Meet Our Instructors
Joseph Solomita
MSW LCSW
Managing Director
Joseph Solomita, MSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in California with over 35 years’ experience working with children, adolescents and families in a variety of residential, educational and clinical settings. Over the past twenty years, Mr. Solomita has worked for Stars Behavioral Health Group, serving as Clinical Director of both Star View Adolescent Center, an inpatient treatment facility and, TEAMMATES a community-based Wraparound Program.
For the past ten years Mr. Solomita has been the Managing Director for Stars Training Academy, a division of Stars Behavioral Health Group that provides a range of services to organizations across the United States in the training, implementation, and sustaining of evidenced-supported and evidenced-based practices.
Christine Graham
LCSW
Christine Graham, LCSW, is the company’s Vice President and Chief Clinical Services Officer. She has been with Stars Behavioral Health Group in various capacities for more than 15 years. She currently oversees teams responsible for designing, implementing and sustaining high quality clinical care throughout the SBHG family of companies. This includes supervising program development, staff training, and compliance, as well as, partnering with program medical directors to support their delivery of high quality medical care.
Dr. Rusty Clark
Dr. Hewitt B. Clark, best known as “Rusty,” is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Child & Family Studies, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida and is the Director of the National Network on Youth Transition. Dr. Clark has developed and researched various innovative programs and has published extensively, with five books and more than 130 professional research publications to his credit. He is the lead-editor of the book entitled: Transition of Youth and Young Adults with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties: An Evidence-Supported Handbook. His commitment to young people and their parents is reflected in his having invited them to serve as co-authors for each of the chapters.
Adele Aparicio
MA, LMFT
Adele Aparicio is a Clinical Training Specialist for Stars Behavioral Health Group. Adele received her BA in Psychology from New York University and her MA in Clinical Psychology with an MFT emphasis from Pepperdine University and is currently a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California. She has 20 years of experience working with children, adolescents and young adults as both an educator and a provider of intensive community-based mental health services to youth and families. Adele has also provided clinical supervision and consultation over the past 10 years.
As a Clinical Training Specialist with the SBHG Stars Training Academy, Adele specializes in creating and delivering interactive clinical trainings on various evidence-based/evidenced supported practices. Adele is trained in multiple assessment and treatment models, serves as a National Certified Transition to Independence Process (TIP) Model Consultant, Chief TIP Model Fidelity Assessor and is certified by the Association for Talent Development (ATD). Most recently, Adele completed her Certification as a Clinical Trauma Practitioner and is a vibrant part of our team at the TIP Training Academy.
Coral Huntsman
LMFT
Coral Huntsman is a Clinical Training Specialist for Stars Behavioral Health Group. Coral received her M.A. in Clinical Psychology with an MFT emphasis from Pepperdine University and is currently a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California. Coral has over 20 years of Human Services experience including, 7 years working as a Wraparound Facilitator and Clinician, delivering community-based services to youth and families in Los Angeles County.
As a Clinical Training Specialist with the SBHG Stars Training Academy, Coral specializes in creating and delivering interactive clinical trainings on various evidence-based/evidence supported practices. She is a Certified Master TIP Consultant/Trainer with Stars Training Academy, Certified Transition to Independence Process (TIP) Model® Consultant and TIP Model fidelity assessor. Coral is also certified in Aggression Replacement Training.
Elijah McCauley
Clinical Training Specialist, MA, CRC, CTP-C
Elijah is a dynamic & innovative presenter with 25 years of experience in training & development, as well as advanced application of therapeutic services to youth with Emotional & Behavioral Difficulties (EBD). His expertise lies in Evidence Based Practices in Trauma Focused Care as well as effective methods for dealing with difficult and resistant youth. He currently holds an M.A. in Health Science - Rehabilitation Psychology from the University of Florida.
