About Us

Anne Smith is the Global Director for the Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC). She brings 25 years of strategic leadership of programs and initiatives aimed at strengthening vulnerable children, their families, and their communities to the position. The majority of Anne’s professional experience was spent in the field, including longer term assignments in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Mali, Zambia, and the broader Southern Africa Region. Anne returned to CRS Headquarters in the summer of 2015 to lead global strategy for CRS’ Overseas Operations Division, and to serve as the liaison for CRS’ Board of Directors and its Overseas Operations Committee. As the CRS Deputy Regional Director for Southern Africa, Anne drove strategy and led all technical and programmatic assistance for 10 CRS country programs in the region aimed at building the resilience of vulnerable families and communities. Prior to her time in Southern Africa, Anne spent six years in Rwanda as the Country Director for Global Communities (formerly CHF International) and Chief of Party/Project Director for two successive multi-sectoral USAID/PEPFAR-funded programs supporting vulnerable children and their families and communities towards strengthened resiliency and livelihoods in 20 districts of the country. This included capacity strengthening and organizational development for over 18 Rwandan organizations, and social welfare systems strengthening with the Rwandan Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, as well as support to the Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Animal Resources, Local Government, Youth, and Education. As the CRS Country Representative for Burkina Faso and Mali, Anne led large-scale education, economic strengthening, and agriculture programs supporting vulnerable families and communities in the Sahel, with particular focus on girls and young women. Anne speaks French and conversational Kinyarwanda.

Andrea (Drew) Rogers is the Global Operations Director for Changing the Way We Care, responsible for support services that relate to program activities. Drew delivers effective, efficient HR, Finance, procurement, and award and risk management. She also coordinates the link from business development to implementation, enabling expansion through on the ground presence and through partner relationships. Drew brings extensive experience in Operations to the role, having led many cross-agency systems change initiatives during her tenure as sr. director for CRS’ Overseas Operations Operational Excellence Department. She has also been a chief of party and a deputy country representative in CRS programs in Africa, the Middle East, and India.

Beth Bradford is technical director of Changing the Way We Care. She has twenty-five years of international child protection experience. She brings her past work with both government and non-government partners to this role. Beth has focused her career on child protection and care systems strengthening, including integrated case management, social work practice, deinstitutionalization and alternative care, holistic early childhood development, and family strengthening. Her work includes helping develop a cross-sectoral case management system in the Sultanate of Oman, a review of the social service workforce in Jordan, review of parenting programs across East Asia and the Pacific, analysis of funding streams for children’s care in, and development of, a case management package for reintegration of children from residential care to family care, both in Uganda. Beth also developed the Faith to Action manual on transitioning children’s care. Beth has traveled extensively. She lived and worked in Romania for nine years in the late 1990’s-early 2000’s.

Erica is the director for Global Influence, Learning, and Engagement for Changing the Way We Care. She has worked with CRS since 1997, coordinating development and human rights programs in Brazil and Peru, managing CRS’ program on the U.S.- Mexico border and in southern Mexico, and most recently serving as country representative for CRS country programs in El Salvador, Lesotho and Mozambique. Erica has overseen youth development and violence prevention initiatives, HIV/AIDS prevention programs for girls and young women, case management initiatives for orphans and vulnerable children, and early childhood development projects. She has also done extensive advocacy, communications and public speaking for CRS on children and youth issues, migration, and global poverty over the past 20 years. She is currently based in Mexico City.

