Staff
Leadership Team
Frank Farrow - Director
Frank Farrow has served as CSSP’s director since 2001. In that role, he has helped build the organization’s capacity for policy analysis and research, as well as technical assistance to federal and state governments and local communities. With CSSP’s board and leadership team, Farrow has focused CSSP on work that has a clear tie to improved results for children, families and communities; a commitment to equity and to CSSP’s evolution as an anti-racist organization; and to strategies that integrate service system reform, community change and policy analysis. Prior to becoming director, Farrow served as CSSP’s deputy director and as director of children’s services. From 1999 through 2009, Farrow also served as the director of community change initiatives at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland, where he implemented new approaches to technical assistance and managed a national place-based initiative. Farrow was the director of social services for the state of Maryland from 1983 – 1987. In that capacity he managed the state’s child welfare programs, services to the impaired elderly, community services for chronically mentally ill adults, child day care, services for the homeless and other social services. He has chaired national and international boards, most recently the board of the International Initiative for Children, Youth and Families. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in social welfare policy and planning from the University of Chicago.
Judith W. Meltzer - Deputy Director
Judith Meltzer is responsible for co-directing all of CSSP’s work. A particular focus of her work is on policies and strategies for child welfare reform and the development of community partnerships for the protection of children. Meltzer helped pioneer efforts to strengthen child welfare systems through more productive, less adversarial approaches to resolving class action litigation. She serves as the federal court-appointed monitor of the District of Columbia and New Jersey’s child welfare systems which are subject to oversight as the result of class action litigation. In addition, she helps oversee technical assistance to child welfare agencies in Tennessee and Connecticut operating under court-ordered settlement agreements to improve child welfare systems. In 2005, Meltzer was honored by the American Public Human Services Association with the Peter Forsythe Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare. Before joining CSSP, she was a research associate at the Center for the Study of Welfare Policy, a lecturer at the School of Social Administration at the University of Chicago and a planning and evaluation specialist for the Chicago regional office of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Meltzer graduated from the University of Chicago with a master’s degree in social welfare policy.
Executive Team
Phyllis R. Brunson - Associate Director
Phyllis Brunson manages CSSP’s Constituents Co-Invested in Change portfolio, helping communities form collaborative partnerships that promote community-based results accountability, resident engagement and community decision-making. Brunson is advancing a new body of work called the Customer Satisfaction initiative, which uses direct feedback from customers in a community to test, assess and rate the quality of services they use. Brunson also manages CSSP’s Internal Race Equity work, which builds staff capacity to identify and confront race inequity internally and externally. She also oversees CSSP’s International Learning agenda and serves as the United States’ board member on the International Initiative for Children, Youth and Families. Prior to joining CSSP, Brunson worked for the Maryland Governor’s Office for Children, Youth and Families where she served as the deputy director and acting director of the System Reform Initiative. She is a member of the board of directors of the Sheridan-Patterson Center for Holistic Health and the Elizabeth Ministry, Inc., which helps single teen mothers in the foster care system achieve financial independence and attend college. Brunson is a graduate of Lincoln University and earned her master’s degree in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis.
Christine Katz - Chief Financial Officer
Christine Katz oversees CSSP’s finance, accounting, grants management, human resources, operations and information technology functions. Previously, she was a director at the McQuade Brennan accounting firm in Washington, D.C. While there, Katz developed and managed the firm’s CFO Services Group, which focused on providing outsourced accounting services customized to the needs of nonprofit clients. She has more than 10 years of experience in public accounting within the nonprofit sector. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and is a certified public accountant.
Judy Langford - Associate Director and Senior Fellow
Judy Langford’s work for CSSP includes field research, policy and program analysis and technical assistance to foundations, governmental agencies and private organizations on the development and implementation of family supportive practices and policies. She is currently the national project director for Strengthening Families, a multidisciplinary approach to preventing child abuse and promoting healthy child development that is now used in more than 25 states. Langford is also part of the leadership team for the federal Quality Improvement Center on Early Childhood. She is the former executive director of the Family Resource Coalition and previously headed the Ounce of Prevention Fund in Chicago. She has been an advisor to numerous foundations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Casey Family Programs.
