Dr. Sharon Hunt is a licensed social worker with over 30 years of experience working in a variety of capacities: clinician, administrator, researcher, and technical assistance provider. She has managed programs for individuals who were homeless and residential programs for adolescents and adults with serious mental health issues, and has worked as a foster care social worker. She is currently a senior consultant for ICCI and works as a consultant project director (PD) for the Prince George’s County, Maryland, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) systems of care (SOC) planning grant funded through the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program (CMHI). Until recently, she also worked at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) as a Principal Project Specialist. She served as project support for the National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention (Safe Schools/Healthy Students and Project LAUNCH) where she was responsible for helping with overseeing a multi-million dollar budget and quality control of products. She also was the PD of the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), SAMHSA Logistics and Tribal Technical Assistance (TA) contract. With the National Indian Child Welfare Association Co-Project Director, she ensures that tribal grantees funded by CMHI receive TA to support their development and implementation of systems of care for children with serious mental health issues and their families. Dr. Hunt also served as a substance abuse content specialist for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) State Training & Technical Assistance Center, which receives and responds to requests for TA from states, territories, tribes, and local communities that receive funding from OJJDP through either the Title II Formula Grants or the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant programs.

From 2003–2013, Dr. Hunt provided TA to non-tribal system of care implementation grantees as the Deputy PD and Substance Abuse Content Specialist on the CMHS’s Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health (TA Partnership) contract. These grantees are charged with developing a broad array of community-based, culturally competent, family-driven, youth-guided, and strength-based services. The TA Partnership supported jurisdictions in their planning, implementation, enhancement, expansion, and evaluation of systems of care; providing TA based on the needs identified in the context of site and program requirements, reflecting both on current jurisdiction priorities and national children’s mental health goals. A large part of the work was to assist the grantees with how to collaborate with other child-serving systems to provide the most effective, coordinated services for the youth and their families. In 2012, she was the TA lead for the state of Maryland System of Care Expansion Planning grant, the Maryland Behavioral Health Collaborative, providing guidance and resources around the strategic planning process for the expansion of services for youth with co-occurring issues (substance abuse and mental health).