Lorraine is a Senior Consultant with The Stephen Group where she brings a number of years of experience in top management in child welfare, foster care and Medicaid Managed Care. For the past 25 years, Lorraine has worked directly with the foster care community. She first began her calling protecting abused and neglected children working as a Child Protective Specialist in the units of investigations, intensive family preservation, and legal conservatorship. She continued her social work commitment employed as a Child Placing Agency group home case manager and CPA Administrator with social duties serving as Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer and Child Welfare Board President.

From May 2007 to 2020, Lorraine brought her experience and knowledge of child welfare and foster care to Medicaid services where she was hired by Centene Corp’s Superior HealthPlan providing executive level and primary leadership to two Medicaid Managed Healthcare Programs for foster care children in Texas and Florida. In this role, she has supervised the inception and integration of new policies and procedures, work processes, financial reporting, and data systems supporting child welfare specific metrics. She has also served in the Program Policy and Government Relations sector for Superior and also as a foster care subject matter expert to support Centene’s national complex healthcare business.

Most recently, Lorraine successfully served as Superior HealthPlan’s Executive Director for the Texas STAR Health Program, establishing herself as a subject matter expert and respected leader for optimizing statewide clinical and non-clinical operations. She led the successful implementation of many new initiatives while optimizing operational performance to ensure the fulfillment of organizational, state, and contractual agreements. Her key achievements include:

  • Leading an interagency legislative mandate, which helped over 70% of children to receive medical care within three days of entering the Texas foster care system statewide.
  • Contributing to the Texas Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System Blueprint facilitated by the Texas Children’s Commission.
  • Supporting the enhancement of Health Passport technological upgrades, a web-based application used to deliver relevant healthcare information, thereby allowing a better understanding of a patient’s medical history and health interactions.
  • Increasing STAR Health’s success rate for New Member General Health Screenings to over 97%.
  • Leading Superior’s implementation of Texas CANS 2.0 (Child Adolescent Needs and Strengths Assessment) along with the Department of Family Protective Services and Health and Human Services Commission.
  • Minimizing potential negative impact from regulatory problems by executing in-depth analysis and executing strategic mitigation plans.
  • Creating an incentive program encouraging young adults leaving foster care to take charge of their health.
  • Developing a kinship program to enable caregivers to understand how to access Medicaid services effectively.
  • Acting as the Committee Chair for an employee-led initiative to promote change within Superior’s corporate culture for empowerment to demonstrate core values of passionate customer service, innovation, integrity, and accountability.
  • Designing and launching a foster care training curriculum for internal staff and Child Protective Services caseworkers.

Lorraine is the only individual in the nation who has directed two specialized managed health contracts for child welfare programs, including having front line experience serving the foster care community. She has a real passion for finding collaborative solutions to ensure the success of programs supporting high-risk children and families. She currently serves on the Texas CASA Board of Directors and supports the Texas CASA Public Policy Committee and Texas CASA Program Services & Operation Standards Committee. She served on the Statewide Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Care as an Organizational Leadership Committee Member and is a Former Child Protective Services Child Death Citizen Review Committee Member.

Lorraine received her BA in Psychology at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, and a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership in 2019 through Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, with a 4.0 GPA.