Elijah holds certifications as a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRCC), Certified Master Trainer of Aggression Replacement Training (ART), Certified Master Trainer of Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescence Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS), Certified Master Trainer for Transition to Independence Process (TIP), and Certified Trauma Practitioner (Clinician) through Starr Commonwealth.
Lorne Wood
Lorne Wood has been working with Stars Behavioral Health Group (SBHG) for seven years. He spent two years working with the SBHG TAY Hot Spot as a Peer Mentor and then joined the SBHG Stars Training Academy where he currently works as a Peer Training Specialist. Lorne’s job includes helping sites across the US to learn and implement evidenced-supported practices and build a positive peer culture.
Lorne spent most of his childhood in foster homes and group homes throughout Los Angeles County. He stayed in a total of 14 placements over the course of 7 years. During a difficult time in his life, Lorne received help from a Star View WRAPAROUND team.
Lorne now financially supports himself, has an apartment, is pursuing his college education, and holds a demanding professional job. Lorne says he feels more confident in the role of a responsible and effective adult. Lorne’s lived experience with learning how to manage his own depression and anxiety have helped him to excel in this role as a Peer Training Specialist.
Dr. Marc Fagan
Psy.D
Marc Fagan, Psy.D., is a Certified Master TIP Consultant with Stars Training Academy and provides training and capacity building in the TIP Model® and Associated Practices. Specializing in issues related to young adults, child welfare, organizational change, and best practice implementation, Dr. Fagan’s creative and engaging approach to training has attracted audiences locally and nationally.
Dr. Fagan is also the Vice President of Clinical Operations and Youth & Services at Thresholds in Chicago. At Thresholds, Dr. Fagan oversees comprehensive programs for transition-age youth with mental health needs and histories of complex trauma, child welfare and juvenile justice involvement, residential care, adolescent pregnancy and parenting, homelessness and first episode psychosis. These programs are developmentally-attuned to a variety of transition-age youth mental health needs and systematically blend evidence-based practices from both child and adult mental health fields. Programs within the Thresholds transition-age youth continuum of care have been described in numerous scholarly journals, and were featured in the SAMHSA sponsored book: Residential Interventions for Children, Adolescents, and Families: A Best Practice Guide.
Dr. Fagan participates in numerous state and federal workgroups dedicated to improving transition-age youth outcomes, and has spoken at US Congress in support of the Healthy Transitions Act. Additionally, Dr. Fagan is a Master Trainer in Aggression Replacement Training (ART®) and an Associate Trainer in Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI).
Patrice Fetzer
LISW-S
Patrice Fetzer is a Stars Training Academy Certified Master TIP Consultant. She has over 20 years of experience in developing and implementing quality and innovative programming, cross-system collaborations, and system change efforts at the local and state levels that engage and empower individuals and families with mental, emotional, behavioral, and societal challenges. She has been a strong advocate for better services and supports for youth and young adults in transition within the behavioral health system from her years of experience as an independent living facilitator, case manager, supervisor, agency administrator and now as a board administrator. She provides local, state, and national presentations and consultations on best practices for serving the youth and young adult population and has co-authored a chapter entitled “Driving the System Through Young Adult Involvement and Leadership” in Transition to Adulthood: A Resource for Assisting Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties, Clark, H.B. & Davis, M. (2000). She co-authored a position paper for the Ohio Department of Mental Health entitled, “Paving the Way for a New Day for Young Adults in Ohio’s Mental Health System” (2008) and worked with a team of partners across the state of Ohio to build the consensus and capacity necessary for system change to better support this population. She is the Manager of Service Delivery for the Mental Health & Recovery Services Board of Stark County and resides in North Canton, Ohio.
Kelly France
LMSW
Kelly is a Clinical Manager, focused on best practice implementation and quality improvement practices. Kelly holds licensure in Michigan as a Licensed Master in Social Work (LMSW) and Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CAADC). Kelly has 15 years of experience working in Michigan's public mental health system with clinical experiences providing direct services founded in evidence- based practices such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Kelly’s work now focuses primarily on program development and administration, where she has assisted in the development of TIP Model® programming, implementation of evidence-based practices, and has offered social work field instruction for students at Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University and Baker College.
