Board Of Directors
Jeff Puster, President
Murfreesboro, TN
Jeff has served as Program Manager for the Exchange Club Family Centers, Supervised Visitation program since April of 2008. Jeff has a Master’s degree in Education from Southern Illinois University and has most recently served as Administrative Director for Volunteers of America and as a behavior specialist for the TN Department of Mental Retardation. Jeff serves as Chair of the Knowledge and Resources Committee, which overseas the website and the distribution of "Sitting In" the SVN newsletter.
Jeff wantrs to encourage more opportunities for training of professional monitors to help increase the credibility of supervised visitation programs.
Jeff currently resides in the middle-Tennessee area with his wife, Dawn and two sons, Reilly and Jake.
Christina Coultas, Vice President
Dallas, TX
Christina Coultas is the Director of FLP Family Center, a supervised visitation and exchange center for families located in Dallas, Texas. In her role as director, she works closely with families in the visitation setting. Before being the director at the center Christina was the case manager at the center for five years. Christina is an active member of the coordinated community response to domestic violence in Dallas and serves as the chair of two coalitions in the community as well as serving on the board of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center and the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. Prior to her work in supervised visitation she worked as a shelter advocate, criminal court liaison, and as a trainer/public relations coordinator. Christina is currently a currently a supervised visitation consultant working with the Alliance of Local Service Organizations and served as a recent faculty member for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges national supervised visitation conference. Christina is licensed social worker who received her BSW from the University of North Texas and her MSW at the University of Texas-Arlington.
Aaron Wimmer, Immediate Past President
Sioux Falls, SD
Since 2004, Aaron Wimmer has been the Executive Director of the Family Visitation Center, a Sioux Falls based non-profit providing children and families a safe haven for visitation and exchange services. In his current capacity, Aaron is responsible for strategically leading the organization while ensuring that the organization’s mission, programs, and services are responding to the needs of current and potential stakeholders.
Aaron is actively involved with local organizations such as the Sioux Empire United Way, South Dakota Network, and Minnehaha Family Violence Council in various capacities. Aaron also provides technical and training assistance to supervised visitation providers across the United States through regional and national trainings. Aaron holds a Master of Science Degree in Administration and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Special Education.
Dorie Twist, Treasurer
Alexandria, MN
As Executive Director of Wings Family Supportive Services, her many accomplishments have included:
Created and implemented the agency's first advanced statistical database for collecting victim services. Database has been in place since 1999. Worked with other crisis centers in Minnesota helping them incorporate our statistical tracking and database system for their own use.
Developed and coordinated Hope Connection Safety Center in 2000. Instrumental in writing the United Way, Initiative Foundation, and Blanden Foundation start up grants. Managed the center through very limited funding and developed it into a very well known, full to capacity, visitation center program in center rural Minnesota.
Prepared budget proposal and assist with writing of the federal grant, "Arrest Program, How to Hold Offenders Accountable." Hands of Hope Resource Center was one of two grant recipients in Minnesota to receive this OVW (Office of Violence against Women) federal grant. Attended and Certified at the Office of Justice Financial Management Training in Washington D.C.
Active participant in perusing legislative funding changes for Visitation Centers across Minnesota. Recently testified on behalf of Hope Connection Safety Center at the House of Representatives hearing on the importance of visitation centers being funded.
Janna Winsted, Secretary
Jeffersonville, IN
Janna Winsted is the director and co-founder of Family Solutions: Positive Parenting Service, LLC and the assistant director of Family Time, Inc. She has been working with visitation programs for 7 years and has been involved in working with families and children for 13 years. Janna has implemented additional growth to the Family Time, Inc agency including adding parenting classes and tripling the amount of visitation services provided in the last year. She successfully wrote the state grant for the agency’s funding of visitation services and parenting classes for the next 2 1/2 years and put into operation a new agency to serve families in the community who are in custody situations. Janna has experience in working with the Healthy Families Indiana program as well as working in the family preservation area. She is currently working with a group to start an Indiana chapter of SVN to support the providers in that area. Janna holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology as well as a master’s degree in business from Indiana Wesleyan University.
