Grandfamilies hires new program director

Program director Jacci Graham retired March 19 after 12 years of service to Children’s Service Society’s Grandfamilies, a program focused on providing support to families in kinship care. Patricia Totterer, a children’s psychiatrist, took over as her replacement.

Graham said she anticipates Totterer, who has worked with Grandfamilies for two years, will bring qualities and experiences to benefit those involved in the program.

“Patricia is going to bring so much to Grandfamilies,” Graham said. “One of the things that is really nice about Patricia is that she’s bilingual. We really need to get the program in Spanish. She’s also been doing a lot of clinical work, so the knowledge she has from primarily working with children is going to be extremely helpful.”

Totterer said she plans to focus on having teenagers who have been through the program work with children currently involved in Grandfamilies.

“We need to do better with the teenage population we have served,” Totterer said. “We need to involve them by using them as mentors and bringing them in to work with the kids.”

In addition to involving the program’s teenage population, Totterer is working toward making Grandfamilies a part of the governor’s budget to have consistent funding and eventually take the program statewide.

According to Totterer, Graham has always planned to have her take over following her retirement.

“Jacci always joked with me that I would be the one to take over Grandfamilies when she retired, then she really did retire and I really did interview and they hired me,” Totterer said.

Totterer said she was motivated by the passion Graham showed in the vision of the program.

“I knew from the beginning the passion and the intent and the focus on the goals,” Totterer said. “Jacci has done some amazing pioneering work and grown the program tremendously.”