The National Child Welfare Resource Center for Tribes is very pleased to welcome Miriam Bearse to the NRC4Tribes Team. Miriam started March 8th as the Tribal Child Welfare Specialist for NRC4Tribes. Miriam will have lead responsibility at the NRC4Tribes for T&TA program and resource product development, including training webinars and resource materials development. She will also be working with Kathy Deserly and the NRC4Tribes Team in all aspects of providing training and technical assistance for tribes throughout the country.

Miriam has already been serving as a consultant for the NRC4Tribes for the past year and was part of the on-site teams who conducted the National Tribal Child Welfare Needs Assessment. Miriam has been involved in Indian Child Welfare for the past ten years. She has worked for state Indian Child Welfare offices, community/contracted providers in the Urban Indian community, and the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA). While at NICWA, she coordinated and provided T&TA via contracts with various NRCs and worked with tribes across the country on the SAMHSA Systems of Care (SOC) initiative. Most recently Miriam worked as a policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in Washington State, where she wrote and implemented policy and legislative changes, and created/managed collaborative projects between multiple systems, including child welfare, corrections, mental health and others.