Juanita Price, Chief Executive Officer – Mrs. Juanita Price, M.Ed., has been the Chief Executive Officer of the Hillcrest Children and Family Center since July 2009. Her life’s work has been focused on helping people to overcome challenges; a passion rooted in her childhood experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey. She has more than 25 years of executive experience in the behavioral health services sector and has served as CEO of the following entities: the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health, Community Services Agency; Connecting Point (a child adolescent and family service agency in Toledo, Ohio); and the Toledo Mental Health Center (a capacious psychiatric hospital servicing Northwest Ohio). Additionally, Mrs. Price is a nationally recognized advocate for mental health, and she was recently appointed by U.S. Secretary of Human Services to the National Advisory Council of the Center for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Mrs. Price is also the current president of the National Leadership Council on African American Behavioral Health. Her primary philosophy for Hillcrest Center clients is “get better, do better and stay better! We want to help the people we serve build resiliency so they can overcome challenges of all kinds…trauma, tragedy, personal crisis…and bounce back stronger and wiser.”
Alex Ampiaw, Chief Financial Officer – Mr. Alex Ampiaw, M.Acc, MBA, CPA, is the Chief Financial Officer of Hillcrest Children and Family Center, and he has been with the organization since April 2010. He started his accounting career at a Coca-Cola bottling company in Ghana after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a major in accounting at the University of Ghana. He relocated to the United States to pursue graduate studies at the Bowling Green State University in 1987, where he graduated with a dual Master’s degrees in business administration and accounting. With over 20 years of nonprofit experience, he has worked in consulting capacities with The District of Columbia Department of Mental Health, Community Services Agency, Capital Behavior Health in Washington, DC, and other nonprofit organizations in Ohio. Moreover, he possesses a passion to help nonprofit organizations benefit from the tremendous efficiencies made possible by modern technology and to encourage data-driven management decisions at all levels of the organization.
Carroll D. Parks, MPA is the Senior Director of Operations and Accountability. Mr. Parks has over 30 years of experience in the field of behavioral Health Care. He has served in roles as clinician, program manager, program evaluator, and executive positions including CEO. He served as a CEO for two companies for a combined time of 13 years. He has run residential programs for youth, inpatient substance abuse center for indigent adolescents and halfway Houses for adult men and women while in Toledo, Ohio. He served on the Board of Directors for a Family Homeless Shelter. His desire for system and statewide change from an advocacy perspective allowed him to serve as the President of the Ohio Credential Board overseeing the certification process for over 10,000 chemical dependency clinicians, Governors Council for Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Services shaping policy and practice, as well as Toledo Mayor’s Task Force and other city and statewide initiatives. Mr. Parks has 30 plus years in the field with serving co-occurring populations, which included a subset of homeless clients that received behavioral healthcare services with the goal of improving their functional status through development of skills that led them to independence.
Valeria Carter, Acting Senior Clinical & Program Administrator, LCSW, LICSW, AQP, Alt QP-Ms. Carter is a St. Louis native who received her Bachelor of Arts in social work from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and received her master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She has over 25 years of clinical social work experience and is licensed as an independent clinical social worker in DC. Her career began as an Intensive Family Preservation Therapist in St. Louis. While she was in St. Louis, Ms. Carter was the first African-American selected by the state of Missouri to become a state trainer. As a state trainer, she was responsible for training new staff across the state on the Homebuilders Model and developed clinical training curriculums.
Ms. Carter has been the clinical director for two of the Health Families Thriving Communities Collaborative and training administrator for the Collaborative Council from 2001 to 2014. From 2010 to 2011, she also served as an adjunct professor at Trinity Washington University in DC, where she taught Introduction to Social Work and Introduction into Counseling courses.
Valeria Carter has been a part of Hillcrest Children and Family Center since 2014. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., member of the National Association of Black Social Workers and served as the Vice President for the local DC Metro Chapter from 2014 to 2018. Ms. Carter is also enrolled at Virginia Union University in the School of Theology.