Arlene F. Lee - Associate Director
Arlene Lee manages CSSP’s public policy work, which helps federal and state elected officials develop policies, funding and practice to achieve better results for children and families. She helps maintain PolicyforResults.org, a leading national resource for result-based policy and funding strategies. Previously, Lee served as the executive director of the Maryland Governor's Office for Children, where she chaired the state’s Children's Cabinet and was responsible for more than $60 million dollars distributed to local collaboratives through a results-based plan and accountability process. Lee also led the development of Maryland’s first Children's Plan, establishing the state's goals and strategies for delivering integrated services to children and families. In 2007, she was named one of Maryland's Top 100 Women and received three Governor’s Citations for her work on children and family issues. She co-authored The Impact of the Adoptions and Safe Families Act on Children of Prisoners. Lee is the former deputy director of Georgetown University's Center for Juvenile Justice Reform and the former director of the Federal Resource Center for Children of Prisoners at the Child Welfare League of America. She graduated from American University's Washington College School of Law.
Susan Notkin - Associate Director
Susan Notkin manages CSSP’s work in child welfare systems reform. In this capacity she advances CSSP’s role in promoting responsive, progressive public services for children and families involved in the child welfare system. Prior to joining CSSP, Notkin was the Director for the Children’s Program at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. During her 17 years with the foundation, she created and implemented a ten-year $50 million grant-making program that pioneered public/private efforts focused on preventing and reducing child maltreatment through reforming the child welfare system. Previously, Notkin designed the New York City Child Protective Services Training Academy and held positions in the Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, where she represented the rights of clients residing in mental health institutions, and directed the state’s policy agenda in child abuse prevention, child protection, early care and education and domestic violence. Notkin is a recipient of the LEAD! Award from Women and Philanthropy for her work to improve the child welfare system and combat domestic violence. She serves on the boards of the Institute for Community Peace and is the president of the board of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. Notkin graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a master’s degree in social work.
Bill Shepardson - Associate Director
Bill Shepardson leads work to promote sustainable community change efforts in disinvested neighborhoods across the country through result-driven, strategic financing. He helped develop and manage the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Technical Assistance Resource Center (TARC), which provided learning opportunities and assistance to the communities participating in the Foundation’s Making Connections initiative. Shepardson also manages technical assistance to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, which works to help young adults successfully transition out of foster care. Before joining CSSP in 1998, he served as director of school-community collaboration at the Council of Chief State School Officers, overseeing the council’s resource center on educational equity and providing assistance to states and communities to develop school-linked, community-based efforts to support families and ensure all children succeed in school. Shepardson is a graduate of the University of Virginia.
Senior Fellows
Amy Fine - Senior Fellow
Amy Fine helps shape CSSP's approach to integrating health, education, human services and other family supports at the community level, focusing on more preventive, developmentally-oriented service systems for children and families. In this role, she contributes to the content of multiple CSSP initiatives. With more than 25 years of experience working on issues related to maternal and child health, Fine has served as a consultant to federal and state health agencies, private philanthropies and national initiatives focused on improving results for children. Her previous work includes positions at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Institute of Medicine and the University of North Carolina’s Child Health Outcomes Project. She has degrees from The University of Michigan and University of California, San Francisco and earned her master’s of public health from the University of North Carolina.
Mark Friedman - Senior Fellow
Mark Friedman is the director of the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico and author of the book Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough: How to Produce Measurable Improvements for Customers and Communities. He has more than 30 years experience in public administration and public policy, including nearly two decades in senior positions with the Maryland Department of Human Resources. His Results-Based Accountability™ framework has been used in more than 40 states and in countries around the world.
