Founder and President of JRA Consulting, Ltd.
Jen provides consulting services focused on the transformation of organizational cultures in child and family service organizations. She served as the Project Director at Casey Family Programs for the first two Breakthrough Series Collaboratives (BSC) conducted in child welfare and worked directly with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to adapt the methodology from the health care arena to child welfare. She then worked closely with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in 2005 to further adapt the model for the field of child trauma.
Jen serves as a consultant to and partner in Breakthrough Series Collaboratives, Learning Collaboratives, and racial justice efforts being conducted by public and tribal child welfare agencies, child trauma agencies, health care organizations, and non-profits across the country with a constant focus on racial equity and social justice.
Jen continues to serve as a lead consultant for Breakthrough Series Collaborative initiatives being conducted by public child welfare agencies and non-profit organizations across the country as national, regional, and statewide efforts. As a lead consultant for BSCs across the country, Jen has focused specifically on how organizational changes are tested, implemented, and ultimately sustained in child welfare systems. These organizational changes have included the implementation of specific practices, such as foster parents providing information to youth prior to placement; the implementation of new policies, such as the use of structured decision-making tools in the context of differential response; and the implementation of what ultimately become actual shifts in organizational culture, such as engaging birth families and youth in all decisions about their lives. Since she helped initially adapt the BSC methodology for application in child welfare in 2001, she has been involved in over 25 Learning and Breakthrough Series Collaboratives.