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Alan M. Vietze, MSW, LCSW, was the Deputy Director for the New Jersey Children’s System of Care where he had worked for 17 years. He was directly involved in in the initial development of the System of Care and participated in the roll out of almost all of its components. His responsibilities included oversight and transformation of all the Out of Home Treatment and Care for youth with Behavioral and Emotional Challenges, IDD and youth with Substance use challenges. He also developed the processes for and had staff who managed the access to treatment for youth in the juvenile justice system, juvenile detention and the Substance Use system for youth under 18. He has been fundamental in the reform of children’s mental health in New Jersey and was recently appointed as the chair person for CWLA Mental Health Advisory Board where he is also a Senior Fellow.

He was deeply involved in the deinstitutionlization of people from the state psychiatric hospitals, providing care for people in the community and writing a shirt history of the rise of the institutional processes and the reduction in their use. Along with this work he developed, with some the people with whom he worked in a community health center, a Quality of Life scale.

Mr. Vietze has maintained a private clinical practice and has been on the faculties of the Rutgers University School of Social Work, at the Institute for Healthcare and Aging and at the Montclair State University Justice Studies Department.

He was previously the Middlesex County New Jersey Director of Mental Health and Children’s Services, overseeing the county’s mental health resources, the Youth Service Commission and the Children’s Inter Agency Coordinating Council. He also worked in Community Mental Health Center. He also conducted an art therapy program for IDD adults in Israel and New Jersey.

He is currently working as a consultant for the Casey Family Foundation in several states, with the BBI (Building Bridges Initiative) and agencies and is on the SAMSHA/TA faculty at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s he managed homeless shelters and worked in penitentiaries in the United States and Spain.

He did his undergraduate work in art and continues to paint.