Education:
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology with a Minor in Child Development, University of South Florida; Master of Health Administration, Department of Health Policy and Management, University of South Florida

Relevant Work Experience:
A native to Tampa, Deanne has served the nonprofit community, locally and nationally, since 1996. She began her career providing in-home developmental play therapy to children born with development delays and parenting classes to their guardians. Those skills transferred to a classroom setting at a local behavioral health nonprofit leading a preschool class guided by developmental theories and psychiatric oversight for at-risk children. As her journey continued, she supervised a nine-month residential program for juvenile offenders where she developed a group curriculum for decision-making skills. During these foundational steps, she began to build a passion for grant writing and program / systems development based on evidence-based practices. Some of her most successful negotiations created best practice services for children, youth, women’s services, and families including specialized areas such as youth aging out of foster care, children/youth in crisis, youth involved with the criminal justice system and youth/families who are homeless. She developed a collaborative of nonprofits to create one of the State’s first Centralized Receiving Facilities in Hillsborough County, providing co-located, integrated behavioral health crisis care for children through adulthood. She is the recipient of USF’s 2018 Florida Outstanding Women of the Year in Public Health. Her Centralized Receiving Facility collaborative won a 2018 WEDU PBS Be Brilliant / Innovation Award. Her concept of Housing, Engagement and Retention Tenancy (HEART) program won the 2018 Heart for Homeless award through the Housing and Education Alliance. Her work utilizes nationally recognized best practices including Housing First, Trauma-Informed Care, Assertive Community Treatment Teams and Minkoff’s Quadrant Model for Co-occurring disorders.
Why You Work at Frameworks:
While working with at-risk children and youth, many of whom were born with fetal alcohol syndrome, developmental disorders or introduced to the juvenile justice system at a very early age, it became very apparent that the need for early and preventative support, guidance and consistency was paramount to a child’s success in life. Positive social skills are protective factors for mental health that many of our children do not receive. Teaching children and youth skills such as mindfulness, coping, communication, self-regulation, and emotion identification gives them the tools to address challenges early in life. These skills are integrally related and begin developing at an early age. Frameworks offers a comprehensive program that provides the building blocks that are critical to our children and youth’s health. The philosophy of reaching our community’s children and those who provide for them at an early age with guidance that will equip the whole person is the beginning of where we need to be and I am proud to be a part of that initiative.