Susan Wingfield-Ritter, MS, MFT
A long-time activist for peace and social justice, Susan has built a career advocating for our most vulnerable residents: abused and neglected children, overwhelmed parents, and persons that struggle with the combined burdens of mental illness and addiction. She is the Clinical Director for a local non-profit; and in that capacity she provides training and supervision to 25 Program Managers and direct services staff in legal, ethical, and clinical issues.
Susan is a member of San Diego County's first CADRE of Dual Diagnosis Trainers (Community Advocates for Disability Rights and Education); and co-wrote the training materials. She has trained executive staff, managers, and direct services staff from agencies throughout the county on how to lead an agency towards becoming “Dual Diagnosis Capable”. She continues to serve on the CADRE Training Committee and the Children’s System of Care Training Academy - being the lead trainer in “Integrating Wraparound and Dual Diagnosis Treatment”.
Susan emphasizes the strength-based approach at all levels, from therapy to policy implementation. The wraparound approach, for which she is a local leader, promotes change by integrating personal responsibility with mobilized community support. Susan supervised the creation and development of one of the nation's first 24/7 mobile Wraparound Rapid Response Team (RRT). She supervised the team of license-eligible clinicians and their clerical support staff who offered 24/7 crisis response and intervention, crisis/safety planning and 90-day stabilization to more than 300 families with mental health issues. Crisis issues included child abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, PTSD, suicidal ideation, runaways, and drug abuse. The result was a reduction in the number of youth in out-of-home placements when compared to the number prior to using the RRT.