Presenter Profile
Michael N Levas
Program Evaluator
Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services
Wraparound Milwaukee - Children’s Community Mental Health Services
1230 W. Cherry Street, Milwaukee WI 53205
Maria Beyer, MPH
Program Manager, Health Equity & Integrated Care
Children’s Wisconsin
www.childrenswi.org
Mbeyer2@childrenswi.org
Rada Darca, MA, LPC
Clinical School Liaison
Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services
Wraparound Milwaukee-Children's Community Mental Health Services
|county.milwaukee.gov
Daysi Garcia, MBA
Program Evaluator, Project Ujima
Children's Wisconsin
dgarcia@childrenswi.org
Michael Levas, MD, MS
Professor of Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine
Children's Corporate Center, Suite C550
999 North 92nd Street
Milwaukee, WI 53226
mnlevas@mcw.edu
Rada Dr?a, M.A., LPC, is an experienced Clinician that provides staffing, training and consultation to community providers and Care Coordinators to help identify and support individuals experiencing severe mental illness including psychosis, crisis and trauma. As a Licensed Professional Counselor, she has provided therapeutic healing to children, adolescents and their families with emphasis in treating childhood trauma and attachment. She is certified TF-CBT therapist, has completed training in narrative attachment therapy, as well as Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) program. Rada is well versed in implementing the SIPS: Structured Interview for Psychosis Risk Syndromes assessment tool and identifying youth who are at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR-P). Rada has a strong passion in building awareness and support for individuals experiencing psychosis. Rada has been with Wraparound Milwaukee for over 5 years.
Savannah Olsen, MSW, APSW is an experienced Program Evaluator with a strong commitment to advancing outcomes through data-driven decision-making. Currently serving as a Program Evaluator at Wraparound Milwaukee, Savannah has experience in assessment and data analysis. As a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California, she is focused on fostering safer, more inclusive communities through rigorous analysis and innovative approaches. With a rich background in social work, Savannah has held key roles in child welfare, early intervention for substance use, and community outreach. She has led significant projects addressing mental health, substance use, and social services, working collaboratively with stakeholders to implement sustainable, data-informed solutions that positively impact the lives of individuals and communities.
Dr. Michael N. Levas is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Section of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he serves as Vice Chair of Respect and Belonging and Medical Director of Project Ujima, a hospital-based violence intervention program. He is nationally recognized for his leadership in pediatric injury prevention, health equity, and trauma-informed care. As Principal Investigator on multiple federally funded studies—including an NIMH R01 examining long-term PTSD risk in violently injured youth using machine learning and neuroimaging—Dr. Levas has built a robust research portfolio focused on youth violence, emergency department-based interventions, and system-level approaches to trauma response. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications, including more than 20 specifically addressing advocacy, injury, and violence prevention. Dr. Levas also serves as Associate Director of the Comprehensive Injury Center and holds national leadership roles with the Injury Free Coalition for Kids and the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, advancing multidisciplinary approaches to violence prevention and community health.
Daysi Garcia is a public health and data evaluation professional with a strong foundation in community-based research and healthcare. She holds a Bachelor in Science in Health Science with a concentration in Public Health, along with a Master in Business Administration focused on Healthcare Management. Currently, Daysi serves as the Project Ujima Program Evaluator, a hospital-based violence intervention program where she leads data collection, analysis, and reporting for community health initiatives focused in Milwaukee County. Her work includes developing and implementing evaluation tools, managing databases, and sharing outcomes with stakeholders to inform as well as improve programming. Previously, she worked as a Data Analyst, where she conducted quarterly staff evaluations, led trainings on assessment tools, and built data dashboards to support continuous quality improvement. Daysi’s experience includes program evaluation roles from various nonprofits, where she contributed to nonprofit strategy through data analysis, logic model development, and program design. Her early interest in healthcare was shaped by her Apprenticeship in the Medicine Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She is passionate about addressing youth and gun violence within her community, a focus that drives her commitment to using data and evaluation for prevention, healing, and creating safer environments for children and families.
