Meet the Advisory Committee
Advisory Committee
Advisory Committee members assist the MFP is achieving its objectives of expanding the delivery of culturally competent mental health and substance abuse services to undeserved minority populations, and to increasing the number of doctoral level culturally competent ethnic minority Marriage and Family therapists.
They do this through the provision of programmatic and professional guidance in the growth and development of the AAMFT Minority Fellowship Program, from a variety of perspectives. Advisory Committee members provide guidance on program related policy matters. Advisory Committee members lend their experience and expertise to the establishment of criteria for application review, Fellow selection, and expansion of the MFP.
Click here to meet the Advisory Committee members that will be starting in the 2013-14 program year!
Alan J. Hovestadt, Ed.D
Alan J. Hovestadt, Ed.D. (Northern Illinois University, 1973), is currently Professor of Counseling Psychology and Family Therapy Education in the Department of Counseling Psychology at Western Michigan University (WMU). He was elected by the membership of the 24,000 member American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy to serve as President Elect in 2003-2004, President in 2005-2006 and Past President for 2007. Hovestadt served as Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Research for the College of Education in 1991 and 1992. Before coming to WMU in 1985 as Professor and Department Chairperson, he was Professor of Counseling and Director of MFT Education (1973-1985) for the first Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE) accredited MFT doctoral program in the Southwestern United States at Texas A& M–Commerce. He has served the COAMFTE as a program accreditation site visitor or chairperson on 18 occasions during the past three decades. Prior to his election as President, his AAMFT leadership included service as a Board Member 1981-1983 and Treasurer 1996-1998. Hovestadt holds AAMFT Fellow status (1983) and has received two AAMFT national awards, the Distinguished Contributions Award (1999) and the Divisional Contributions Award (1996). In addition to awards and honors conferred by several other professional associations Hovestadt received the Joseph J. Malone Fellowship in Arab and Islamic Study for study in Egypt from the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations (1989, Washington, D.C.).
Hovestadt was appointed by Governor John Engler to serve two terms as a member to the State of Michigan Marriage and Family Therapy Licensing Board. He was LMFT Board Chairperson through January of 2003. Hovestadt was President of Michigan Association for Marriage and Family Therapy during 1994-95 and President of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy 1979-80. He has been an active member of the Honorary Society of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP), twice serving as Western Michigan University Chapter President. His national PKP leadership includes service on the Foundation Investment Advisory Committee and current service on the PKP Budget Advisory and Review Committee.
He is the author of over 50 journal articles, books, chapters, and monographs on topics ranging from professional issues and ethics, alexithymia, and rural mental health to intergenerational research examining the impact of the family of origin on current functioning. Hovestadt has served as an editorial board member for five journals. He recently coauthored a book chapter on the status of rural mental health services in the Handbook of Mental Health Services for Children, Adolescents, and Families (2005). Hovestadt has made presentations and conducted workshops at numerous regional, national and international conferences and programs. In 2002 he was invited by the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Psychology, to make presentations on family or origin therapy in Moscow. He is has been project co-director for Federal grants funded by the National Institute for Mental Health (1981-85) and the U.S. Office of Education, Rehabilitation Services Administration (1994-2005). Beyond his teaching, research and professional service, Hovestadt has consulted and conducted program evaluation services in public schools, charter schools, community mental health clinics, hospitals, community based agencies and universities.
Carolyn Tubbs, Ph.D
Dr. Tubbs is an Associate Professor in the Programs in Couple and Family Therapy Program at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. She earned her masters degree in Human Development and Family Studies at Texas Tech University and her doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy at Purdue University. Dr. Tubbs completed her doctoral internship in marriage and family therapy at the Houston-Galveston Institute. She is an Approved Supervisor and Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). In addition, she is a member of AAMFT’s Election Council and a Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education site visitor. She also served on the board of the Ontario Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and was its annual general meeting chair.
Dr. Tubbs was a Research Scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State University for the Welfare, Children and Families: A Three City-Study, a multi-site ethnographic study on welfare reform. As part of her work, Dr. Tubbs has examined facilitators of family stability, family rituals, and parenting in low-income families. Dr. Tubbs has also been involved with the National Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community in researching the causes and solutions to domestic violence in African American communities located in both urban and rural regions throughout the United State, including San Francisco, Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and Detroit. Her research interests include qualitative research methodology, shared parenting among couples with a history of intimate partner violence, health care disparities, mental and physical health issues, and parenting in low-income populations.
