Meet Our Team
Karen Jolly
Former foster parent, adoptive parent, trauma therapist, speaker, board member
Karen is an adoptee and an adoptive mother of three now adult children. She has spent her professional career guiding families who’ve experienced developmental trauma to heal from the trauma. Karen is a licensed social worker in Colorado and holds a master’s degree in social work from Colorado State University. Her prior board experience includes Homeward Pikes Peak, member at large; where she helped to develop Housing First, a program for unhoused individuals assisting them to obtain housing. Dismas Houses of Colorado Springs, President. At Dismas House, Karen was instrumental in establishing housing and a reintegration program for those recently released from prison.
Rebecca Barton
Biological parent, former foster parent, adoptive parent, trauma parent, parent coach, speaker, board member
Rebecca Barton is a speaker and trauma parent coach with 10 years of in home experience with trauma children. She is a biological parent, former foster parent, and adoptive parent. She founded and ran a non profit in the River Valley of Arkansas for 8 years, where she and her husband identified and met the needs of foster families, foster children, adoptive parents, and adopted children.
She currently lives in Colorado with her family. She has worked on coaching adoptive parents across the United States on how to parent their adopted children and their highly specialized needs. She is an active board member of Developmental Trauma Specialists.
Joshua Ackerson
Biological parent, adoptive parent, board president
Joshua Ackerson is a former Mechanical Engineering Manager at Lockheed Martin. He has worked on the NASA ORION program for over 15 years covering a broad range of analytical disciplines for human deep space flight.
He and his wife Alicia now run Lightspeed Engineering an independent contracting agency supplying support for the space industry. Together they have adopted a daughter with developmental trauma. Joshua joined DTS with the goal to build a community that will support each other through the challenges of parenting kids with developmental trauma.
Alex Baalman
Adoptee, developmental trauma survivor, speaker, board member
Alex’s professional journey has been deeply influenced by his passion to help others. As an adopted child from St. Petersburg who overcame his struggles with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and who has a brother with Reactive Attachment Disorder and other Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), he has made helping others, his life’s work.
Over the past 5 years he has demonstrated commitment to his passion of helping others as a Clinical Aide at the Institute for Attachment and Child Development, and then Adventure Camp Program Manager at Adam’s Camp where he provided camps and programming to children and adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Outside of his work experience he volunteers his time with other non-profits and has done missionary work to Peru to help the poor.
Alex Brings a culture of hard work, creativity, problem solving, and integrity to help organizations reach their goals and grow into their full potential. He has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Spring Hill College and is a Trainer for the Crisis Prevention Institute.
Roxanne Thompson
LPC, founder, speaker, board member
Roxanne Thompson, LPC is a licensed professional counselor with 30+ years of experience working with foster/adoptive children and families with expertise in childhood trauma. She is co-founder of two nonprofits, Developmental Trauma Specialists and Adoptive Family Resources. Through the years Roxanne’s private practice, Denver Therapy and Consultation Group, LLC has contracted with Denver Human Services, Jefferson County Social Services, Weld County Social Services and Arapahoe County Human Services for training and therapy. Roxanne is a national trainer for foster/adoptive parents and former trainer for Colorado Child Welfare Training System. In addition, Roxanne sits on the board for Colorado State Foster Parents Association, Colorado Coalition of Adoptive Families, and Developmental Trauma Specialists.
Sera Bennet
LPC, neurofeedback provider, sexual trauma specialist, speaker
Sera is licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist in Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona. She is an SOMB provider for juveniles and adults, as well as an SOMB Clinical Supervisor. She has provided trainings about trauma, Child Contact Screens, polygraphs, sexually-based offenses, and mandatory reporting. Throughout the course of her career, she has earned sometimes traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy does not allow clients to reach their goals. As such, she works from the following modalities: Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Microcurrent Neurofeedback. In addition to trauma therapy, she focuses on helping clients develop a healthy and strong sense of self, healthy relationships and sexuality, and identify short- and long-term life goals. She has experience working with children, adolescents, and adults. She sees both victims(survivors) and offenders, which allows her to provide a unique lens into working with both sides of trauma.
Brandon Morgan
Biological parent, adoptive parent, speaker, board member
Brandon Morgan is a husband of 25 years and father of four children ranging in age from 24 to 15 years old. I have been a physical therapist in the United States Air Force for 17 years. While stationed overseas we adopted our now 16-year-old son who was 4 years old at the time. We knew that our son was exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero, but he seemed like a healthy and happy kiddo. Having grown up in a home with a special needs brother, I thought I would be capable of parenting through potential difficulties our son would face. I was wrong! We had never heard of reactive attachment disorder or developmental trauma. As our son got older, we learned there was so much that we did not know, and that even medical professionals did not know about how to parent a child with developmental trauma. We have been on a difficult journey as a family, we are still walking (sometimes crawling) that path. We have been fortunate to find some valuable resources over the past few years but recognize that resources and understanding are difficult to find. I am not on this Board because I have a background in mental health or am an expert in developmental trauma. I am on the Board because as a father I am passionate about helping other families that find themselves on a similar journey. If I can help even one family get resources that I did not have when I needed them, I will consider my participation in the Developmental Trauma Specialists successful.
David Barton
Biological parent, former foster parent, trauma parent, board member
David Barton is a biological dad, former foster parent, and adoptive parent. He and his wife Rebecca founded and ran a non profit in the River Valley of Arkansas for 8 years. There, they identified and met the needs of foster families, foster children, adoptive parents, and adopted children. He and his family live in Colorado, and his is an active board member of Developmental Trauma Specialists.