Maria Beyer, MPH, is Children's Wisconsin's program manager for health equity and integrated care, where she leads the systemwide strategy to screen and respond to social drivers of health. Prior to this role, she spent nearly ten years advancing evaluation and measurement for Children’s community health and education programming. Before Children’s, Maria served as a research and evaluation consultant with el Centro de Investigación y Evaluación Sociomédica (CIES) en el Recinto de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad de Puerto Rico and its Milwaukee affiliate, Urban Networks Associates (UNA). With the CIES and UNA, she built the capacity of public, private, and nonprofit organizations at the local, state, and national levels through program development, evaluation, training and technical assistance, and organizational development. Maria has presented nationally on a range of public health issues and methods, including but not limited to youth and community violence, trauma informed care, participatory evaluation, and community readiness assessments. Her publications examine the relationship between acculturation and psychological distress among Latino populations, the impact of parenting interventions to reduce child maltreatment, and the effects of trauma informed care training to advance organizational culture change. Maria earned her Master of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she was a Fellow with the Bloomberg American Health Initiative focused on youth violence. Maria studied clinical psychology and conducted mental health disparities research during her undergraduate career at Marquette University.
Presentations
An Analysis of a System Change: Implementing Trauma-Informed and Evidenced-Based Practices in Injury Prevention
Savannah Olsen, MSW, APSW
Maria Beyer, MPH
Rada Drca, MA, LPC
Daysi Garcia, MBA
Michael N Levas, MD, MS
Project Ujima, a hospital-based violence intervention program affiliated with Children’s Wisconsin, provides comprehensive trauma-informed services to youth impacted by community violence. As part of a federally funded initiative to expand gender-responsive, trauma-focused interventions, Project Ujima integrated two evidence-based programs (EBPs)—Voices: A Program of Self-Discovery and Empowerment for Girls and A Young Man’s Guide to Self-Mastery (AYMG)—into its existing service framework. While theoretically aligned with the program’s trauma-informed mission, implementation revealed tensions related to system readiness, staff engagement, and curriculum fit. This study explores facilitators and barriers to EBP implementation, with the goal of informing sustainable, context-responsive practice.
A qualitative narrative design was used to explore staff experiences with implementation. Eight EBP training sessions were delivered in early 2022 to 50 participants, including five Project Ujima staff. Four of these staff later participated in semi-structured interviews, alongside two leadership team members. Interview topics included perceptions of the EBPs’ purpose, alignment with existing program culture, training experiences, and implementation processes. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed using a hybrid inductive-deductive coding approach. Triangulation was conducted by evaluators from Children’s Wisconsin and Wraparound Milwaukee.
Staff expressed differing levels of clarity regarding the rationale for integrating Voices and AYMG. While leadership articulated alignment with trauma-informed care, frontline staff reported confusion stemming from limited communication and historical resistance to structured programming perceived as “research-based." Implementation was challenged by a lack of shared decision-making and unclear role expectations during group facilitation. Shifts in responsibilities and limited onboarding for new staff contributed to inconsistency in group structure and delivery. Initial training sessions were viewed as informative but overwhelming, with limited opportunities for practical application. Staff valued informal supports but noted the absence of systematic refreshers or guidance for new facilitators. Despite this, staff demonstrated adaptability by modifying delivery to engage youth, balance curricular demands with group dynamics, and remain responsive to trauma-related needs. Despite these constraints, Project Ujima staff delivered a total of 244 hours of curriculum instruction to 47 youth, with groups held twice yearly. Sessions were co-facilitated by Crime Victim Advocates and Mental Health Professionals, with adjustments made for inclusive delivery across genders. Project Ujima also provided transportation and meals to support participation and safety.
Integrating structured EBPs into established, flexible trauma-informed systems like Project Ujima requires careful attention to alignment, communication, and workforce readiness. While gender-responsive curricula offer important enhancements, successful implementation hinges on engaging frontline staff early, reinforcing training through ongoing support, and adapting content without compromising core principles. Findings underscore the need for transparent leadership, shared ownership of program goals, and cross-agency collaboration to ensure that EBPs are both effective and sustainable in complex, community-based service environments.
1. Identify key facilitators and barriers to implementing trauma-informed, evidence-based practices within an established youth violence intervention program.
2. Describe strategies for aligning structured curricula with existing program culture, staff capacity, and youth needs in community-based settings.
3. Apply lessons learned from implementation to inform future efforts in sustaining gender-responsive, trauma-informed interventions in multidisciplinary systems