IPTTP Home Page and Mission Statement What consulting services do we offer?
Victor Bloomberg, CEO - victor.bloomberg@ipttp.com
Richard Lawrence, Director - richard.lawrence@ipttp.com
Susan Wingfield, Director - susan.wingfield@ipttp.com
Brian Ritter, Webmaster
Richard Lawrence
Richard Lawrence, a retired Methodist clergyman whose ministry is committed to social justice, organized and has served as the first chair of the San Diego Affordable Housing Coalition for nearly 10 years. The Affordable Housing Coalition is an active member of ACCORD (A Community Coalition for Responsible Development), and Richard led negotiations on the housing component in the recently negotiated Community Benefits Agreement with JMI. He is an adjunct faculty member at Springfield College (San Diego Campus) and the Western Institute for Social Research in Berkeley.
Richard graduated from Albion College in Michigan with a BA and secondary teaching certificate in English, German and social studies. He has a Masters Degree in social ethics from the University of Chicago and completed the post-graduate Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School.
During the civil rights movement, he took an interracial group of students from Chicago to participate in the Selma to Montgomery march; and he was a member of the local leadership that worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the two-month, open-housing campaign in the summer of 1966 . He has contributed leadership to dozens of community organizations including: Chair of Negotiations for Operation Breadbasket (PUSH) – Chicago, the Englewood Action Committee – Chicago, Cummins Engine Foundation Minority Community Development Program - Chicago, Greater Lawrence (MA) Community Foundation, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO - NYC), the Chicago and National Black United Funds.
Richard's campaign for alderman in Chicago in 1972 was unsuccessful. He was elected in 1994 to two terms on the Lawrence (MA) City Council; then lost a run for mayor of Lawrence in 1997. Richard moved to San Diego in 1998 to retire and enjoy time with the San Diego wing of his large, extended family. He is a founding member and director of Info Power to the People.
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.
Victor Bloomberg, MSW
Victor is the originator and principal designer of the company's software and co-founder of Info Power To The People, Inc. He is a second-generation community organizer dedicated to forming an effective response to the question: Where do we go from here: chaos or community?
Victor integrates disparate ideas and experiences within a collaborative team. His communication style uses common language and graphics to translate complexity into comprehensible concepts. Consistent success in a broad range of health, mental health and social service environments reflects exceptional analytical abilities, dedication to the principle of personal responsiblity and passion for an equitable distribution opportunity and resources:
Individuals and Families – His work as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (1991-2005) was launched through hospice care with a specialization in pediatrics. This provided opportunities to see the struggles of patients and their families in diverse circumstances: psychiatric hospitalization, community health clinic, outpatient mental health treatment, psychiatric day treatment, home health and private practice. Recognition of the potential for personal transformation and a focus on a person's strengths became key lessons learned. Organizations – Turn-around of debilitated projects became a specialty. Success was achieved for a social service agency's administrative department, an outpatient adolescent mental health department, a psychiatric day treatment program, a social service case management program. Fundamental lessons were learned from an organization that closed (outpatient mental health clinic) and one that moved through bankruptcy (psychiatric hospital). A sequence of superior departmental directors have been invaluable, positive role models for professional conduct and administrative diligence. Communities – Victor came of age during a time of great social change; his family actively participated in it. This experience informs his perspective that resources, opportunity and preparation enable community-based teams to transform the local infrastructure. The most recent validation of this point-of-view was his work, through the Peace Corps, in Paraguay (2006-2008). The three businesses were launched and continue to be successfully run by persons that live in a city garbage dump. Their efforts also led to construction of housing outside of the dump (which is progressing towards completion). Information Technology and Change Management – The relational database that he designed for a social service case management program continues to be used, a decade after it was first deployed. The analysis of workflow and the user interface reflected the active participation of the staff who spoke seven first-languages. Our current management information system expresses his vision for the development of new capacity within individuals, organizations and communities to create new wealth in marginalized communities.Most gratifying is the community of friends formed in the trenches of the “good fight”. This is a network of champions of the vulnerable, advocates of the dispossessed, and builders of community resources. Each of us is committed to leading a purposeful life that calls upon the angels of our better selves to form sustainable, humane, just communities.