About Us

Jean Brownell
Director of Caregiver Retention, Education, and Support
jeanb9@uw.edu
Jean leads the team that supports foster, adoptive, and kin caregivers across Washington State. The CaRES team is dedicated to helping foster parents thrive so they can focus on caring for the children in their homes.
Jean cares deeply about the families who are involved with the dependency system. She began her career recruiting, training, licensing and supporting caregivers for a private agency and continued on to other work in child welfare, including as a supervisor, a manager, an analyst, and as a strategic consultant focused on system reform nationally. She has worked on improving child welfare practices in San Francisco, New York City, Indiana, Michigan, Virginia, Baltimore, DC, Louisiana, and Washington State. Since 2016, Jean has been the Alliance’s caregiver curriculum developer creating trainings for Washington’s caregivers, including Caregiver Core Training.
Jean graduated with a BA in Comparative Literature from Barnard College and an MSW with a Policy focus from the University of Michigan School of Social Work. She loves reading, writing, sunshine, and espresso.

Kati Brown
Community Engagement Coordinator Western WA
brownk77@uw.edu

Kati serves the Western Washington regions for CaRES. Her role is to connect kinship and foster families with each other and with local organizations and partners, helping to assist caregivers in building a network of strong support, education, and community.
Kati began her career working with at-risk youth, inspired by spending much of her own adolescence living in a non-familial placement. Fifteen years ago, she began serving as a court appointed special advocate to children in dependency proceedings which led to the pursuit of her master’s degree. Before coming to CaRES, she spent seven years supervising a child advocate/GAL program where she developed her passion for increasing supports for caregivers at both a policy level and an individual level.
Kati holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and a Master of Jurisprudence in Child Law and Policy. She brings with her a strong understanding of how the court process impacts families touched by the child welfare system. Kati was licensed to foster unaccompanied refugee minor children and regularly fosters kittens. When she is not advocating for children, families, or felines she is often found hiking in the mountains or traveling the world.

Aimee Shields
Community Engagement Coordinator Eastern WA
aimee80@uw.edu

Aimee holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work and has spent the past decade working in Child Welfare. Her passion for supporting caregivers began during her time as a DCYF social worker and then as a consultant for DCYF.  Most recently, Aimee enjoyed a long tenure as a foster home licensor for a private agency in Spokane, which resettles and supports refugee children across the world in local, loving families. Aimee also comes to CaRES with personal experience as a kindship caregiver for her teenage nephew. When she is not working or trying to keep her teen fed, Aimee can be found walking her dogs, bird watching, growing flowers and doing puzzles. 

Shana Burres
Mentor Team Manager
srburres@uw.edu
Shana oversees the CaRES Mentors and the development and maintenance of the Topic Support Group. Her work focuses on connecting people in ways that encourage mutual and ongoing growth.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in health education and a master’s of education in educational leadership. Her career in adult learning began with a position as director of a small non-profit and instructor at a local college. These roles eventually transitioned into work as a learning development consultant.
During that time, Shana became a licensed foster parent and joined the work of The Mockingbird Society as a HUB home where she discovered a passion for connecting and supporting foster parents. She joined Alliance CaRES when they launched in March of 2021 and loves the opportunity to continually adapt and improve the ways caregivers engage in support and education through the Topic Support Group or with CaRES mentors.
When she is not thinking or talking about foster care, she is enjoying time with her family, drinking coffee with friends, or dreaming up the next project or adventure.