Kelley is the Senior Technical Advisor for Changing the Way We Care. Kelley has three decades of engaging in child care and protection. She has been involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of alternative care programming, research and advocacy in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa. She has worked for UNICEF, USAID, private foundations, national governments and international and local NGOs in support of safe and nurturing family-based care for children. Kelley is a member of the Better Care Network Steering Committee and a board member of Faith to Action. She is a regular contributor to articles and book chapters on child rights, care and protection. She currently lives in the US with her family having just relocated after 28 years of living in Ecuador, Romania, St. Lucia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Ludmila Ungureanu is Changing the Way We Care Moldova’s Chief of Party. She is a development professional with over 20 years of experience in organizational and program management, focusing on social protection and good governance programs. Prior to joining the CTWWC initiative, Ludmila managed child protection programs with Terre des hommes Moldova, decentralization policy reform programs with IREX, and civil society development programs with the American Bar Association/Central and Eastern Law Initiative. She has worked extensively with civil society organizations, government institutions, and professional associations in Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Kirgizstan, and Belarus. Ludmila speaks Romanian, English and Russian and has a MS in Management from the SIT Graduate Institute in the United States.

Mari is a Senior Associate with Maestral International and is currently serving as a Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Advisor for Changing the Way We Care. Mari has been working in child protection, public health, and social services for over a decade in monitoring, evaluation, research, capacity building and system strengthening in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, South America and South Asia. Mari has worked in on projects funded by USAID, DFID, UNICEF and private foundations and has supported many NGOs and national governments. She has lived internationally for a total of about 7 years and relocated to California, USA in early 2020.

Marie Blum is the program manager II, Global Influence, Learning, and Communications for Changing the Way We Care. Marie coordinates CTWWC’s influence, learning and engagement (ILE) activities across the global initiative. She works with the ILE team to promote the strategic growth of the initiative and ensure public understanding of the work of CTWWC. She has 10 years of experience in advocacy and communications focused primarily on child protection, family reintegration and family strengthening. Throughout her career, she has led several policy initiatives and campaigns focused on family strengthening in the best interest of the child. She lives in the United States near Catholic Relief Services’ headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.

As the senior program manager for Faith Engagement for Changing the Way We Care, Mary Beth Iduh brings over 15 years of Catholic international development experience to the role. Mary Beth is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive global engagement strategy with faith-based audiences and actors, beginning with the U.S. Catholic Church, as well as supporting CTWWC’s faith-based partnerships. Mary Beth joined Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in 2008, first working in Africa and South America in the areas of orphans and vulnerable children, HIV & AIDS, human trafficking/refugees and economic strengthening, followed by regional and national representational roles focused on deepening global discipleship and solidarity within U.S. Catholic organizations, dioceses, universities, seminaries and other communities. Since 2007, Mary Beth has served on the Board of Directors of the Farm of the Child USA, which supports a Catholic center of protection for children in Honduras where she previously was a lay missionary. She is active in her community and parish and was selected for the inaugural cohort of interfaith Imagining Justice in Baltimore community leaders in 2016. Mary Beth has an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame and dual-Masters degrees in Pastoral Ministry & Global Macro Social Work from Boston College. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and two young children.

Timon Mainga is the project director for Changing the Way We Care Kenya. His role provides leadership to the Changing The Way We Care Kenya team, building partnerships and collaboration within and outside the initiative. Timon has over 20 years of experience working in integrated vulnerable children and HIV programs, while empowering poor and vulnerable communities. He has vast experience and knowledge on safeguarding, education and social protection programs that focus on empowering vulnerable populations. His skills, knowledge and years of experience spread across diverse scenarios in the development sector coupled with technical and managerial experience working with and across divergent teams to achieve optimal project results. He has a deep understanding of the diverse cultures, political and socio-economic dynamics of Kenya, East Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Joanna Wakia is the senior MEAL advisor for Changing the Way We Care. Joanna coordinates CTWWC’s monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) activities across the global initiative, working with the MEAL team. She has 15 years’ experience developing and leading monitoring, evaluation and research work focused on child protection, family reintegration and family strengthening. Joanna is committed to pioneering child-focused monitoring approaches which bring out children’s and caregivers’ experiences. She has led evaluations and research studies which focus on the complexities of family-child separation, with an emphasis on participatory approaches which place children at the center of evidence-building, while balancing robust but accessible methodologies. Joanna lives in Kenya.