Trainers/Consultants/Coaches

Ann has her bachelors and masters degrees in Special Education from SUNY Geneseo and Nazareth College Her career began in teaching and transitioned into school counseling and academic coordination at Villa of Hope. She worked there for over 30 years in both residential and day programs, and is passionate about supporting students, families and the community through a trauma-informed lens. Ann is currently a Site Coordinator for the G2 program through The Strong National Museum of Play, and her work with ITTIC involves training and consultation with staff working in educational settings. 

Ted has worked at the Villa of Hope for 28 years and currently serves as the Villa’s Coach/Mentor with the HR Department, and Trainer with the Organizational Development Department. In that capacity, he is involved in screening and interviewing, Justice Center calls, leading Post Crisis Response at team meetings, as well as providing support and guidance to program managers. He is a Trainer in Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI), and Sanctuary. Ted primarily works with ITTIC as a trauma-informed consultant/coach in school districts.

Julie is an LCSW graduate of the UB School of Social Work and is currently a Clinical Associate Vice President at People Inc., where she has worked for the past 18 years. In that capacity, she provides leadership, clinical services and is passionate about addressing the needs of people with intellectual disabilities. She has also played a key role in incorporating trauma-informed practices into daily operations at the agency. Julie is also an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. Julie works with ITTIC primarily to provide trauma-informed consultation and coaching. 

Amy Fleischauer, LMSW, is a nationally recognized subject matter expert on human trafficking, intimate-partner violence, and the implementation of trauma-informed care within diverse systems. She currently works for the University at Buffalo’s Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care, providing coaching and training to systems interested in changing their culture of work through a commitment to trauma-informed practices. Ms. Fleischauer is also a consultant at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, providing training and technical assistance to social and legal service providers implementing innovative anti-trafficking programming

Thomas Gibbons is a recently retired, twenty-five-year veteran of the New York State Police. Thomas was assigned to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation for over 19 years as an Investigator and Senior Investigator. He was also assigned to the Campus Sexual Assault Victims Unit and served as the regional coordinator responsible for being the liaison between the New York State Police and every private and state college and university in the eight counties of Western, N.Y. Tom organized and implemented training targeted at local police departments, prosecutors, and campus personnel responsible for responding to sexual assaults, dating and domestic violence, and stalking. He also developed and implemented training standards and in-person training for all NYS law enforcement in association with NYS Executive Law 838-a section 3(a), "Sexual Offense Trauma-Informed Victim Response Training." 

Vicki Grant is a graduate of the UB School of Social Work and currently the Commissioner of the Allegany County Department of Social Services (DSS), where she has been employed for 31 years. She was instrumental in bringing Trauma Systems Therapy to Allegany County, a trauma-informed environment to DSS as an organization, and in the passing of a trauma-informed resolution to the Allegany County Legislature, making it the first county in New York State to resolve that the entire county will be trauma-informed. She also initiated a county-wide, trauma-informed coalition named Trauma-informed Care Throughout Allegany County (TICTAC). Vicki primarily works with ITTIC in the capacity of providing SAMHSA trainings, providing training and coaching to organizations and assisting in Champion learning collaboratives.

Dorothy Jones is a former New York State Police Investigator, who has over 25 years of service before retiring in 2015. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Louisville, where she got a BS in police administration and her graduate studies in education at Buffalo State College. Dorothy's work with ITTIC is focused on the collaboration with the University at Buffalo's University Police, providing trauma-informed consultation and coaching.

David Mann has been the Lieutenant in charge of the Buffalo Police Department’s Special Victims Unit since 1995. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Trauma-Informed Community Initiative of WNY (TICI) and has trained law enforcement officers on trauma as part of Crisis Services’ Crisis Intervention Team training. With Jack O’Connor, Lt. Mann formed the WNY Veterans Project to help establish the Buffalo Veterans Treatment Court, the first in the nation. He completed a fellowship with the Health Foundation of Western & Central New York’s Health Leadership Program. Currently, he is part of the Erie County team working on a Capstone Project as part of the Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice Certificate Program as a fellow with the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, and a member of the Juvenile Justice Works committee of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo’s “Greater Buffalo Racial Equity Roundtable,” working to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. Lt. Mann is a member of the Board of BestSelf Behavioral Health, Inc. and of the New York State Children’s Alliance.

Whitney Marris is a graduate of the UB School of Social Work and a former Project Manager at ITTIC. Whitney has diverse field experience ranging from organizing and mobilizing individuals, communities, and policymakers to advance trauma-informed, human rights-affirming systems, to providing direct services to trauma survivors in various community-based settings and in private practice, to the creation and development of equitable, accessible programs to facilitate individual and community healing and growth following trauma exposure. Her professional and research interests include transformative justice, trauma-informed organizational and systems change, advancing equity and justice through public policy advocacy and action, and the use of technology to enhance mental health. Whitney currently works with ITTIC to provide trauma-informed consultation and training in various systems of care, to track and report on trauma-informed public policy efforts, and to develop curriculum for ITTIC's Trauma-Informed Online Training Modules. 

Jamy is an LMSW graduate of the University at Buffalo and also received an MA in women’s studies from the University at Albany. She was an adjunct professor at the University at Albany for three years. She is currently working at Lake Shore Behavioral Health as a chemical dependency counselor providing individual and group therapy to adolescents and adults. She also works per diem in the Mental Health program providing Cognitive Processing Therapy, which she is a certified provider of for both adults and adolescents. She is the liaison for her agency and the Hamburg Drug Court program. She is an advisory board member for the Trauma Informed Community Initiative of Western New York (TICI) and is currently an adjunct professor at Simmons College teaching Racism and Oppression in Social Work and Drugs and Alcohol in Social Work. At ITTIC, Jamy is a SAMHSA trainer, and provides training, consultation and coaching to staff in both ITTIC's projects with Catholic Health and CHCANYS.

Ineke Way, PhD, ACSW, LMSW, is a retired professor emeritus at the Western Michigan University School of Social Work. She co-founded, with Dr. Karen VanDeusen, the school's specialization in Trauma Across the Lifespan for Master of Social Work students, and helped develop the school's TF-CBT Training Project. Dr. Way has continued to teach, part-time (through July 2022), courses on secondary traumatic stress and trauma-informed self-care, strengthening trauma-informed organizational capacity, and intervention with adolescents with sexually abusive behaviors. Her research interests prior to retirement-focused on trauma-informed organizational change and readiness to implement evidence-based trauma treatment; secondary traumatic stress effects for students exposed to trauma course content; and vicarious trauma in clinicians who provide sexual abuse treatment. Her treatment experience is with children who experienced sexual abuse, non-offending parents, adolescents with sexually abusive behaviors, and adult survivors of incest.