Leveraging a For Us, By Us Model: How to Co-Create a Collaborative Statewide Diversion Training, Technical Assistance & Development Program

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Cassie Branderhorst is an experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in tech start-ups and the public and private sectors, concentrating on behavioral health, criminal justice programming and policy reform, community coalition building and outreach, social determinants of health, and public policy. She is highly skilled in systems and processes optimization, population health management, strategic partnerships, market research, report/proposal writing, and substance use disorder prevention and treatment. She began her career in Federal Law Enforcement and her 20+ years of experience includes work for and with Verily Life Sciences (fka Google Life Sciences), Gateway Foundation-Corrections Division, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the United States Federal Courts-Northern District of Illinois, the Homeless and Housing Resource Network (HHRN), the Council of State Governments’ (CSG) Justice Center, Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC), the National Association for State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD), and various state, county, and local governments, as well as jails, prisons, probation, and police departments across the country. Additionally, Cassie has taught Criminal Justice courses as adjunct faculty at Roosevelt University in Chicago. She received her BA in Criminal Justice (with honors) from Michigan State University and her MS in Public Service Management-Public Policy from DePaul University.

Mary Ann Dyar is the Program Director for the Adult Redeploy Illinois (ARI) program created by the Crime Reduction Act of 2009 and administered at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA). As Program Director, Mary Ann is responsible for coordinating the disbursement of grants to local jurisdictions to expand alternatives to incarceration; assisting with the formulation of policies and procedures for the program; monitoring and conducting technical assistance for grantees; managing communication, outreach and reporting strategies for the program; and staffing the ARI Oversight Board. Mary Ann holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago’s Harris School, and undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Political Science from Indiana University-Bloomington. She served two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya. Mary Ann was a member of the second cohort of the Governor’s Office Academy of Leadership (G.O.A.L.) program (2024) and currently serves on the Community-Based Corrections Task Force (2025) and Justice Cabinet Advisory Group.

Hope Fiori is the Director of Special Projects at TASC’s Center for Health and Justice. In this role, Hope leads strategy and business development for health and justice system agencies around alternatives to arrest/incarceration and linkages to care for individuals with behavioral health conditions. Hope develops consulting, training, and technical assistance for local, state, and national projects and consults on systems-level change and community treatment capacity building. She is also a nationally recognized subject matter expert in deflection, interacting with and knowledgeable of hundreds of such initiatives around the country. Previously, Hope was CHJ’s National Deflection TA Center director, part of the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP). In this position, Hope provided technical assistance for deflection and pre-arrest diversion initiatives, including over 230 grant recipients. Currently, she is the CHJ project lead for the Adult Redeploy Illinois (ARI) TTAD program. Hope earned her BS at Loyola University Chicago, where she majored in criminal justice and psychology. She received her master’s degree in public policy and administration (MPPA) from Northwestern University.

Dr. Annice E. Fisher is the Founder and CEO of Developing Capacity Coaching (DCC). She has over 20 years of experience at the intersection of leadership development, innovation, equity, and justice. She has partnered with mayors, boards, superintendents, deans, state agencies, and leaders in the criminal legal system to build coalitions that drive change in complex environments. Dr. Annice E. Fisher and Developing Capacity Coaching partner with leaders across sectors to align values with action, cultivate conscious leadership, and create lasting, humanity-centered change. Dr. Fisher’s criminal legal system work includes partnering with state and local leaders to identify and address racial disparities in access to diversion, building equity-centered approaches into oversight board practices, co-designing an equity-centered, strengths-based training and technical assistance program for statewide diversion sites, designing culturally relevant, humanity-centered curricula to equip providers and probation officers with effectively serving justice-impacted individuals, leadership sustainability approaches for probation officers, and teaching conscious leadership to individuals in custody to support them both in incarcerated settings and with reentry. Annice founded The BEE FREE Institute, certifying coaches through The BFW Coaches Academy & Conscious People for Equity™ Course. She holds degrees from University of Illinois, Iowa State University, and Harvard University, plus certifications in Gallup Strengths, Immunity-to-Change, HAVEN Interpersonal Violence, Safe Zone, and the Social Justice Training Institute.

Dr. Ciji Ann Heiser is the Senior Impact and Evaluation Officer at Developing Capacity Coaching and an award-winning researcher and assessment professional with over 15 years of experience leading evaluation, research, and strategic planning initiatives across sectors. She collaborates on projects that reduce racial disparities in prison diversion programs, explore how policy shapes equity work in community colleges, and translate data into action through accessible guidebooks. Ciji has taught antiracist methodologies at American University, contemporary issues in higher education at New England College, and assessment leadership with Student Affairs Assessment Leaders. She has contributed to NSF-funded research supporting underrepresented students in STEM and conducted qualitative studies on rural student pathways to postsecondary education. A leader in the field, she helped launch the Grand Challenges in Higher Education strategic plan and served as faculty at the ACPA Assessment Institute. She holds degrees from Bucknell, Kent State, and UNC Greensboro.

Kathy Starkovich is a Deputy Director at the DuPage County Department of Probation and Court Services and the coordinator of DuPage County’s Adult Redeploy program, where she has led the team since 2013. Kathy has worked within her department for 27 years and is passionate about taking a strength-based approach with clients. She believes in the intrinsic value each person possesses, and that nobody loses the ability to make change. She is an advocate for integrating evidence-based strategies in programming in a simple, pragmatic manner and that work of probation is challenging, but is always worthwhile. Kathy provides extensive training on a variety of curricula focused primarily on effective behavior management strategies and cognitive-behavioral interventions and has served as an adjunct faculty member at a local university.