Dr. Christine Walrath has 10 years experience in children’s mental health services research and evaluation design, data collection, management and analysis. She is experienced in both local and national level evaluation, with a concentrated focus on the multi-level impact of children’s mental health systems reform. In addition, she has experience in the development and implementation of a statewide screening initiative to assess the substance use, mental health, health, education, and family related needs of youth entering the juvenile justice system. Dr. Walrath also has extensive experience in the provision of technical assistance and training around evaluation methodology, design, and implementation for children’s mental health service systems.

Dr. Walrath has a broad range of research expertise including process and outcome evaluation design and implementation, research design, instrument development, and data analysis. She earned her doctoral degree in community psychology and master’s degree in public mental health. She has been involved in local, state and national longitudinal evaluation efforts to assess the impact of prison interventions, school-based mental health interventions, and community-based mental health programs. Dr. Walrath also has considerable experience in measurement design and testing.

For ORC Macro, Dr. Walrath works as a technical director with the national evaluation team of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and their Families Program. This is a multi-million dollar, multi-year project contracted with the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) under the Department of Human and Health Services to evaluate services provided to children with serious emotional disturbances. To date the evaluation protocol, which was designed in part to assess child outcomes related to behavior, functioning, substance use, placement stability, delinquency, and education, has been successfully implemented in 67 sites and is being initiated in an additional 25 sites. Dr. Walrath has adjunct faculty appointments at both the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Mental Health and the University of Maryland Baltimore County Psychology Department.

Dr. Diala leads the development and maintenance of Center portfolio in identified growth areas in domestic and international arenas. He also provides technical direction and guidance in health and education research.

Dr. Diala has several years experience with health program development, design, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation in domestic and international settings. He has worked with a variety of populations including those related to sensitive health message design
and dissemination. Dr. Diala is proficient in both qualitative and quantitative analysis including survey design and development; needs assessment, case study and content analysis and focus group facilitation and design.

Dr. Diala's domestic experience is complemented by his direct work experience in Peru, Brasil, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon, Tanzania, Malawi and Ethiopia.