Jane Callahan
Director
Jane Callahan has distinguished herself as an administrator and community coalition leader during her 12-year tenure as the director of the Fighting Back Partnership (FBP), Vallejo, California. In this groundbreaking role, she has overseen the operation of this community coalition, which has tirelessly worked to reduce the harm caused its citizens and young people by alcohol, other drugs, and tobacco since its inception in 1990. Under the guidance of numerous community partners, Vallejo successfully obtained a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fighting Back planning grant, and, in turn, obtained a 10-year Fighting Back implementation grant, a Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) Community Partnership grant, and a large-scale AmeriCorps project to support the activities of the Partnership. In short, one of the largest, broadest, and most comprehensive community collaboratives in the country has evolved during Mrs. Callahan's tenure as its executive director.
After completing her education, Ms. Callahan helped found a nonprofit organization with friends to start programs to help families in the areas of child care and family assistance. She devoted 6 years to managing this nonprofit, which today is an organization with a multitude of programs and services. She has a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) and an M.A. in Education from Humboldt State University in California.
As the Project Director, Ms. Callahan will be responsible for establishing the Institute in order to make existing coalitions more effective and to expand the number of community coalitions, with an emphasis on the development of coalitions serving economically disadvantaged areas. She will ensure that the Institute provides education, training, and technical assistance for coalition leaders and community teams, with emphasis on the development of coalitions serving economically disadvantaged areas; develops and disseminate evaluation tools, mechanisms, and measures to better assess and document coalition performance measures and outcomes; and bridges the gap between research and practice by translating knowledge from research into practical information.
Kareemah Abdullah
Deputy Director,
Training & Technical Assistance
Kareemah
Abdullah is the Deputy
Director, Training and Technical Assistance for the National Community
Anti-Drug Coalition Institute.
Prior to assuming current accountabilities, Abdullah served two consecutive
terms on the CADCA National Advisory Committee, on the Georgia Steering
Committee for the Department of Justice Serious and Violent Offender “Coming
Home Reentry Initiative,” Vice-President and President-elect of
the Board of Directors for the Prevention Credentialing Consortium for
the State of Georgia and Chief Executive Officer of Genesis Prevention
Coalition, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Atlanta,
Georgia. Under her leadership, agency accomplishments include national
recognition as successful Government Partner by the White House Office
of Faith-based and Community Initiatives and the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services; CADCA 1998 Outstanding Coalition; White House, Office
of the President, National Drug Control Policy Drug-Free Communities Coalition;
Georgia Statewide Faith and Community Partner and the
establishment of the Genesis Intel Computer Clubhouse, an international collaboration with Intel, the Boston Museum of Science, MIT Media Laboratory and the Clubhouse Network.
Kareemah, a visionary,
creative and critical thinker, has been training and developing audiences
throughout the United States for more than 25 years. This enhances her
present focus on achieving the Institute’s goal of “increasing
the effectiveness of community anti-drug coalitions throughout the nation.”
She has provided consultative and technical assistance services for federal,
state and local governments; faith and community-based organizations;
school systems; corporations and other public and private sector entities.
With more than 20 years of successful management leadership in “Corporate
America” and over 10 years of coalition development experience,
Abdullah has distinguished herself among an exceptional pool of administrators,
professional trainers, facilitators and developers by demonstrating a
firm grounding in prevention research and theory; community, program,
business and youth development; and a broad range of training curricula.
Kareemah also displays a keen understanding of stages of interaction by
making timely interventions based on the level of readiness. Her charismatic
and passionate style enhances her effectiveness as she engages broad-base
diversified populations and systems.
Kareemah Abdullah, the mother of four daughters, is a champion for humanity
and for causes that are just, noble and honorable.
Dr. Eduardo Hernández-Alarcón
Deputy Director,
Dissemination &
Coalition Relations
Dr.
Eduardo Hernández-Alarcón
is the Deputy Director for Dissemination and Coalition Relations for the
National Community Anti-Drug Coalition Institute, Community Anti-Drug
Coalitions of America. He has been a substance abuse prevention leader
at the local, state, and national level for over a decade. He entered
the field as a volunteer concerned about the alarming rise of alcohol-related
problems among Latinos, particularly youth. He then served as the Director
of the Multicultural Community Partnership in Santa Barbara California,
founded with a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP).