James O. Gibson - Senior Fellow
James Gibson leads CSSP’s efforts to help promote responsible redevelopment initiatives in Camden, New Jersey, and is involved in the Alliance for Racial Equity in Child Welfare. He chairs the board of directors of PolicyLink, a national institution devoted to strengthening communities. Prior to joining CSSP, Gibson served as a senior associate at the Urban Institute and was the founding president of DC Agenda, a 10-year community assistance initiative in the nation’s capital. He has also served as a program director for The Rockefeller Foundation; president of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in Washington, D.C.; city administrator for planning and development for the District of Columbia; executive associate of The Potomac Institute and the former executive secretary of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP. Gibson has received numerous national awards for his work in civil rights, community development and philanthropy.
Lisbeth (Lee) B. Schorr - Senior Fellow
Lee Schorr helps lead CSSP’s work to assure social policy reform efforts are focused on achieving and sustaining measurable improvements in results for vulnerable children and families. She is a lecturer in social medicine at Harvard University, a member of the executive committee of the Aspen Institute's Roundtable on Community Change and has served in leadership positions for the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, the SEED Foundation, the National Center for Children in Poverty, the National Academy of Science's Board on Children and Families, the ECS National Commission on Governing America’s Schools and the Foundation for Child Development. From 1965 to 1967, she headed the health division of the Community Action Program at the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, helping lead the federal effort that created a national system of community health centers. Her 1988 book, WITHIN OUR REACH: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage, analyzed social programs that succeeded in effectively combating serious social problems. In her 1997 book, COMMON PURPOSE: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America, Schorr explored challenges to the spread and sustainability of successful programs
Bill Traynor - Senior Fellow
Bill Traynor is executive director of Lawrence CommunityWorks (LCW), an initiative working to rebuild the struggling city of Lawrence, Mass., his hometown. This work has led to more than $50 million in new investments to the city and creating significant new grassroots initiatives in family asset-building, youth development, community organizing housing and community center and open space development. Traynor has 30 years of experience in urban community development and organizing throughout the United States. He is the former executive director of the Coalition for A Better Acre in Lowell, Mass., where he led a $20 million redevelopment effort, and was the director of community development for CTAC Inc. of Boston, a national consulting firm. In 1992, Traynor created Neighborhood Partners and the Neighborhood Partners Fund, a consulting /training firm and operating foundation which has assisted more than 200 community development organizations and foundations. In 1998, he was awarded a Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and was named a 2009 EOS Fellow of the EOS Foundation in Boston. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and received a master’s degree in management from Brandeis University.
Program Staff
Nilofer Ahsan - Senior Associate
Nilofer Ahsan coordinates the Strengthening Families National Network, which works with states and national partner organizations to improve outcomes for parents and children involved in the child welfare system. She also helps advance CSSP’s work to improve conditions for families in low–income neighborhoods by supporting efforts to mobilize communities to achieve and sustain results, and build the capacity of resident leaders. Prior to joining CSSP, Ahsan served as director for knowledge and policy at Family Support America, where she helped lead the FRIENDS National Resource Center, helping states around the country develop family support initiatives. In 1998, she received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership Fellow award. Ahsan currently serves a number of organizations actively promoting an equity agenda for women and people of color. Ahsan earned a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago.
Elizabeth Black - Senior Associate
Elizabeth Black advances CSSP’s work to improve child welfare systems and public policy, with a special focus on pregnant and parenting teens and assisting public agencies in reforming their systems in the context of litigation. She was previously the executive director of the Office of Child Permanency at the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services in Nashville. Black’s work in Tennessee and nationally has focused on the challenges of providing quality services to children and families who are involved with the public child welfare system and the development of policies and programs to insure that children are cared for within their own families and communities. She is currently an Annie E Casey Foundation Fellow and has served on the Executive Committee of the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA). Black was a 2010 recipient of an “Angel in Adoption” award through the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. She completed her undergraduate studies at Millsaps College and her graduate studies at the University of Tennessee.
