Lead the Fight 2021: On the Front of the War on ACEs                                                                              Statewide Panel and Resource Series

Join us for the first part of our Lead the Fight statewide panel and resource series. This exclusive event for system, business, philanthropic, civic, and school leaders aims to combat the effects of childhood trauma and adversity on families and communities through education, discourse, action, and advocacy. There is no fee for this invitation-only virtual event. Please register early, as space is limited.

Every child is filled with tremendous promise – and, as a community, we have a shared obligation to foster their potential.

On May 20th, we will host an important conversation and call to action, moderated by Justice Barbara Pariente. This panel is part of an action-oriented, 3-part Lead the Fight series, developed in response to the pandemic by Justice Pariente and our CEO Renée Layman to develop long-term strategies to support children's resilience and well-being. 

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Barbara Pariente has been a lawyer and a judge in a career spanning over forty-six years. She served as a Justice on the Florida Supreme Court from 1998 until her retirement in January of 2019. During that time she served as Chief Justice; authored over 1000 opinions; participated in cases from Bush v. Gore (the presidential election case) to Terri Schiavo to redistricting following the passage of the Fair District Amendment.

Her commitment to ensuring that cases involving children and families received the utmost attention in the court system and her advocacy for a fair and impartial judiciary are two of many issues she championed during her twenty-one year tenure on the Court. She is a strong voice for children in our child welfare and juvenile justice systems and often speaks about the impact of ACEs.

The Panel:

Dr. Mimi Graham is Director of Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy, a center of excellence in trauma, infant mental health, human trafficked pregnant teens, and policy & best practices during the pivotal first 1,000 days of life. 

She pioneered a statewide infant mental health movement building clinical capacity, co-founding the Florida Association for Infant Mental Health. As a member of the Florida Supreme Court Committee on Children, she spearheaded Florida’s Early Childhood Court Initiative, integrating mental health into courts to break the multigenerational cycle of ACEs.  She is recipient of the Florida Tax Watch Productivity Award for Early Childhood Court, and the Children’s Advocate Award, Legal Services of North Florida and the Florida Bar’s Medal of Honor.

Dr. Eugenia Millender is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who is currently an Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator within the Psychiatric Mental Health NP Certificate Program at Florida State University's College of Nursing. Her areas of expertise include stress, trauma, and diabetes that is often expressed among minority groups and under-served populations in the United States. 

Dr. Millender has published several papers that describe the mental health and substance use among minorities in South Florida. Her work has helped to illuminate important facts about morbidity and mortality among minority populations. Work with vulnerable populations has taken Dr. Millender to Haiti, Panama, and Peru where she and others provided comprehensive health care for individuals and communities. She is Vice Chair of Center for Child Counseling's Board of Directors.

Dr. Shannon Fox-Levine has been a pediatrician in Palm Beach County since 2003 at Palm Beach Pediatrics, where she is President. Dr. Fox-Levine received her medical degree from the University of Maryland at Baltimore and trained in Pediatrics at NYU/Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. She has always had a special interest in development and behavior in children.

 Dr. Fox has been the President of the Palm Beach Pediatric Society since 2013. She is also active with the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics having been a board member and chair of the Pediatric Council. Her special interest is behavioral health and is a past board member for Center for Child Counseling, to work towards integrating mental health into primary care.

Judge Kathleen J. Kroll is a Circuit Court Judge in the 15^th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County. She was elected to the County Court bench in 1984 and appointed by the Governor to the Circuit Bench in 1994. Prior to taking the bench she was a general litigation attorney for the national law firm of Baskin and Sears in Boca Raton. She spent four years with the Public Defender’s Office where she served as Senior Trial Assistant and Chief of Capital Crimes. In Washington D.C. she worked for the Department of Justice in the Office for the Improvement in the Administration of Justice.

She served as Chief Judge of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida and as Administrative Judge both in the County and Circuit Courts. She presently serves as Administrative Judge in the Juvenile Division and presides over the Early Childhood Court for Palm Beach County. She is a long-standing member of the Florida Supreme Court Steering Committee on Children and Families and serves on the Board of the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties. Judge Kroll is actively involved in creating a trauma-informed judicial system and has completed FSU's Trauma course (levels 1 and 2).

Kathy Leone began her career in the hotel resort industry after graduating from Cornell University in 1980. In 1985 she moved to Florida from Chicago to join The Breakers Palm Beach as Director of Incentive Sales. In 1988, she joined the Boca Raton Resort & Club as Vice President of Sales, where she worked until 1994 when she retired to raise a family.  She is the proud mother of four sons with her husband, Paul, who is CEO of Flagler System, Inc. and The Breakers.  

Kathy has been actively involved in the local community for over 30 years; her passion is child welfare and advocating for reform in the foster care system. She currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Community Alliance of Palm Beach County and is active on numerous working subcommittees to evaluate and solve deficiencies in the dependency system. She has been actively engaged in Center for Child Counseling's Fighting ACEs work after attending the 2019 Lead the Fight Breakfast.

Julie Fisher Cummings, MSSW (Columbia University, School of Social Work) presently serves as the Chair of the Board for the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties.

Ms. Cummings advocates for responsible policies on health, education, and philanthropy on behalf of underserved and marginalized children and families. She is the co-founder and Chair of Lovelight Foundation, which focuses on domestic child sex trafficking, undeserved women and girls and early childhood education and care.

She has forged effective public-private partnerships and new funding networks in Florida and across the U.S. She is a co-founder of the Florida Women’s Funding Alliance, which has commissioned two research reports to drive policy change and enhance the quality of life for women and girls in the state of Florida: The Status of Women in Florida by County and The Status of Girls in Florida by County. Through the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation (Vice Chair), she was the founding sponsor of the Southeastern Michigan Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.