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Florida
Ellyn Okrent |
For the past fifteen years, Ellyn Okrent has been managing and creating programs that address child abuse prevention and treatment in Broward County. Her energy and commitment have helped to develop a system of care that truly provides solutions for children who have been abused. She has orchestrated a consortium of community agencies to create consensus and a united voice to advocate child abuse issues.
She routinely speaks out in the public policy forum to influence resource allocations to address this growing community problem.
Ms. Okrent is President of Children's Advocacy Consortium, where her leadership has resulted in an expansion of services and the development of treatment protocols. While serving as Vice President of Program Services at Kids In Distress, she expanded resources and developed a continuum of care that focused on outcomes and accountability. Over a four-year period, she increased the agency's programs and services by ten million dollars, making treatment resources more widely available and providing real solutions to abused children.
Ms. Okrent serves on the Advisory Board of Success By Six, a United Way initiative to ensure that all children are ready for school by the time they are six years old. She is the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) Appointee to represent the needs of abused and neglected children in Broward's academic programs. Her agency just completed a $5 million fundraising campaign to build new shelters, group homes, and programs for DCF. In cooperation with DCF, Ms. Okrent developed a coordinated plan and won community funding to begin a prevention program, KIDS FIRST, which offers intervention services to dysfunctional families identified during child protective investigations.
Ms. Okrent is a member of the Education Committee for Foster Care Children and of the Executive Committee responsible for designing a system of care as Broward County works towards privatization of DCF Foster Care. She also is an executive member of SEDNET, the Broward County committee to ensure that appropriate mental health services are available in the community.