Marie Morilus-Black

director, Children/Youth Services, DC Dept of Mental Health

Marie Morilus-Black is currently the Director of Child and Youth Services for the District of Columbia. Previously, Morilus-Black was the Director of Family Voices Network of Erie County, the children’s division of the Department of Mental Health of Erie County, Buffalo, New York where she successfully ran and sustained a System of Care Grant. She obtained her Master of Social Work at the University of New York at Buffalo. She has been in the field of Human Services for almost 20 years. She is an expert in the field of Child Welfare and Mental Health and is very knowledgeable of the Juvenile Justice System. She is responsible for managing and implementing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrative (SAMHSA) grant of $9.5 million dollars over six years for the Erie County Department of Mental Health, which works in collaboration with the Department of Social Services and Juvenile Justice Probation of Erie County. Most recently, Marie Morilus-Black published a peer reviewed article in the Community Mental Health Journal entitled “Social Supports for Youth and Families.” Morilus-Black has conducted numerous workshops on issues impacting children and families involved in the multiple systems cited above both, locally and nationally. For the last couple of years, she has presented and served as a facilitator at the SAMHSA New System of Care Communities Orientation Meeting. She has served as faculty member at both The Annual Conference of the Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health the Human Services host by University of South Florida and the Bi-annual Training Institute held by The National Technical Assistance Center for Children's Mental Health at the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development with a focus on local systems of care for children, adolescents, and young adults with or at risk for mental health challenges and their families. Marie is also known for her work in utilizing data to improve practice, particularly in the area of clinical service delivery in a culturally and linguistically competent manner. This particular area of interest drove her study to become a Six Sigma Green Belt.