Luanne Marshall
Specialized Support Coordinator
lmarsh3@uw.edu
Luanne assists prospective foster parents with the Licensing process as well as offering specialized trainings on various topics.
Luanne has always been drawn to helping others. She started her journey in Social Services right out of high school, working for the Tacoma Rescue Mission Women’s Mental Health facility followed by the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter, all while pursuing an Early Childhood Degree, so she could pursue her life’s dream of working with children. She fulfilled that dream by opening her own daycare, becoming an unlicensed relative care provider and a Foster Parent for 25 years, mostly caring for drug impacted, medically fragile infants. She grew her family through Adoption with the placement of her daughter.
Through the years Luanne has been involved in all aspects of Foster Care: training, serving on boards, doing start up projects such as the Transportation/ Supervision program, Liaison program, Recruitment and Retention, the FIRST program, Licensing, working in the Adoption unit and training. To balance out her life Luanne had her own catering/event planning company, hosting many Foster parent and staff appreciation events over the years. She loves any opportunity to plan an event and cook!

Mentors and Specialists can help you by providing emotional support, sharing their experiences, and connecting you to regional and state resources. Specialists can help caregivers by providing emotional support, sharing their experiences, and connecting them to resources.  They have an area of dedicated knowledge that may be especially important for a caregiver looking for understanding.  Mentors and Specialists do not  offer legal, medical, or mental health advice.

Camille Hereth

CaRES Trauma-Informed Caregiving Specialist
chereth@uw.edu

Camille has worked in foster care for over 16 years in many different capacities, including being a foster parent, a foster home licensor, providing in home counseling to foster kids, and teaching evidence based parenting classes to foster parents and post adoptive parents. Camille is passionate about supporting families with newborns, helping people understand how trauma impacts function, and supporting families who have children that are neurodivergent.

Christa Murray

Permanency Specialist
christa6@uw.edu

The time spent in kinship care as a youth, started Christa’s awareness for the needs of families within the foster care system and opened her heart to becoming a foster parent. Christa has received support and encouragement from many during her foster/adoptive mom journey. She is honored to be able to help others as they navigate the system. Christa has written several articles on supporting foster children in child care. Her family spends much of their time exploring the outdoors or cozily tucked inside reading.

Christina Urtasun

CaRES Statewide Mentor
Curtasun@uw.edu

Christina has been a licensed foster parent, in Oak Harbor, for twenty years. She has been involved in many aspects of the foster care community including providing liaison services with Fostering Together program for 13 years and being a co-trainer with the Alliance for Child Welfare. Christina is excited to join the Alliance CaRES program as a mentor so she can continue supporting and encouraging families as well as help them navigate the system. Christina has four sons and one daughter. In her spare time, Christina loves to be hiking, camping, reading, and spending time with her family.

Deshanna Brown

CaRES Mentor Region 3, 4, & Culturally Conscious Caregiving Specialist
dbrown27@uw.edu
Deshanna has been working in the Foster Care field in various roles for six-plus years. She has been a visit supervisor, a case manager, and is a current volunteer Child Appointed Advocate in Pierce county. Most recently, she worked at Amara as a Foster Care Specialist. Along with these roles within the system, she is also a kinship caregiver. Deshanna’s passion for working with children and families in foster care comes from her drive to help every child find permanency. She loves helping families find the resources they need to help a child in their home thrive and helping foster parents and kinship caregivers navigate the world of foster care.

Nathan LaChine
CaRES Mentor Region 5, 6, & LGBTQIA+ Community Specialist
nlachine@uw.edu
Nathan has been a therapeutic foster parent with Community Youth Services serving BRS Youth for the past 16 years. He has held a variety of roles within the foster care community and has been a strong advocate within the LGBTQ2IA+ community. Through his teaching and public speaking, Nathan hopes to elevate and provide a voice for system involved families.

Sylvia Cardenas

CaRES Mentor Region 2 & Spanish Speaking Community Specialist
sylviac1@uw.edu
Sylvia holds a Master of Science in Management and Leadership. A lifelong resident of Eastern Washington, she embraces the diverse range of outdoor activities the region offers. In 2017, Sylvia and her husband assumed the role of kinship caregivers, sparking a deep commitment to make a positive impact. Motivated by this experience, they both chose to become licensed foster parents. Recognizing a specific need within limited English-speaking communities, she has taken on role as a mentor, specializing in assisting monolingual Spanish-speaking individuals.