Kelley Beckett
Columbus, Ohio
Kelley is the Program Manager for the Buckeye Ranch Visitation and Exchange Program in Columbus, Ohio. Kelley has worked in supervised visitation and domestic violence since 2002, including victim/child advocacy work, crisis, intake and divorced parenting education, in addition to her focus in the area of supervised visitation. In July of 2011, she was elected to the position of the Chair of the SVN Ohio Chapter. She has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from The Ohio State University and a Master’s degree in Education From Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
Karen Brown
Kansas City, MO
Karen J. Brown earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri–Kansas City and is currently a member of the Missouri Bar. In addition, Karen is a fellow of the Institute for Court Management in Judicial Administration through the National Center of State Courts. Prior to her tenure with the Family Court in 2001, Karen served the 16th Judicial Circuit Court as a law clerk for the Honorable Jon R Gray in Division 18 and as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in the Family Support Division. After a brief period in private practice, Karen became a Conflict Resolution Coordinator for the Kansas City School District launching the first conflict resolution program of its kind in an elementary school in the district. Karen is currently a member of the KCMBA (Kansas City MO Bar Association), AFCC (Academy of Family and Conciliation Courts), Supervised Visitation Network and the National Association of Court Managers. Karen also serves on the Missouri Supreme Court/Missouri Bar Joint Commission to review Pro Se Litigation in the State of Missouri and currently chairs the public education sub committee.
Audrey Burnett
Woodstock, Ontario
Audrey has been involved in supervised access since 1995. She is the Program Coordinator of two access Centres in Ontario, Canada, and former co-chair of the Ontario, Canada, Chapter of SVN. She was co-chair of the May 2009 SVN Confernece in Niagara Falls, Canada. She currently is the co-chair of the SVN Membership committee and still sits on the Welcome Wagon committee for the Ontario Chapter of the SVN.She is a graduate of the Mohawk College’s Social Services Worker Program and has a B.A. from McMaster University where she studied Sociology. For the past 20 years she has been involved with working with Mentally Handicapped individuals while also working in the Supervised Access field for 15 years.
As a First Nations/Aboriginal person, Audrey also brings a unique perspective to the table and looks forward to sharing her ideas and thoughts for all the membership – both in American and internationally. Audrey is also the proud mother of Matt and Cody.
Ona Foster
Dallas, Texas
Ona Foster has been working to address issues around domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and child abuse for over 13 years. She currently directs the Supervised Visitation Initiative for the Vera Institute of Justice, which provides training and technical assistance for the national Safe Havens: Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Grant Program.
Prior to joining Vera she spent seven years implementing and directing Faith and Liberty’s Place Supervised Visitation Center in Dallas, Texas. Previously she spent four years working in the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office in the Family Violence Unit, first as a legal advocate in the criminal misdemeanor family violence courts and then as a supervisor in the Protective Order Division.
Prior to working at the DA’s Office, she facilitated BIP (Battering Intervention and Prevention) groups and worked in a women’s shelter. She publicly speaks on the issue of domestic violence nationally and locally, and has trained law enforcement and community groups across the state of Texas for the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. Ona serves as co-chair on two committees for the Supervised Visitation Network and is a member of the board. She also serves in a consultant capacity for Futures Without Violence (formerly the Family Violence Prevention Fund), Praxis International, The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and the Office on Violence Against Women. Ona is a licensed social worker who holds a Master of Science in Social Work from the University of Texas, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Criminal Justice from Colorado State University.
Katheryn Lotsos, LCSW
New York, NY
As the Director of Clinical Services at The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Katheryn Lotsos, LCSW oversees the largest Supervised Visitation Program in New York City. Specializing in treating children who have experienced trauma, Ms. Lotsos has over 10 years of experience with children and their families in a variety of outpatient settings.
Ms. Lotsos' expertise in the area of trauma serves to inform the best-practice supervised visitation model that The NYSPCC utilizes. She teaches and trains nationally on The NYSPCC's Supervised Visitation and Trauma Recovery Programs.
Ms. Lotsos holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland's School of Social Work.
Gillian Mason-Johnson
Biloela, Australia
Gillian is a Social Worker and Advocate of over 30 years experience, and has been involved with Children’s Rights Issues since the 1970s when she became actively involved with research into Aboriginal Children in Institutional Care many of who were members of the Infamous Stolen Generation. She was responsible for establishing the first Australian Children’s Access Service in Toowoomba in 1981, along with the first Rural Community Legal Service. From the mid 1980s until 1994 she lobbied for the recognition and funding of Children’s Access Services in her country. Gillian was the cofounder of the Australian and New Zealand Assoc of Children’s Access Service (now known as ACCSA) with Judy Harrison in 1994. She has been involved with SVN as an International member since 1994/5. Gillian is currently the Director of the Wynnum/Manly/Western Downs Advocacy and Counseling Service and is the Chair of the Tom Burns Foundation. She is a current board member of the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland.
