NCAP Announces 5 New Team Members – and 3 New Projects

BOSTON, March 20, 2023 – The National Center on Adoption and Permanency today welcomed five highly respected professionals to our multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts, trainers, therapists,
educators, researchers and other consultants. NCAP also announced three exciting projects that we’re
confident will fuel our mission of moving child welfare policy and practice to a new paradigm that has a
singular, vital, explicit goal: enabling children and families to succeed.
The bios of all our team members and senior research fellows are on NCAP’s website. Our newest
colleagues (in alphabetical order) are:

• Lynne White Dixon, LCSW – Lynne is a therapist, trainer and consultant who has provided clinical
services to children, adolescents and their families for decades in the areas of community mental
health, child welfare and adoptions, as well as in furthering diversity and equity. She teaches
trauma-informed practice at CSU’s Monterey Bay Department of Social Work.

• Hollee McGinnis, PhD – Hollee, an Assistant Professor at the VCU School of Social Work, joins us
as a Senior Research Fellow. She has 25 years of community organizing, practice, policy, and
research experience. A Korean adoptee, she is also the founder of Also-Known-As, Inc., a non-profit
organization providing post-adoption services to international adoptees and their families.

• Dee Dee Mascareñas, LMFT – Dee Dee has worked in the mental health field for over 30 years
with a multicultural population in English and Spanish. A Latina and an adoptee, she addresses a
broad range of issues, including adoption and foster care, attachment, parenting, trauma, anxiety
and depression, as well as culture and diversity. She also provides therapy, trainings and keynotes.

• Luis Pereira, LCSW, MPA – Luis has decades of experience in adoption and related areas. He is now

a Program Manager II for L.A. County’s Department of Mental Health, managing a children’s out-
patient mental health clinic. Previously, he worked in the adoption, family maintenance and

reunification units of the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services.

• Joyce Taylor, PhD – Joyce is a child welfare expert with over 30 years’ experience in senior posts,
including supervisory roles in investigations, reunification, training and family resources; Deputy
Commissioner of CT’s DCF; and Asst. Clinical Professor at the Yale Program on Supervision. She is
currently on faculty at Southern CT State University and consults widely as an expert witness.

Three new projects being conducted by NCAP team members:

• A groundbreaking study, led by Dr. McGinnis, on adoption identity. And you can participate!

• A curriculum/training developed by our Executive Director, Allison Maxon, with Connect our Kids.

• The NCAP Legacy Interview Series, led by our own Sharon Roszia. It’s entertaining and insightful!

For more information, or to learn about NCAP’s consultation services, write to apertman@ncap-us.org.

​

Mapping the Life Course of Adoption Project (MAP):
Health, Well-Being and Adoptee Connections in Adulthood

​

This adoptee-led and community-embedded project, headed by Dr. Hollee McGinnis – an NCAP Senior
Research Fellow – is a pioneering national study to examine adult outcomes for U.S. adoptees (adopted
from foster care, domestically or internationally) and to explore how connections with adopted peers,
through formal and informal networks, contribute to mental health, physical health and well-being.
The initial stage of this project is an in-depth 60- to 90-minute online survey of adopted adults (18+), with
questions on exposure to childhood traumas, adult stressors, racism, adoption stigma, current physical
and mental health, adoptive and racial identity, and involvement in adoptee spaces/groups. Participants
will receive a $20 e-card as a small thank-you for their assistance on this important work.
Recruitment for participants is active now! If you are interested or have any questions, please send an
email to hamcginnis@vcu.edu or info@caare-research.org. Learn more about the Collaborative on
Adoption & Alternative Care Research at https://www.caare-research.org/.

​

NCAP’s Unique Legacy Series: Our Interviews with `Good Troublemakers’

Offer Knowledge and Insights on Child Welfare, Adoption, Permanency

In her introduction to NCAP’s Legacy Series, the trail-blazing author, educator, trainer and practitioner
Sharon Kaplan Roszia makes this indisputable point: “Each generation stands on the shoulders of the one
before.” The idea behind this unique series of interviews is to capture the key knowledge of a wide range
of disrupters and thought leaders in our field,so that other professionals and organizations can learn from
and expand upon their experiences, insights, challenges and successes.
The first 10 of Sharon’s interviews are now posted. We’re proud that these accomplished practitioners,
researchers, therapists, organizational leaders and other “good troublemakers” are NCAP team members.
But we absolutely know there are many other professionals who have made a huge difference with their
work, so we’ll soon be adding their voices to the Legacy Series as well.
If you have a suggestion of someone to include in this ambitious project, or if you have questions, please
email NCAP’s indispensable Project Manager Graham Wright (adoption@gmail.com), Executive Director
Allison Maxon (amaxon@ncap-us.org) or President Adam Pertman (apertman@ncap-us.org).

​

NCAP and Connect our Kids Prepare to Roll Out
Innovative, Trauma-Informed Curriculum and Training

​

We’re very proud to join an NCAP strategic partner, Connect our Kids, in creating and delivering a new
curriculum/training titled “Why Connections Matter.” This experiential training focuses on key factors –
including attachment, trauma, brain development and identity – with the goal of enabling social workers
to better understand, support and assist the people they’re committed to helping every day.
This is one component of a broader program shaped by Connect our Kids to help individuals and
organizations understand why finding family and fictive kin isso important. Connect our Kids also provides
an exceptional, pioneering platform for conducting searches and improving outcomes.
“Why Connections Matter” was primarily developed by NCAP Executive Director Allison Maxon, and the
trainings will be delivered – first statewide in Mississippi in coming months, and then in subsequent states
– principally by an expert team from NCAP and another of our partners, Unbelievably Resilient.