Our Team

Mary LeBeau

MSW

As Director of the Practice Leadership Division, Mary oversees the organization’s provision of training, consultation, and coaching services in permanency best practices to a wide range of child welfare agencies and providers, while also continuing to build Plummer's expertise. Prior to assuming the position of Director, Mary served as a Senior Child Welfare Manager with the Practice Leadership Division. In this role she provided intensive, collaborative consulting to public and private child welfare agencies to strengthen implementation of front-line best practice and supervision. Her specialty is implementing strategies that promote permanence-focused youth and family engagement, team planning, and decision-making. She has a special interest in developing and installing supervision models to achieve safe permanency outcomes. Mary brings both a direct practice and implementation science lens to her work- understanding that achieving organizational change requires both a micro and macro system focus. Mary has worked in child welfare for over 35 years, starting as a direct frontline practitioner, supervisor, and director. Prior to joining Plummer she was a Senior Associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Child Welfare Strategy Group. Mary holds a BS in Sociology form the University of Massachusetts and a Master’s of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is also a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker.

Cheryl Peltier

LSW

Licensed Social Worker with more than 30 years’ experience as a Consultant, Trainer, and Program Manager in private and public child welfare agencies. Experience spans child welfare and healthcare sectors. Adept at providing direct service, case management, and supervision. Exceptional skills in program development, training, and coaching/mentoring of staff. Belief in strength-based, child-centered, family driven practice. Dedicated to permanency planning with older and transitioning youth.

Lori Ryan

MA, LSW

Lori Ryan is a senior child welfare manager with Plummer’s Permanency Practice Leadership Division. An experienced practitioner and trainer, Lori’s work with public and private agencies focuses on strengthening policy, supervision and frontline practice.  She is particularly skilled in curriculum development, delivering training and providing post-training support through (field) coaching, mentoring and consultation.

Lori is a member of the Annie E. Casey Foundation national technical assistance team, leading efforts to bolster the family search and engagement and family meeting capacities in Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, Delaware and Mecklenburg County North Carolina. 

Lori has worked in the child welfare field for over 30 years including frontline child protection, foster care and adoption. She is a trained mediator who promotes non-adversarial and collaborative approaches to resolving issues of child custody that result in more timely permanence.

Isabel Morales

Child Welfare Associate

Isabel Morales brings over 30 years’ experience in the human service field as a consultant, administrator, mediator, and trainer. As a Child Welfare Associate for the Plummer Youth Promise since 2017, Ms. Morales provides technical assistance and training to child welfare organizations across the country, as well as within Plummer, for the improvement of permanency practice. Most recently she served as a Senior Associate for The Annie E. Casey Child Welfare Strategy Group. She provided technical assistance to leaders of large public systems to design and implement reforms for child welfare systems and to develop outcomes-based strategies to improve services for families and children. As a Project Manager in the Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice at Casey Family Services, she was responsible for providing training, coaching and consultation, particularly as it related to the agency’s Move to Greater Permanency initiative. Previously, she served as Director of CASA of Hampden County, Massachusetts, a child advocacy program serving children and youth in the court system and oversaw a Federal demonstration grant on the Permanency Mediation model. Ms. Morales has developed curricula and related materials on team decision-making and permanency practice for use in public child welfare systems. She has conducted trainings and consultation on the Permanency Teaming model and Considered Removal Family Team Meetings for case workers, supervisors, and administrators nationally. As a trained Permanency Mediator, she has collaborated in development and implementation of Family Preservation Team Meetings, a court-funded pilot for a front-end approach to preserving families. She has also consulted and trained on the topics of mediation, team building, facilitation, and conflict management. Ms. Morales earned a Master of Education Degree in Management and Administration at Cambridge College, Massachusetts. She served as an adjunct faculty member at Cambridge College and Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Dawn Jewett

BA

Dawn is a member of Plummer Youth Promise’s Practice Leadership Team providing training, coaching, and consulting to child welfare organizations locally and nationally in a child-centered, family-focused approach to ensure permanence.  She has worked for Plummer Youth Promise for over nine years in several different roles and programs including foster care, Intensive Permanency Services and mediation. 

Dawn is a trained child welfare mediator now working as a supervisor for the Permanency Mediation Program at Plummer Youth Promise.  

She is a former consultant to Casey Family Services/Annie E. Casey Foundation providing guidance on a permanence-focused approach to working with youth and families.  

Dawn has worked in the child welfare field for over 25 years.

Paula Young

BASW, MUP

As Director of Growth and Innovation, Paula designs and implements a sustainable business and operations plan to support permanency and expand best practices nationally, ultimately creating positive outcomes for youth and transforming the child welfare system.

Prior to coming to Plummer Youth Promise, Paula was the Director, Strategy and Implementation for Child, Youth, and Family Initiatives at Lutheran Services in America. She has 15 years of experience in systems change, program development, and community engagement. In her current role, she leads results-based leadership initiatives to support members in improving outcomes for children and families involved in the child welfare system.

Previously, Paula led public-private partnership development and community engagement at KABOOM! as an Associate Director. Prior to KABOOM!, Paula worked at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and was responsible for youth advocacy and engagement, technical assistance, and the fellowship program for the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative and served as a strategic consultant with the Child Welfare Strategy Group where she supported assessments and strategy development for state child welfare agencies. Earlier in her career, Paula worked at the Michigan Department of Human Services managing older youth policy, data systems, grants and statewide program management.

Paula also works as an independent consultant as a racial equity facilitator.  She is originally from the South Side of Chicago and has a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh.

Mariah Torentino

Kate Mun

MSW, LCSW

Kate Mun is a licensed ceritifed social worker and consultant providing training, coaching and consulting services for private agencies engaged in child welfare services. After receiving her MSW from Salem State University, she worked at Plummer Youth Promise with youth and their families providing direct services. Kate has also worked as a clinician in residential treatment programs at Justice Resource Institute. Kate provides training, coaching and consulting services as part of the Permanency Practice Leadership Team in addition to direct permanency work with youth and families. Kate has additional training and interest in mediation, collaborative problem-solving and special education. She is also a transracial adoptive parent and former kinship parent.