Charlyn Harper Browne - Senior Associate and Director of Quality Improvement Center on Early Childhood
Charlyn Browne manages the Quality Improvement Center on Early Childhood (QIC-EC), a five-year project of the federal Administration for Children and Families, the Children’s Bureau, the National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families and the Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds that is coordinated by CSSP. In that capacity, Browne helps generate and disseminate new knowledge and evidence about programs and strategies that prevent child maltreatment and promote healthy child and family development. Prior to joining CSSP, she served as an associate professor of psychological studies at Clark-Atlanta University, teaching graduate psychology courses and chairing the Department of Counseling and Psychological Studies. Previously, she served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Morris Brown College, and as a professor of psychology at Atlanta Metropolitan College. Browne received the 21st Century Fellow award from the National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families in 2007 and is a former visiting minority scholar for the Educational Testing Service. She holds a doctoral degree from Georgia State University in early childhood education, a master’s degree in educational psychology from Atlanta University and is a graduate of Spelman College.
Amrit Dhillon - Communications Officer
Amrit Dhillon is responsible for all of CSSP’s strategic internal and external communications and media relations work. She has more than 11 years in various communications and marketing roles in the private and nonprofit sectors across the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area. Prior to joining CSSP, she worked as the director of communications for United Way of Central Maryland. Dhillon has also worked at the national level on low-income housing policy and covered regional business and politics for a monthly newsmagazine. She is the author of Keeping Families Together and Safe: A Primer on the Child Protection-Housing Connection, published by the Child Welfare League of America. She earned both her journalism and master of social work degrees from the University of Maryland.
Megan C. Martin - Associate
Megan Martin helps advance CSSP’s public policy work, which helps federal and state elected officials develop policies, funding and practice in ways that help ensure better results for children and families. Prior to joining CSSP, Martin was a guest researcher at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, where she helped conduct comparative poverty research on social safety net policy in the United States and the European Union. In 2007, she was recognized as a “new voice” in social policy for an article on segregation in Detroit published in Qualitative Social Work. Martin has worked for the U.S. Senate as well as for the State of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services. She also served as a Presidential Management Fellow. She is a graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Social Work.
Lisa Cylar Miller - Senior Associate
Lisa Cylar Miller provides leadership for CSSP's work to strengthen partnerships with federal agencies and national organizations. In addition, she manages development of lessons learned products from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Making Connections initiative. Prior to joining CSSP, Miller served as senior program officer at The Skillman Foundation in Detroit where she worked to engage foundations, civic leaders and government officials. She also served as director of development and program officer at the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and prior to that, practiced law at Hardy, Lewis and Page in Birmingham, Michigan. Miller is a graduate of Spelman College and the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Sarah A. Morrison - Senior Associate
Sarah Morrison helps advance CSSP’s child welfare system reform efforts. She is one of two federally appointed monitors of a class action consent decree in Georgia. Prior to joining CSSP, Morrison was a senior evaluator at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). While there, she was responsible for designing, managing and reporting on evaluations of programs authorized or expanded by the Family Support Act of 1988, including transitional benefits and child support enforcement. Morrison’s additional experience includes management consulting in Ernst and Young’s public sector practices in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and public opinion research polling and teaching at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
Oronde A. Miller - Senior Associate
Oronde Miller advances CSSP’s work to achieve race equity in the nation’s child welfare system, within a broader portfolio of work to improve results for all children. Prior to joining CSSP, Miller was the chief of staff at the Maryland Department of Human Resources. Miller’s professional experience includes direct service, program development and management, community engagement as well as child welfare and educational system reform efforts. Before working in child welfare, Miller was involved in urban public school system reform efforts addressing race, cultural socialization, teacher training and institutional bureaucracy. He is the author of “Facing the Rising Sun: Perspectives on African American Family and Child Well-Being.” Miller earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master of science in developmental psychology from Howard University, where he is also currently a Ph.D. candidate.
