Michon Trent, Mobile, Alabama (South)

Candidate Statement: Trent

In March 2020, Michon Trent began her role at the Gulf Coast Family Center as Executive Director with a fast start as it was the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic and through her leadership the Gulf Coast Family Center continued to serve families face-to-face through the supervised visitation program and quickly shifted all parenting classes to ZOOM® for the safety of her staff and parent participants. Michon has been focused on ensuring children and families receive the services and support they need while evaluating, streamlining, and leading the organization through a branding update.

Prior to her work with the Gulf Coast Family Center, Michon worked with City of Mobile on Mayors Stimpson’s Executive team starting in June 2016 as the Senior Director of Civic Engagement. Her overall responsibilities were leading large-scale Mayoral initiatives, focused on greater civic engagement, in areas such as mentoring, eradication of homelessness, volunteerism, and development and implementation of arts and culture programs.

Before being invited to join the mayor’s team, Michon worked as a Development Officer for University of South Alabama Health System and Mobile Area Education Foundation. In her role as the University of South Alabama Development Director, she coordinated donor engagement events and community engagement events, created the Emergency Medical Endowment, and designed the first Medical Center Magazine.

While at Mobile Area Education Foundation (MAEF), she designed a comprehensive annual giving campaign and a volunteer campaign of 12 business professionals to assist with fundraising. For over two decades Michon worked as a clinical Social Worker, with school aged children and adults suffering from severe and presentient mental illness in the community mental health setting.

Michon has served in many community leadership roles including service on the statewide boards of Alabama Humanities Foundation as Chairman, Secretary of Voices for Alabama’s Children’s, and on the local boards of BankOn South Alabama, Distinguished Young Women, United Way Women’s Initiative, and Mobile Community Action, Inc., Homeless Coalition Alabama Gulf Coast Continuum of Care and has served on the boards of Boys and Girls Clubs of South Alabama, Providence Hospital Foundation, Family Promise and Historic Mobile Preservation Society.

Her education supports her career path as Michon graduated with a bachelor degree in Social Work from Azusa Pacific University and a master degree in Social Welfare from the University of California at Los Angeles. She attended Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Fundraising School, and is certified as a School Social Work Professional.

Karen Mull-Zapushek, Rockville, Maryland (East)

Candidate Statement Mull-Zapushek

Karen Mull-Zapushek, M.Ed has over 20 years of experience working with children and families. The majority of those 20 years has involved working with parents and children in the field of supervised visitation and child exchanges and with at risk children.

Karen began her career as a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) with the Juvenile Court of Snohomish County WA then a paid Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) with the Circuit Court of Snohomish County WA . Upon request by Snohomish County Circuit Court and in collaboration with Snohomish County Department of Social Service, Karen developed, launched and operated the first Visitation Center in Snohomish County, WA. Under this model, Karen provided leadership in providing services to both family law high conflict families and families being served by DSS due to the families being impacted by child abuse and/or neglect. During this time, Karen joined the Washington Chapter of the Supervised Visitation Network. As part of one of the committees of the Washington Chapter of the Supervised Visitation Network, Karen worked to provide feedback to the National SVN on the then developing Standards of Practice.

When the family moved to Chapel Hill NC, Karen worked as the Family Services Manager for the Orange County Early Head Start and Head Start Program. Karen continued to volunteer as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in Chapel Hill NC.

With the aging of parents, Karen and the family returned to the Baltimore/Washington DC area. At this time, Karen began Parent Time, a private practice in supervised visitation and child exchanges. In addition to private clients in multiple counties, Karen obtained a contract with the Harford County Circuit Court to operate the local visitation center in Harford County MD. Karen operated and provided leadership for the Visitation Center of Harford County for approximately 10 years.

In 2016, the Montgomery County Council, after years of data collected by the Montgomery County Court Watch was presented to the Council, the Montgomery County Council voted unanimously to fund the first Visitation Center in Montgomery County MD. In 2017, Karen was invited to coordinate the development, launch and continuing operation of the new Safe Passage Center for Supervised Visitation and Monitored Exchange in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Safe Passage Center is funded by Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services. The full time Visitation Center offers a safe and neutral setting for high- conflict parents and families impacted by domestic violence to exchange or visit with their children. The Safe Passage Center is the largest visitation center in Maryland.

