Presenters

Mark A. Johnson received his Master's of Science in Social Work Degree (MSSW) from the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville. He is employed at the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department as a Community Health Planner and at AIDS Volunteers, Inc. as a Prevention Specialist. Mark has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS for approximately 15 years.

Patty Rudd, LCSW is the current Director of Addiction Services with Comprehend, Inc. in Maysville, KY. She has a wide range of social work experience including counseling, grant writing, program development, medical social work, teaching, and administration. She has worked in the addiction field since 1990.

Steven D. Johnson, LCSW, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky. In his clinical practice he works primarily with adults and couples with affective disorders, addiction, and sexual orientation issues. He supervises residents in psychotherapy training and coordinates the educational lectures for the adult psychiatry resident program. He also teaches in the graduate program of social work at UK and conducts research in the area of LGBT issues, particularly in coming out issues, spirituality and psychotherapy. He is enrolled in the doctoral program in social work at UK.

Dr. Latonya Hesterberg graduated from Morehead State University in 1984 with a BSW, received her MSW from the University of Kentucky in 1990, and PhD in Social Work from the University of Kentucky in May 2005. Professor Hesterberg’s areas of research are social work education, child welfare, and family violence.  She has a combined 22 years of social work experience as a child protective services worker, administrator, consultant, Cabinet for Health and Family Services Trainer, and professor. In addition to teaching social work classes, Dr. Hesterberg coordinates the Public Child Welfare Certification Program at the MSU at Prestonsburg Campus. Dr. Hesterberg also teaches practice and ethics courses for the University of Kentucky College Of Social Work

Teri Faragher, MSW, CSW, has worked as an advocate to stop interpersonal and family violence for thirty years. She is the Executive Director of the Domestic Violence Prevention Board, a local coordinating council on family violence in Lexington, Kentucky. Teri has spearheaded a variety of collaborative community projects aimed at protecting and supporting victims and holding offenders accountable. These projects include efforts to: increase arrests and enforce protective orders, develop supervised visitation services, provide frontline advocacy services to victims, and conduct fatality reviews. She has conducted numerous trainings on domestic violence and developing a coordinated community response (CCR) and was the primary author of a model protocol for the development of CCRs.

Whitney Clay is an art therapist for Hospice of the Bluegrass, where she provides grief support and develops programming for grieving children and families. She has developed groups and camps for children, families and for young caregivers. Whitney received her master’s degree in Art Therapy from the University of Louisville, and was granted national board certification as an art therapist in January of 2003. On weekends and summer nights, Ms. Clay enjoys gardening and hiking on the family farm with her husband Sam, their two children and assorted cats and dogs.

Laura Best has worked as a clinician for over 10 years. She has worked a variety of areas including in-home family therapy with Family Preservation Program, school-based therapy at Johnson Elementary School, within a multidisciplinary team in a pediatric setting at Family Care Center, and now in private practice. Most of her career has been working with children and families, and currently working with all ages. She trained in PCIT at the University of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital with Erna Olafson, Barbara Boat, and Erica Smith.

Blake L. Jones, Ph.D., is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 10 years of experience as a clinician, researcher and adjunct professor in the University of Kentucky College of Social Work (UKCOSW). Dr. Jones is the former program coordinator for the Kentucky Fatherhood Initiative and is a husband and the father of two young sons. He is the coordinator of the UKCOSW’s Continuing Education program and does national consulting in the area of child abuse and neglect.

Theodore M. Godlaski, M.Div., CADC is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Social Work at the University of Kentucky. He spent 23 years doing treatment, program administration, and clinical supervision before coming to the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, Center on Drug and Alcohol Research in 1993. In August of 2002 he moved from the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research to the Training Resource Center of the College of Social Work in order to devote more time to teaching. He is former Chairperson of the National Ethics Committee for the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Counselors and worked on the revision of their code of ethics. He is also an editor for the journal Substance Use and Misuse (formerly International Journal on the Addictions). He has been involved in treatment outcome and treatment effectiveness research as well as research to develop a treatment approach specifically for rural substance abusers.

