Maria is an experienced human services leader with 30 years of progressively responsible leadership roles in several states, including significant experience in North Carolina. Maria began her child welfare experience as a foster care social worker with marginalized communities. In North Carolina, after 12 years as a CPS social worker, Maria progressed into leadership roles, including eight years as a child protective services supervisor, followed by two years as a program manager responsible for intake, after-hours, and assessments, with subject matter expertise in sexual abuse/severe injury cases.
Her early experiences taught her the importance of building relationships with clients and their families, understanding their unique challenges, and implementing a family-focused model while maintaining child safety. Maria has also taught, trained, and coached social workers and supervisors, including field observation and feedback related to practice and ensuring the application of policy to practice. Maria has served as a continuous quality improvement/quality assurance evaluator by reviewing case records, analyzing data and trends, and engaging persons with lived experience in addressing systemic issues. She served on multi-disciplinary teams for case reviews, providing child welfare expertise and other child welfare-focused collaborative teams. Her subject matter expertise is in on-call, intake, structured decision-making application of policy to decision-making, and caseload/workload management.