Michele Robinson
Reno, Nevada
Michele Robinson is with the Family Violence Department of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) and is the Program Manager of the Safe Havens: Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Grant Program. Ms. Robinson provides training and technical assistance to individuals, professionals, and OVW grantees throughout the country on issues of domestic violence, child custody and child protection, and supervised visitation and safe exchange. Ms. Robinson is a community volunteer for a local domestic violence organization and annually organizes a community awareness event for domestic violence awareness month.
Prior to joining NCJFCJ, Ms. Robinson worked at Community Services Agency, a community non-profit organization. Ms. Robinson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies.
Kathy Spurgin
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Working for the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts since 2006, Kathy has managed Court programs by providing expertise in policy development, strategic planning, and report writing, as well as extensive analytical skills, focusing on financial and data analysis. She has overseen the judiciary’s Safe Exchange and Supervised Visitation (SESV) program for more than four years, observing that Court support for the program is vital for its continued survival. Since the recession began in 2008, parents have turned to the Courts time and again to resolve their disputes; and the Courts have been flooded with cases of domestic matters and domestic violence. SESV can slow down the revolving door to the Courts, helping parents to resolve their own problems without causing further harm to the child. Kathy brings the Court perspective to understanding the program, as well as familiarity with the SVN Standards and Ethics policies.
She also spent ten years as Chief of Staff for the Chair of the Texas Workforce Commission developing rules and policy, overseeing contract management and budgets for 28 Federal and State programs, including the subsidized child care program (CCDF). That experience was preceded by another ten years of work for members of the Texas House of Representatives and the Human Services Committee, drafting legislation, including a broad welfare and workforce reform bill enacted in 1995, providing constituent services and agency oversight. Kathy holds a Masters of Public Affairs from the University of Texas-Austin, and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Denver.
Robert B. Straus, DMH, JD
Cambridge, MA
A psychologist and lawyer was Senior Psychologist of the Family Service Clinic from 1982 to 1988, conducting custody and visitation evaluations for the Middlesex County Family Court. From 1988, he served frequently as Guardian ad Litem in high-conflict custody and access disputes.
In 1991, Dr. Straus started Meeting Place: Supervised Child Access Service, a program of The Guidance Center, Inc. in Cambridge, MA, providing a safe setting in which children in high-risk situations can visit parents with whom they are not living.
He is a founder of the Supervised Visitation Network. He was President of the Network in 1993-94, helped draft the Network's Standards and Guidelines for practice, and has served several terms on the Board of Directors.
From 1995 through 2000 he was Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Supervised Visitation, and in that capacity worked with the Governor's Commission on Responsible Fatherhood and the Supervised Visitation Task Force of the Probate and Family Court, helping draft the Guidelines for Court Practice for Supervised Visitation.
Dr. Straus has a private psychotherapy practice, working with couples and children, and remains the Program Consultant to Meeting Place.
Staff
Joe Nullet, E.D.
Executive Director, Supervised Visitation Network
Jacksonville, Florida
Executive Director Joe Nullet, a graduate of Harvard University, has led the Supervised Visitation Network since December 2007. He is also the Executive Director of the Family Nurturing Center of Florida, a Supervised Visitation and Parent Education program in Jacksonville, Florida.
During his tenure at FNC, he has guided the organization through an exciting growth period, helped reshape the organizational culture and design to better serve the needs of clients, and has served locally and nationally on numerous task forces, advisory boards, and collaborative partnerships as an expert in the field of supervised visitation. Joe is a former Board Member of SVN who has presented at SVN Annual Conferences, and has been a member since 2001. Joe has served on the statewide Committee that developed an innovative Supervised Visitation database and is currently a member of State of Florida Standards Committee that was formed as a result of legislation to establish statewide standards.
Joe is also a Recognized National Trainer/Consultant with the Nurturing Parenting Programs, working with organizations that wish to incorporate the Nurturing Parenting Programs by assisting with the functions of administrative support, grant writing to fund a program, development of facilitation skills, and marketing of the concept. Joe has completed Graduate Coursework at the Kennedy School of Government, a Nonprofit Executive Program at the Harvard Business School, as well as completing the Jessie Ball duPont Fund's Community Coaches Program.
At home Joe enjoys spending time with his wife Trina (also a nonprofit employee) and three boys: Joey, Luke, and Nicholas.