Susan J. Wood, LMFT is the Director of Mental Health at Children’s Bureau and has over 20 years of experience working with children in a community mental health setting. Susan currently oversees the program staff and budget of over $24 million in 8 locations throughout LA County. Ms. Wood joined Children’s Bureau in 2015 as a Program Manager in the Antelope Valley and became the program director in June 2018 where she was instrumental in opening and expanding mental health services to the Santa Clarita Valley and Long Beach.
Leslie comes to Children’s Bureau with experience in the social services field that spans foster care, adoptions, community services and strategic planning. She has a passion for working with under-tapped populations. Leslie began her career at Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles overseeing the emergency shelter and coordinating community services. At the time, Leslie was the only Spanish-speaking case worker so she also provided all in-services for that population. Her work in foster care began in 2003 as a social worker and then supervisor. In 2007, Leslie explored a career shift as a Wrap Around facilitator but ultimately returned to foster care and adoptions with Wayfinder where she was the executive director. Leslie holds a B.A. in Psychology and a Master of Counseling from California State, Los Angeles.
Dr. Reimer oversees the design and implementation of internal and external evaluation and research projects. She specializes in early childhood education and social service program consulting, evaluation, research, policy, and advocacy. She has worked in the early childhood field for over 30 years. Dr. Reimer first began working with Children’s Bureau in 2002 as a Research Associate with WestEd, where she directed evaluation projects for prevention and early intervention programs. In 2006, Dr. Reimer joined Children’s Bureau full-time. Kathy facilitates the development of Children’s Bureau’s organizational capacity to learn through evaluation and to use evaluation for continuous quality improvement and the provision of accountability to stakeholders. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Human Development from Arizona State University.
Jose A Ramos Jr, MSW, is the Senior Program Director at Children’s Bureau of Southern California. Mr. Ramos has worked for Children’s Bureau since 1994 and has over 30-years of experience working in the Child Welfare field. Mr. Ramos has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Long Beach and is earning his MBA. Mr. Ramos oversees all prevention programs within Children’s Bureau. His responsibilities include oversight of staff, evaluation, grant writing, and representing Children's Bureau within Los Angeles and Orange communities. Mr. Ramos has worked closely with community leaders to strength the community and makes positive changes to the lives of families. Mr. Ramos is an Adjunct Professor at California State University, Northridge, in the Master of Social Work department and was an Adjunct Professor at Springfield College. Mr. Ramos has taken on multiple leadership roles some include, Value Chapter School Board Member, California Family Resource Association Policy Council Member, NASW Policy Committee, HomeSafe Early Head Start Policy Council, Board Member of the California National Association of Social Work (NASW), CA Child Abuse Prevention Citizens Review Board and most recently, Secretary for the National Association of Social Workers. Mr. Ramos is the father of two children ages 23 and 20 years old. Mr. Ramos was born in Ecuador and came to the United States at age 10.
Irma Gomez, LCSW is the Director of Quality Improvement & Training for the Mental Health Program. Irma joined Children’s Bureau in 1994 and facilitated the launching of mental health services in 1998. This program had a start-up budget of just under $1 million and has grown to $24 million currently. Irma has taken great pride in supporting the foundation for this growth and developing infrastructure supports to manage the quality assurance/improvement/training aspects for programming across our now eight mental health sites. Irma received her BSW from San Jose State University and her MSW from University of Southern California.