Kirstin Noe - Associate
Kirstin Noe helps advance CSSP’s community change work, which helps distressed communities build the capacity needed to improve outcomes for children and families. She also supports CSSP’s technical assistance to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, which helps young people in foster care successfully transition to adulthood. Prior to joining CSSP, Noe worked at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago where she managed the agency’s Federal Title I budget and collaborated with Chicago Public Schools to advocate for the educational needs of youth in residential care. She also interned at Northwestern University Law School’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, where she supported youth transitioning out of Chicago’s Temporary Juvenile Detention Center. Noe is a graduate of Marquette University and the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
Rachel Paletta - Associate
Rachel Paletta is responsible for monitoring and providing technical assistance to child welfare systems operating under federal consent decrees to improve practice for children and families. Prior to joining CSSP, she was a child advocate attorney with the Council for Children’s Rights in Charlotte, North Carolina where she worked on a variety of issues, including child welfare, mental health and education. Prior to that, Paletta had internships with the Office of the Child’s Representative and Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center in Denver, CO, the Public Defender’s Office in St. Louis, MO and Family and Juvenile Drug Court in Providence, RI. In 2010, she was certified as a Child Welfare Law Specialist through the National Association of Counsel for Children. She earned a law degree and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Denver.
Martha Raimon - Senior Associate
Martha Raimon helps CSSP monitor the performance of child welfare systems operating under court-ordered consent decrees to improve practice, services and policies. She leads CSSP’s work to develop a bill of rights for parents involved in the child welfare system. Prior to joining CSSP, Raimon directed the Incarcerated Mothers Law Project for the Women’s Prison Association, which provides incarcerated and formerly incarcerated parents with information about their rights and responsibilities to their children. She also directed the Family Law Unit at South Brooklyn Legal Services and was an editor of Interrupted Life: Experiences of Women in Prison in the United States. In 2009, Raimon was awarded the Cornell Law School Alumni Exemplary Public Service Award. She is an attorney with 20 years of experience working in the field of child welfare and has special expertise in the intersection of child welfare and criminal justice policies.
Gayle Samuels - Senior Associate
Gayle Samuels helps advance CSSP’s child welfare system reform work, focusing on evaluating frontline practices in children's mental health and child protection. Prior to joining CSSP, she directed the qualitative case practice review program within the Office of Quality Improvement of the New York City child protection agency. Samuels’ additional professional experience includes assisting the legal representation of children and youth in family court in dependency, status offense and juvenile delinquency cases and coordinating a Head Start-based research and intervention project aimed at reducing violence. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park and Columbia University's Graduate School of Social Work.
Dorothy Smith - Associate
Dorothy Smith helps advance CSSP’s community change work, with a focus on public policy and financing. Previously, she served as a fellow at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), where she assisted and tracked the work of state poverty task forces, and authored a report on the need to revise federal poverty guidelines. Working with the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, Smith also co-authored Taking Care of the District’s Children: The Need to Reform DC’s Child Support System and HIV/AIDS in the Nation’s Capital: Improving the District’s Response to a Public Health Crisis. Smith is a graduate of Harvard University, where she received the Harvard Pforzheimer Fellowship for Public Service in support of her HIV/AIDS prevention and youth empowerment work in South Africa and the New York University School of Law, where she was awarded the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship. She also founded the NYU Law Women of Color Collective and worked for Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, the National ACLU Women's Rights Project and the Children's Law Center in Washington, D.C. She also served on the NYU Black Allied Law Student Association executive board.
Dan Torres - Associate
Dan Torres advances CSSP’s work to promote the economic success of parents and youth involved in the child welfare system. He also assists CSSP’s child welfare system reform efforts in Los Angeles and New Jersey, and works with the Western and Pacific Child Welfare Implementation Center (WPIC.) Prior to joining CSSP, Torres served as a project coordinator at Casey Family Programs and was responsible for family support strategies and partnering with community-based networks. He led the establishment of the Casey’s initial systems change work in Los Angeles through the creation of the Neighborhood Based Prevention initiative. He was selected as a Brainerd Fellow by Social Venture Partners Seattle. Torres graduated from the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington with a master’s degree in public administration.
