Relationships: The Linchpin of Successful Management of Mental Health Caseloads

Go Back

Brian K. Gates is the Director of Program Services with the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction and has over 30 years of experience with Probation and Parole.  Mr. Gates graduated from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke with a Master of Public Administration.  Brian was Vice-Chairman of Surry County Schools Board of Education from 2006 to 2014, received the Governor’s Award of Excellence in Human Relations in 2013, and was presented the North Carolina All State School Board Member by the North Carolina School Boards Association in 2009. 

Charles Lane is an Assistant Judicial District Manager in District 3 for the Division of Community Supervision, North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. He has served the state of North Carolina for over 25 years. Prior to his current role, he was a Chief Probation/ Parole Officer for the Division of Community Supervision. During his time as a Chief Probation/ Parole Officer, he was a specialty Chief for the Mental Health Pilot Caseload, Prison Re-Entry and RSTEP program, Interstate Compact, Electronic Monitoring Program and Sex Offender Programs. He has served as a sustainability team member and instructor for Motivational Interviewing and Case Planning was a member on the pilot team that implemented the Behavioral Response Log for the Department of Community Supervision. He has been a member of the SHIELD team that assists with peer support to staff. He was named the 2022 Division 1 Chief Probation/ Parole Officer of the year. Prior to becoming a Chief Probation/ Parole Officer, he served as a Probation/ Parole Officer and Surveillance Officer. He is currently a member of the Police Benevolent Association and State Employees Association of North Carolina and serves as an Executive Board member for the Carteret County Re-Entry Council.

Dave Peterson is the Regional Vice President of Trillium Health Resources that manages mental health, substance use, and intellectual and development disability services for high-risk individuals in 46 counties in North Carolina, managing We manage the high-risk individuals to help them access services and supports. He has over 40 years working in the Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability arena and has worked with both adolescents and adults at inpatient Mental Health and Substance Use hospital. He also served as the director of a 70-bed adolescent behavioral health facility and have provided respite for older adolescents in locked psychiatric facilities. Mr. Peterson also holds a Master’s degree in Psychology.

Dr. Tonya Van Deinse is a research associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Van Deinse and her lab – Health Interventions in the Legal System (HILS Lab) – focus on intervention design, implementation, and evaluation at the interface of behavioral health and legal systems. Dr. Van Deinse started her work in mental health 20 years ago in residential treatment with adults with severe mental illnesses and then later worked in mental health at the systems level (i.e., managed care organization) where she began to focus on people with severe mental illnesses in the criminal legal system. Dr. Van Deinse is the principal investigator and implementation science researcher on a number of research studies and program evaluations. Examples of studies in the legal system include: (1) developing and testing tailored implementation strategies to improve collaboration and coordinator between mental health probation officers and community resource providers, (2) testing clinical case consultation and network building effort to improve implementation of specialized mental health supervision, (3) evaluating an expansion model of a county’s mental health court.