He subsequently served as the Project Director of CalPartners statewide
coalition, also funded by CSAP and headquartered in Sacramento. In 1997,
the California County Alcohol and Drug Directors Association named CalPartners
“ Prevention Organization of the Year.”
During the period he served as CalPartners Director, he helped develop
the California Prevention Collaborative which is comprised of all of California’s
statewide substance abuse prevention organizations and served as its first
Chair. He also helped to create California Latino
Leadership United for Health Communities, one of the few statewide Latino organizations in the country addressing the issues of substance abuse among that fast-growing population.
In 2001, Dr. Hernandez-Alarcón
received an appointment as a Special Expert at the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration and relocated to the Washington
D.C. area. He first served at the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
in the Division of State and Community Systems Development where he focused
on multicultural issues and prevention work with faith-based communities.
His expertise in the latter area led to a subsequent appointment as an
Associate Director for the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
at the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Active in other national initiatives, Dr. Hernández-Alarcón
helped found the National Hispano-Latino Community Prevention Network,
an organization that grew out of the CSAP Community Partnership Initiative,
and served as its first co-chair. When CADCA created a National Coalition
Advisory Council in 1998, it selected Dr. Hernández-Alarcón
as one of its initial members and he served on that Council for two years
and a half years.
Widely known across the country for his work on Hispano/Latino issues,
particularly alcohol-related problems, Dr. Hernández-Alarcón
has authored reports and spoken extensively about these problems in relation
to Mexican-American cultural holidays. He has also lectured frequently
on cultural competency issues related to substance abuse prevention in
diverse communities.
Dr. Hernandez-Alarcón completed his undergraduate and graduate
studies at U.C.L.A.
Evelyn Yang
Manager,
Evaluation & Research
Evelyn
Yang is the Evaluation
and Research Manager for CADCA’s National Community Anti-Drug Coalition
Institute. She is responsible for assisting the Institute’s mission
of advancing coalition research to improve coalition effectiveness and
evaluation. She is also involved in translation of research findings into
materials that the field can effectively utilize in their pursuits. Her
other responsibilities include preparing regular updates for the prevention
and treatment fields on research that is relevant to community-based work
on substance abuse and related issues; managing research projects generated
and developed by both CADCA staff and the Institute’s Scientific
Advisory Panel; and serving as liaison between the Scientific Advisory
Panel and the staff as a whole.
Before joining CADCA, Evelyn worked on several projects examining coalition
effectiveness and local systems change in the human service delivery arena.
She has been involved in evaluation and research projects of comprehensive
community-change oriented initiatives, with interest and experience in
organizational
development, multi-sector collaboration and qualitative and quantitative research methods. Evelyn also has a background in child and family service delivery. Evelyn holds a Bachelors degree in Psychology from The College of William and Mary and a Masters degree in Clinical/Community Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Evelyn is also a doctoral candidate in Michigan State University’s Ecological-Community Psychology Program.
Sue Stine
Manager,
Dissemination
& Coalition Relations
sstine@cadca.org
Sue Stine is the Manager of Dissemination & Coalition Relations at CADCA’s National Coalition Institute. She is responsible for developing Web content, communicating with coalitions, assisting with strategic planning, developing publications and promotional materials, and disseminating information to the field.
Prior to joining the Institute, Sue was a program officer for the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, D.C., where she worked on the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Sue edited the Campaign's bi-monthly newsletter, Update, and worked with a variety of national partners including the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.
She was also project director for Working Women ROCC! (Reaching Out against Cervical Cancer), a CDC-funded communications campaign aimed at encouraging women in the workforce to have regular screenings for cervical cancer, and the Innovations in Social Marketing conference.
Sue holds a B.A. in Journalism, writing option, from the Pennsylvania State University.
Paula Horne
Operations Manager
phorne@cadca.org
Prior to joining CADCA, Paula was the Executive Assistant to the President of a medical association and legislative assistant at the National Pork Producers Council in Washington, DC. Paula is a 20 year veteran of the US Army, where she performed Executive Assistant duties at US Embassies in Yugoslavia, Hong Kong and Germany, in addition to duties at the Pentagon for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Paula is a graduate of Trinity College where she received a Bachelor’s of Science in Secretarial Science.