On a personal note, Karen is married with four children. One son has special needs. Karen volunteered as an Special Education Liaison and coordinated with parents, school staff, and the PTA to enhance the quality of instruction for students receiving special education and related services. In 2013, Karen received a Gubernatorial Nomination to sit on the Maryland State Interagency Coordinating Council (SICC) The mission of the SICC is to advise and assist the lead agency (Maryland State Department of Education) in administering, promoting, planning, coordinating, and improving the early childhood intervention and education system of services. Karen remained on this Governor’s Council for 8 years.

Lynn Malbeuf, B.Ed., BGS, MA (in progress), Pitt Meadows, British Columbia (International)

Candidate Statement Malbeuf

 Lynn Malbeuf is a family law advocate with Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Community Services. Prior to taking on this role Lynn ran the Family Strengthening Access Centre for the same agency which provided supportive supervision for Aboriginal families. Lynn has over seventeen years of experience working with children, youth and families with Community Services and has demonstrated a commitment to improving the lives of her clients. Lynn began her career as a teacher and continues to teach courses and workshops to parents and childcare providers. While Lynn has worked in various capacities with children and families, her primary interest and passion lies in supervised visitation. She has a strong desire to ensure that connections are maintained between children and parents by providing safe and supportive access in a natural family like setting. Lynn is currently completing her Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology.

Christina Fisher, Canton, Georgia (South)

Candidate Statement Fisher

Christina has always had a passion to serve others.  Her mother grew up in the foster care system; lived in several foster, group homes, and residential facility.  Through her mother’s experiences, Christina knew she wanted to work with families. Christina has worked in child welfare and the nonprofit industry for over 22+ years.  In 2015 Christina obtained a Masters in Human Services and continued her career working with adults with developmental disabilities and autism.  In 2017 Christina and her family moved to Georgia and found a place at The Children’s Haven.  She is currently the Director for the Visitation Program where she ensures visitation service for families involved with the Department of Family and Child Services. Christina serves on a committee with the Cherokee County Service League that provides an array services to families in our county.  In her free time, Christina enjoys spending time with her teen son and husband, watching Marvel and DC movies, hiking, and traveling.

 Mark Roseman, Cooper City, Florida (South)

Candidate Statement Roseman

Dr. Mark Roseman is the CEO of the Toby Center for Family Transitions, Inc. which he founded in South Florida in 2008. His program centers around the needs of families, when parents choose to separate, whether they are single, separated, just divorcing or never married. Dr Mark’s program at the Toby Center is a national model for serving the divorcing population and their children, with locations across Florida. An educator, Dr. Roseman has worked with children and parents since 1998 when he served as an advocate for joint custody and served with David L. Levy, Esq, President Emeritus of the Children’s Rights Council (CRC) in Washington, DC. In 2002-2008, Roseman served as Assistant Director for Child Access Services for the CRC developing training for supervised visitation and opening visitation locations in metro DC. Roseman frequently quotes America’s foremost pioneer in child psychiatry, Dr. Karl Menninger who stated that “What children see at home, they will do to society.”  The Toby Center philosophy is that through assisting parents to be more confident and satisfied, their children will have a better opportunity to thrive. Dr Roseman is a [multi-state] certified family mediator, specializing in high conflict divorce, parental alienation, the Florida court required “co-parenting class” and is a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE).  He also writes editorial commentary for the Huffington Post Online. He has been a contributing writer for 400 newspapers of the Knight Ridder Tribune Syndicate.

Howard Yaffe, Cambridge, MA (East)

Candidate Statement Yaffe

Howard Yaffe is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with more than 30 years of experience in various settings.  Most of his clinical work has focused on supporting children and families and has been the director of Meeting Place, one of the first supervised visitation programs in Massachusetts, now for approximately 20 years. He is currently the program director of Domestic Violence Services for Riverside Community Care, a large social service agency in the Boston area.  This position includes full oversight of Meeting Place as well as two other domestic violence related program. In his private practice he focuses on supporting children and families through the divorce process and has recently taught a High-Conflict Co-parenting class through William James College of Psychology.  He is returning to the SVN Board of Directors after a one year hiatus and has presented and/or facilitated a number of webinars, workshops and trainings over his years with SVN and has had a role in writing and editing modules of the SVN Training Manual.  He is happy to lend his support to SVN during this challenging time.

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