Joyce Burrell is an independent consultant with expertise in program management, program design, program assessment and evaluation, cultural and linguistic competency, as well as team building and collaboration. Joyce focused much of time helping systems address the nexus between juvenile justice and unmet mental health, substance abuse treatment and educational needs, with special emphasis on reducing the crossover of youth from child welfare into juvenile justice. She has led significant juvenile justice reform initiatives and provided technical assistance to many jurisdictions in the United States, especially those interested in integrating mental health and trauma informed services in traditional juvenile correctional and child welfare models of care. Joyce has served as a project director on national, state and local initiatives and has worked for federal, state and city government, private sector and directly with families and youth in their communities. Cultural and linguistic competency-related issues represented some the most difficult underlying barriers to change, as well as communications issues.

Before going into private consulting, Joyce served as a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research, where she directed two projects funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The OJJDP State Training and Technical Assistance Center where fifty percent of the requests jurisdictions made each year were for training and technical assistance as they tackled cultural bias, inadequate language supports, troubling police practices and communications issues throughout their organizations. As director of the National Girls’ Institute, the Institute was intended to help practitioners build skills to work more effectively with the increasing numbers of girls of color in their systems, who presented with complex mental health, substance use and abuse and very complex family issues. She also led the first six years of National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children Who is Neglected, Delinquent or At Risk.

Joyce also had eight years of experience supporting grantees through the SAMHSA TA Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health, where she learned and fully-embraced the System of Care (SOC) principles and concepts. As the Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and directing the Division of Juvenile Justice and Opportunities for Youth (DJJOY), she introduced and implemented trauma-focused care, supported the implementation of several evidence-based treatment interventions, required family youth and voice on all committees and the Institutional Review Board, while integrating the other SOC principles in the work. She supported the development of a comprehensive model of mental health care for children and youth in all facilities and community offices in the juvenile system. She and the executive team worked to improve language access, as well as community alternatives to out of home placement by funding more culturally and linguistically appropriate services for youth and families in their homes and home communities.