Dr. Tubbs has served as Faculty Mentor for honors undergraduates at the Schreyers Honor College (2000-2002); Board Chair, Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis (2006-2007); and member of the University of Guelph’s Research Ethics Board (2007).
Maria Flores, Ed.D
Mare T. Flores, Ph.D. is currently the Director of the Marriage and Family Institute of San Antonia, a private non-profit counseling center. She has served on the AAMFT, TAMFT, SAAMFT Board of Directors. In addition she served on the Judicial Council and the Minority Committee of AAMFT. D.r Flores was appointed on its inception by Governor Ann Richards and then by George Bush to the Texas State Licensing Board for Marriage and Family Therapists, 1992-1999, where she served as Ethic's Chair. She has also served on the Board of Trustees at the University of the Incarnate Word, 1997-2005 (Emeritus Status).
Dr. Flores received an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Incarnate Word, a Sp. MFT in counseling from St. Mary's University and a doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University. She is a Clinical Member of and Approved Supervisor of AAMFT. She has writter articles and done many workshops and has a book: Family Therapy with Hispanics: Towards Appreciating Diversity, Allyn & Bacon, 200. She is currently an adjunct clinical supervisor at St. Mary's University.
Adriatik Likcani
Adriatik Likcani is a Ph.D. Candidate in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) at Kansas State University.He received a master’s degree in MFT from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004 and completed a post-graduate certificate program in Medical Family Therapy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
While in his Ph.D. program at K-State, he was awarded the AAMFT/MFP. He also earned a Master's in Social Work (MSW) in 2011from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Mr. Likcani is a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist (LMFT) and clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), and a Certified Reciprocal Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CRAADC) and approved supervisor in Missouri.
Adriatik Likcani is the co-founder and director of Recovery Lighthouse, Inc., a nonprofit community-based organization providing an array of services to individual and families in search of recovery from addiction to alcohol and drugs. Through his involvement over the past several years with the Access To Recovery (ATR) program of SAMHSA/CSAT and re-entry programs, Mr. Likcani has been invested in the development of recovery oriented systems of care in central Missouri. Part of this included recruitment and training of stakeholders from minority and underserved populations in order to increase access to care and representation in Access To Recovery services for underserved and underrepresented groups. He has served as consultant and trainer for Missouri Access To Recovery and a number of other programs and organizations in the Midwest providing training and technical assistance on evidence-based practices and programs for substance abuse treatment; diversity and cultural competence; program development; addiction and family dynamics; integration of family systems concepts and theories into substance abuse treatment.
Suzanne Midora Hanna, Ph.D.
Dr. Hanna has been a marriage and family therapist for over 30 years. She is a Clinical Member (1981) and Approved Supervisor (1984) of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). She began her professional career in 1977, at a hospital outpatient psychiatric center with adults and adolescents. Other clinical work has taken her to two marriage and family counseling clinics, a residential facility for adolescent boys, full-time private practice, mental health collaborations with medicine and home-based family therapy for those with Alzheimer’s Disease, HIV/AIDS and other chronic health conditions. Her current focus is upon consultation, training and research with non-profit agencies who wish to provide evidence-based family therapy services for underserved groups.
In the 1980's, these experiences began her extensive work with mind-body issues in mental health, and more recently, the neurobiological elements of evidence-based and cutting edge family therapy. Her recent specialization in integrative trauma treatment has led to state-wide collaborations with the African American community in California and to projects with family therapy graduate students researching PTSD in military families. She is author of The Practice of Family Therapy: Key Elements Across Models, fourth edition (2007)and coedited The Aging Family: New Visions in Theory, Practice and Reality, (Hargrave and Hanna,1997). Other research includes the neurocybernetics of birth order and interpersonal communication, smoking cessation and substance abuse treatment for African American women, and mental health disparities for African Americans in California. Other publications include various book chapters on family interventions and family therapy training.
She is a former professor of Counseling and Family Sciences at Loma Linda University, associate professor and program director of the Family Therapy Program at the University of Louisville, instructor at Edgewood College, Madison, WI and is currently a professor for Amridge University’s School of Human Services.
Dr. Hanna’s personal model of intervention is an intersection of mind, body, spirit and relationships within developmental, strategic and narrative models of family therapy. She credits the influence of gender, race, culture, class, sibling position and Milton Erickson upon her own integrative model of family therapy. She received specialized training in couples therapy from the Marriage and Family Counseling Service in Rock Island, IL and has received training in three models of evidence-based family therapy from NIH-funded project teams and in the neurobiology of trauma treatment.