Outstanding Service Partner in Child Welfare Award Winners

Jeanne Mercer is the founder of the Family Resource Center in Detroit Lakes and has over 30 years of experience providing child welfare services and facilitating Family Group Decision Making meetings as well as court mediation. She worked at the Lakes Crisis and Resource Center in Detroit Lakes prior to opening her own business. While there, Jeanne was involved in domestic violence advocacy services and served as their coordinator of Positive Connections, a supervised visitation and exchange program. Jeanne Mercer founded the Family Resource Center as part of her passion for going above and beyond to help families have their voices heard. Jeanne has been involved in Family Group Decision Making since the program’s inception in Minnesota in 1999. She has served multiple counties and tribes in providing strengths-based Family Group Decision Making services to families involved with the child protection system. Upon completing her advanced mediation training at St. Olaf College, Jeanne was approved for inclusion on both civil facilitative and family facilitative hybrid panels as a qualified neutral under the Minnesota Rules of Practice. She has also completed training at William Mitchell College of Law and through the Minnesota Department of Human Services to coordinate and facilitate Family Group Decision Making Conferences.

Faith Jaspersen has worked with Family Alternatives for 38 years as a licensing worker and clinical supervisor and is retiring this spring (2023). She is highly involved in licensing of new families, supporting licensing assessments, and writing home studies. Faith is active in youth programming, most recently at our little girls overnight, and has been teaching foster parents during orientation and continuing education sessions on the topics of mental health, licensing investigations, trauma responsiveness, and capacity building.

Andrea Brubaker, MSW, LISW is a HELP Program Specialist with MN ADOPT. Andrea holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Minnesota. During her time at the U of MN she was a Fellow in the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disorders (LEND) program through which she worked with professionals in neurology, educational psychology, genetics, nursing, and social work to improve child welfare programs in Minnesota. Her work there earned her a certificate in Disability Policy and Services. During her studies, she also interned with CASCW around Permanency and Adoption and supported child welfare program evaluations.

Before joining the MN ADOPT team, Andrea worked in a Saint Paul Public Schools special education classroom and provided therapeutic services at a day treatment center. Andrea is passionate about social and racial justice issues in adoption and foster care.

Andrea is certified in Permanency and Adoption Competency (PACC) through CASCW and has been an alumni trainer with the program since 2016. She is a co-creator and facilitator of PACC curriculum on Grief and Loss, Trauma, and Adult Adoptees.

Andrea shares her personal experiences as an adoptee in her work across systems with intention, sharing the impact of centering this work around those with firsthand experience: “There are many perspectives that dominate, and most often it is not the perspective of the foster child or adopted person. When we highlight the voices of foster and adopted children, youth, and adults, we shift the narrative. When we welcome the nuance, the complexity…the truth of the lifelong impact of adoption and foster care on those who have experienced it, we can more effectively make change and improve adoption and foster care for current and future generations.”

Carmen works as a Family Support Specialist at the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis. In Carmen’s work, she visits and supports high-risk families in their homes and provides parent education using the Healthy Families America model. Carmen works bilingually primarily with undocumented families from various countries in South America including Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatamala. Carmen has worked at Catholic Charities for over 15 years. She spent 11 years working as a Parenting Program Home Visitor and was a school-based counselor for 4 years. Prior to that, Carmen worked in a variety of capacities supporting families involved in child protection, including both through County services and as a Guardian ad Litem. Carmen has committed her career to serving our most vulnerable children and families.