Kinship 101 Panel (4/9/2022) - On Demand

Jamie Sanders, Kinship and Home Study Supervisor with the Weld County Department of Human Services.  Jamie has worked in Child Welfare for 16 years and has had the opportunity to work in various roles within Child Welfare throughout her career.  Jamie enjoys her current position working with kinship families.  She greatly respects kinship families and the sacrifices that they make at a moment’s notice to care for their kin.  When she is not working, she enjoys the being outdoors with her family. 

Gail has raised her grandson since birth and adopted him at age 9 and a co-parent of her granddaughter. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Grand Family Coalition. She is a Grand Voice Network member of Generations United, representing Colorado Kinship/Grand families at: The Family First Implementation Team, Administration of Community Living – Supporting Grandfamilies Raising Grandchildren Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Larimer County Alliance for Grandfamilies, and a member of the National Technical Assistance Center for Grandfamilies Raising Grandchildren Council.

Allison Walter is the currently the Kinship Program Supervisor at Adams County Human Services and has been with the Department since 1999.  Her areas of experience in the child welfare field include ongoing casework, home study evaluation, foster care recruitment/retention/certification, family engagement services and programming including facilitated family meetings and Icebreaker meetings, benefit navigation, and kinship family support. 

Jeannie Berzinskas has been the Kinship Care Program Administrator with the Division of Child Welfare at Colorado Department of Human Services for 13 years. Previous to that, Jeannie facilitated kinship support groups through a non-profit agency and worked as a caseworker specializing in kinship care cases. Jeannie has a passion for kinship care and has been working alongside or on behalf of kinship families for 22 years. Jeannie received her Masters of Social Work degree from University of Denver in 2003 and has been a Licensed Social Worker (LSW) in Colorado since 2018.

Josette Jaramillo was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado. She has been working for the Pueblo County Department of Human Services since 2005. She graduated with her BS in Sociology from Colorado State University Pueblo in 2002 and her Masters of Arts in Community Counseling from Adams State University in 2007.  She began her career in the ongoing unit before moving over to the foster care unit.  She has been in the foster care unit ever since also absorbing the ICPC, Family finding, and kinship aspects of child welfare.  She has been a supervisor for just under one year and continues to grow and expand the kinship program for Pueblo County.