JOCHS Advisors
Alex Briscoe is one of the Bay Area’s leading experts in the design and delivery of adolescent health and youth development services. His recent work has focused on the intersection of public health and public education through the creation of school-based adolescent health and youth development centers in partnership with Alameda County, The City of Oakland, Oakland Unified School District and Children’s Hospital and Research Center at Oakland.
In January, 2010, Alex was appointed by the Board of Supervisors as Agency Director for Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, where he leads the design and development of health services county-wide. Current projects include clinical service design in foster care and juvenile justice settings, as well as the integration of behavioral health practices in primary and specialty care settings. He manages an Agency budget of approximately $590 million and oversees the departments of Indigent Care, Behavioral Health Care, Environmental Health, and Public Health.
Alex’s clinical work has focused on adolescents and the effects of trauma on healthy development. His work has been featured on National Public Radio, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Sacramento Bee. Alex was awarded the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) School Based Administrator of the Year Award for 2005.
Alex’s past work includes leadership in school reform and charter school development, including work with YouthBuild USA, The Corporation for National and Community Service, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Alex has also worked in the foundation community as a Program Officer for the Greater Philadelphia First Foundation and the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. Alex specializes in revenue producing social justice programming, youth voice, and crisis counseling.
Alex continues to consult with a number of national foundations on program design, program evaluation, and technical assistance. Alex earned a BA from Vassar College in Urban Studies and a Masters in Marriage and Family Counseling from the University of San Francisco.
Barbara Staggers, M.D., a nationally recognized authority on adolescent health, is the director of adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, CA. Her areas of expertise include eating disorders; developmental and parental issues regarding raising healthy adolescents; adolescent health care needs; diversity in adolescent health care; reproductive health issues of adolescents, such as sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, and teen pregnancy; violence in adolescents; the abused adolescent; adolescent suicide; and substance abuse and mental health issues.
In 2005, Dr. Staggers unveiled a school-based health clinic at McClymonds High School in west Oakland. The Chappell Hayes Health Center is recognized as a national model for school reform and is helping combat west Oakland’s notorious levels of violence, homicide, abuse and number of high school dropouts. A second and more comprehensive health clinic opened in east Oakland at Castlemont High School in collaboration with Youth UpRising.
Dr. Staggers also runs the outreach and training corps of the Center of Excellence in Nutritional Genomics of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
