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Press Release

October 18, 2007

Hogg Foundation Welcomes New Program Officers Coffee-Fletcher and Ybarra

AUSTIN, TX – The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health today announced the appointments of Vicky Coffee-Fletcher, M.Ed., and Rick Ybarra, M.A., as program officers. Coffee-Fletcher, a seasoned children’s mental health and social services expert, will take up and further develop the Foundation’s mental health workforce activities. Ybarra will draw upon his extensive cultural competence experience to lead the Foundation’s Cultural Adaptation Initiative, a grant program focused on the culturally competent delivery of evidence-based mental health services.

Prior to her Foundation appointment, Coffee-Fletcher was Division Administrator for Family Focus at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. In her two years with DFPS, she was responsible for the agency’s policy and programs associated with Family Group Decision Making, Kinship Care, Family Based Safety Services, Educational Services, Transitioning Youth, and Best Practice initiatives for families.

Over the past 20 years, Coffee-Fletcher has demonstrated her strong commitment to enhancing the lives of children and families through her work in community-based social services. She has held a variety of clinical and administrative positions in children’s mental health, education, and child welfare, primarily in the state of Texas.

A licensed professional counselor, Coffee-Fletcher received both her master’s degree in Education and her bachelor’s degree in Family and Child Development from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Ybarra came to the Foundation from ValueOptions of Arizona, where he had served as the Director of Diversity Initiatives since 2004. In that role, he was responsible for the development, implementation, and monitoring of standards, policies, and procedures to promote cultural competency.

From 1997 to 2003, Rick Ybarra was Director of Multicultural Services for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. Prior to his work with TDMHMR, Ybarra held a variety of clinical and management posts in the Texas public mental health system.

Ybarra has worked at the county, state, and federal levels to develop and promote public policy strategies to eliminate mental health disparities in populations of color. He is an advisory member of the Cultural and Linguistic Competence Coordinator’s Network in Georgetown University’s National Center for Cultural Competence and a professional member of the National Latino Behavioral Health Association.

Ybarra earned his master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.

The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health is an administrative unit of The University of Texas at Austin’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. Since its founding in 1940, the Foundation has worked to improve the mental health of all Texans through the support of effective mental health services, research, policy, and public education. The Foundation accomplishes its mission in part through strategic grantmaking. The Foundation also conducts its own programs, including mental health policy analysis and public education campaigns, to the benefit of organizations and communities statewide. The Foundation’s endowments are a living legacy of the Hogg family, particularly Miss Ima Hogg and her visionary commitment to Texans’ mental health. More information about the Foundation’s work and its current strategic priorities are available online at www.hogg.utexas.edu.

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Media Contact:
Laurie Alexander
laurie.alexander@mail.utexas.edu
512-471-5041