of National Perinatal Association. 

Ken Tellerman M.D. is a general and developmental behavioral pediatrician who has been in private practice in Baltimore City for over 35 years. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and teaches pediatric residents from Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, and Sinai Medical Centers during their mental health rotations. As chair of the Maryland Chapter AAP Emotional Health Committee for over 25 years, he has been involved in multiple teaching programs throughout Maryland training practitioners in developmental and behavioral pediatrics. He is one of the chief developers of the Grow Your Kids: TREE and TREEHOUSE programs that train pediatric practitioners to perform developmental coaching during office based well child encounters and telehealth visits. He is also on the Advisory Board of the non- profit Organization for Community Health Outreach which provides healthcare in Honduras.

Dr. Wilms Floet is a board certified Developmental Behavioral Pediatrician at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, Johns Hopkins Medical Center and has more than 20 years of clinical experience in working with young children and families with or at risk for developmental delay. Special areas of interest include the early identification of children referred for Autism Spectrum Disorder. She has a long standing relationship with the Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program. She served on the Baltimore City Infants and Toddlers Program and served two consecutive terms as the Chair of the local Interagency Coordination Council. She now serves as Executive Board member the Maryland Infants and Toddlers State Interagency Coordinating Council which is a Governor appointed position. Dr. Wilms Floet has been an active member of the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Emotional Health Committee and has been involved in the development of the TREE project, and now is involved in the implementation of the TREEHOUSE program. She has extensive experience in teaching pediatric residents and medical students and serves as the course director for training in developmental and behavioral pediatrics for the Sinai pediatrics residency program in Baltimore and leads the Johns Hopkins medical students experience at KKI She has extensive clinical and teaching experiences with primary care providers along with involvement and collaboration with early intervention programs locally and at the state level.

Dr. Candelaria has considerable clinical and research expertise in infant-early childhood mental health (IECMH) screening, diagnosis, assessment, evidence-based practices (EBPs), and parent-child interactions across multiple community systems. She has worked with young children and families in medical systems, community mental health agencies, early intervention agencies, and Head Start/Early Head Start. Dr. Candelaria also has a history of working in the NICU, NICU Follow-up Program and the Growth and Nutrition Clinic with medically fragile and substance-exposed infants. She participated in the development of the E-SMART Clinic in Carroll County Maryland focusing on building a developmental clinic to serve children with behavioral and developmental needs and their families. She also has overseen or currently oversees the evaluation efforts for two SAMHSA funded IECMH SOC grants (BRIDGE and E-SMART), two programs focused on programing for pregnant and parenting at-risk youth (HHS pregnancy Assistance Fund and SAMHSA funded TREE grant), a locally funded intervention (The TREE Project) with MD AAP in pediatric primary care, training providers on promoting parent-infant interactions, and a HRSA funded project evaluation of implementing the same TREE project virtually through dedicated pediatric developmental coaching telehealth visits. Furthermore, Dr. Candelaria oversees evaluation and research efforts of IECMH Consultation and National Pyramid Model activities funded by MSDE. Across all these projects, she has focused on program evaluation and implementation science aimed to improve programs for families with young children by using data and engaging in a continuous quality improvement processes.

Bryan has been with the Institute for Child Success since 2014, coming to the team from the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, where he worked as an Investigative Counsel. Prior to that work, he helped start a non-profit advocacy organization, Young Invincibles, focused on expanding economic opportunity and sound public policies for young adults. Before law school, Bryan worked for several youth-serving organizations including the Mountainview Whisman Elementary School District, the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County, and Mental Health America of Greenville County. Born in Tennessee, Bryan attended Furman University where he graduated with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. He later obtained a Juris Doctor and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University. He serves as the Chair of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina’s Kinship Care Council. He serves on several boards including Trident United Way’s Public Policy Council, the Tri-County Cradle to Career Kindergarten Readiness Guiding Team, and Montessori School of Columbia’s Board of Directors. Bryan is a 2015 graduate of Riley Institute at Furman University’s Diversity Leaders Initiative, and is a Partner at Engage Strategies.

Andi Phillips has over 25 years of experience leading, designing, and implementing large-scale, public-private partnerships that leverage private investment to address pressing social challenges. At Goldman Sachs, she launched and managed the Goldman Sachs Social Impact Fund and led signature social impact bond investments for the firm including the investment in the Rikers Island Social Impact Bond, the first such transaction ever executed by a financial institution and in the U.S. market. As of June 2016, Andi had led 4 of the 12 outcomes-based financing transactions launched in the U.S. market, including transactions that financed recidivism reduction in Massachusetts and early childhood education in Utah and Chicago. Previously, Andi was president of a Community Development Financing Institution (“CDFI”), Seedco Financial, which provided affordable capital to small businesses and nonprofits in disadvantaged communities. At Seedco, Andi also managed performance-based contracts in workforce development, totaling over $100 million. Andi holds a BA from Tufts University and a MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Andi lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and three sons.

Chris Story has lived in Spartanburg since age 13. He graduated from Wofford College with a B.A. in Economics and has since participated in a variety of post-graduate coursework in business and public administration at Clemson and USC. In the late 1990s he was the Executive Director of the City-initiated community strategic planning process called Spartanburg Share the Vision. From 2000 through 2009, he was Assistant County Administrator with Spartanburg County, participating in all aspects of local government management. In 2009, he was thrilled to return to the city, serving as Assistant City Manager before being promoted to City Manager in 2018. Chris loves wrestling the issues of effectiveness, value, and equity inherent in local government management. However, he finds it a particular privilege to serve a city that includes his parents, his in-laws, and countless old and new friends.