David Zidar has been working in child welfare since 1982 as an administrator, trainer and therapist. He worked in the Cleveland area for about 16 years. He has worked in programs in both Kentucky and Ohio. He also has worked in public agencies at the executive level. Currently, he is an independent trainer and therapist throughout the country. Dave has a BSW from Capital University, a MSSA from Case Western Reserve and a certification in Juvenile Sex Offender Treatment from the University of Louisville.

Geoff Wilson is a licensed clinical social worker and certified alcohol and drug counselor that has practiced in the mental health and substance abuse treatment fields for over 15 years. He currently serves as the Director of Clinical Services at The Ridge Behavioral Health System in Lexington, KY where he supervises the delivery of clinical services for their 110 bed inpatient psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment hospital and their outpatient department. He has served as the president of the Kentucky Adolescent Substance Abuse Consortium for the last 10 years and was appointed by Governor Steve Beshear to the Kentucky Board of Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors in 2008. He has experience working in a variety of treatment settings including inpatient, residential, and outpatient services and currently has a private practice in Lexington where he treats adolescents and adults providing mental health, substance abuse, marriage and family counseling.

Deborah Weber is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 30 years experience.  She has worked as a public health social worker, hospital social worker, and now runs a full-time private practice.  In addition to her clinical counseling to clients, Deborah founded Hospice of Hope and helped to implement the CASA program in Mason County.

Paula Ison’s non-traditional route to becoming a licensed social worker began as a claims adjuster handling social work professional liability claims. To improve her claim adjusting skills Paula went back to school, took numerous psychology classes; then obtained her MSW from the University of Kentucky. As a gender variant person herself, Paula has studied extensively in the area of gender identity expression and has presented numerous times on this topic. Paula also does volunteer work for GLSEN, a school based anti-bullying group, and for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a social justice organization. Paula is married with three daughters and enjoys country western line dancing and clogging.

Dr. James Stillwell has served as Adult Life Pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, KY since fall of 1992. He has served as pastoral counselor at the Interfaith Counseling Center in Lexington since spring of 2003. Dr. Stillwell is married and has four adult children. Dr. Stillwell’s personal experience with divorce comes from being from a divorced family. His doctoral research project was about helping young adults who are children of divorce. Dr. Stillwell holds a master’s of divinity, master’s of education, and the doctorate in ministry, and is under the supervision of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. Dr. Stillwell writes divorce recovery curriculum for Smyth and Helwys publishers.

Barbara Helm has been in the field of aging for over 30 years, primarily focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia care for almost 20 of those years. She has provided direct care in various settings, including nursing homes, adult day programs and residential care facilities. In addition, she has presented 100’s of educational programs and seminars to literally thousands of people throughout the country.

In addition to direct care, she has served as a consultant, developed curriculum for families and professionals who are caregivers; served as guest lecturer in colleges, universities and medical schools, participated in development of innovative dementia-specific adult day and residential care programs; and recently worked with a major research project on normal aging and memory changes at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Alzheimer’s Disease Center. She authored a training manual (1991, rev 1996) for nursing assistants working with individuals with Alzheimer’s disease in long term care entitled For Those Who Take Care: An Alzheimer’s Disease Training Program, which is still widely used throughout the country. Barbara was instrumental in the development and implementation of a unique and innovative residential free-standing, dementia-specific facility, The Breckinridge, in Lexington, KY, that continues to be a model of care in the state and the region.

Currently she serves as Educational Services Coordinator with the University of Kentucky College of Public Health. In that role she coordinates the nationally recognized UK Summer Series on Aging; assists with coordinating activities related to the Kentucky Department for Public Health Emergency Preparedness in Long Term Care Grant; coordinates the annual UK College of Public Health Hall of Fame induction celebration, and, assists with various community and educational outreach programs.

She received her Master’s Degree in Gerontology from the University of Northern Colorado in 1983.