Kristen Weber - Senior Associate
Kristen Weber serves as a senior member of the CSSP team that monitors New Jersey’s compliance with a consent decree to improve the state’s child welfare system. She also coordinates the Institutional Analysis project—a qualitative review process to analyze laws, policies and practices that contribute to racial disparities in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Prior to joining CSSP, Weber was an attorney at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco, where she specialized in the legal representation of children impacted by HIV/AIDS and in the legal issues faced by runaway and homeless teenagers. She is a graduate of Yale University and earned a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Hannah Weiss - Tom Joe Fellow
Hannah Weiss supports CSSP’s work to build community capacity to achieve and sustain better results for low-income children and families living in places of concentrated poverty. Prior to joining CSSP, she held internships at the National Head Start Association, Philadelphia Office of the Deputy Mayor of Health and Opportunity and Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. Weiss graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Urban Studies, where she was recognized with the Award for Commitment to Social Justice in the City.
Administrative & Operations
Gina R. Chaney - Program Assistant
Gina Chaney provides administrative support to CSSP’s director, the Strengthening Families initiative and to the financing community change teams located in sites across the country as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Making Connections initiative. In addition, she helps plan, organize and coordinate national meetings convened by CSSP. Prior to joining CSSP, she provided administrative support to the senior leadership of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) and served as quality control specialist for National Veterans Services.
Mischa Dent - Receptionist
Mischa Dent is CSSP’s receptionist. She also provides general administrative and accounting support for CSSP’s Washington, D.C. and N.Y. offices. Prior to joining CSSP, she worked as a civilian employee with the Department of Navy for the Naval Sea Systems Command, providing support to staff in Bath, Maine, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., as well as to the Department of Army headquarters in Alexandria, VA.
Kanchan Sakya - Accounting Assistant
Kanchan Sakya is responsible for various duties of the accounting department. Prior to joining CSSP, she served as an accounting assistant for Buckingham Badler Associates in New York, providing accounting services to a broad range of clients. Sakya graduated from the University of Phoenix with masters of science in accountancy.
Vanessa Scott - Program Assistant
Vanessa Scott is responsible for assisting with research, data analysis, graphics and other administrative tasks at CSSP’s Washington, D.C., office. She also provides support to CSSP’s Child Welfare System Reform, public policy and communication efforts.
Silviya Slavova - Senior Accountant
Silviya Slavova is responsible for accounting and financial records. Prior to joining CSSP, she served as an accountant for LT Business Dynamics, LLC in McLean, Va., providing accounting, fiscal management and tax assistance services to a broad range of clients. Slavova earned her MBA in finance and holds master’s degrees in accounting and auditing as well as in human resource management. She is a CPA candidate.
Myra Soto - Program Assistant
Myra Soto helps manage CSSP’s New York office, coordinating meetings and conferences, as well as providing support to program staff. Prior to joining CSSP, Soto worked for LendMor Mortgage Bankers. She volunteers at NY Cares, providing free income tax services for low-income individuals and families and facilitating a computer literacy class for adults. Soto is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in public administration at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU.
Mary G. Swilley - Office Manager
Mary Swilley manages operations for CSSP’s Washington, D.C., office. She also provides support to CSSP’s Constituent and Resident Engagement and Child Welfare System Reform work, assists with finance and administration and supervises administrative staff. Prior to joining CSSP, Swilley was an accounting technician with the U.S. Department of Labor responsible for coding of accounts payable. She studied accounting at Prince George’s Community College and volunteers for a range of arts, recreation and community organizations.
Denise Thompkins - Assistant Office Manager and Contracts Manager
Denise Thompkins is CSSP’s contracts manager and serves as program assistant to CSSP’s deputy director and the CFO. She also works with CSSP’s child welfare system reform team. Prior to joining CSSP, Thompkins was an administrative secretary in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, assisting faculty and the school’s Appointments and Promotions Committee. She also attended Howard University on a part-time basis while employed there.