Kelly has experience in successful SAMHSA grant writing and managing such as System of Care (SOC) and Healthy Transitions (HT), Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC). As a Certified TIP Model Regional Consultant and TIP Model Fidelity QI Assessor, Kelly focuses on implementation science to enhance best practice service provision. Kelly is passionate about strengths based, trauma-informed and evidence supported practices. Kelly's primary focus with SBHG is to provide data and outcome driven trainings and consultation to enhance all aspects of TIP Model program development and sustainability.
Our History
Stars Training Academy History
In 2008, then Vice President and Clinical Director of Stars Behavioral Health Group (SBHG), Dr. Peter Zucker created a core practices curriculum for clinical staff who worked in the direct-care mental health and social service programs that SBHG operated throughout California.
To provide the clinical trainings, Dr Zucker created a Training Academy, consisting at the time, of two clinical trainers and Dr. Zucker. The SBHG Training Academy was designed to not only conduct high-quality clinical trainings, but to also implement specific evidence-supported practices by following-up after trainings with expert consultation/coaching, technical assistance, and fidelity monitoring, to ensure lasting clinical practice change.
In 2009 Dr. Hewitt “Rusty” Clark, the Lead Researcher and Developer of the Transition to Independence Process (TIP) Model® partnered with the now Stars Training Academy to offer training and consultation services in the youth-driven, strength-based, evidence-supported TIP Model to the Training Academy. Dr. Clark also contributed his expertise in the field of research-based, Implementation Science which subsequently became a cornerstone to Training Academy operations. Soon thereafter the Stars Training academy began providing clinical trainings and implementation support to government-affiliated community-based agencies in a handful of California Counties as well as in many states around the country.
By 2019 The Stars Training Academy had expanded its clinical training and implementation services team to include 7 Certified National Consultant/Trainers and a Peer Training Specialist. The Stars Training Academy trained, and help to implement, evidence-supported and evidence-based practices such as the TIP Model and Aggression Replacement Training® in hundreds of organizations in over 33 US States and Canada.
About Dr. Rusty Clark
Dr. Hewitt B. Clark, best known as “Rusty,” is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Child & Family Studies, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida and is the Director of the National Network on Youth Transition. Dr. Clark has developed and researched various innovative programs and has published extensively, with five books and more than 130 professional research publications to his credit. He is the lead-editor of the book entitled: Transition of Youth and Young Adults with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties: An Evidence-Supported Handbook. His commitment to young people and their parents is reflected in his having invited them to serve as co-authors for each of the chapters.
Dr. Clark developed and researched the Transition to Independence Process (TIP) Model to function as a community-based engagement and intervention program for working with youth and young adults (14-29 years of age) with severe mental health conditions and associated problems (e.g., substance use, chronic trauma, unemployment). The TIP Model is an evidence-supported practice that is being implemented in communities, counties, and states across the nation and in regions of Canada and in a few areas internationally. Dr. Clark continues to research and refine the program and its fidelity processes to ensure the implementation, effectiveness, and sustainability of the TIP Model. He has also recently published another research article on the outcomes of the youth and young adults being served in a large-scale community collaborative (Bohs, Lawrence, & Clark, 2021).
Dr. Clark has extensive experience in conduction competency-based training events, teaching courses, and presenting workshops and keynote addresses at conferences. When he presents focuses on conveying the principles underlying a given topic, but also in providing clear examples, illustrations, and resources to assist participants in applying relevant strategies and tools.
When Dr. Clark is not conducting research, writing, doing guest lectures or consulting, or walking with his wife in St Petersburg Florida -- he enjoys his avocations of sailing the Gulf of Mexico and other seas -- and photographing wildlife. If fact, with his trip to the Antarctic where he observed the penguins and other wildlife of the region, he has now been on all seven continents of the world.