Yvette is a highly accomplished and visionary servant leader who has been part of the Devereux Arizona family for 21 years. Her extensive behavioral healthcare background, coupled with her unwavering commitment to advocating for our youth, make her perfectly aligned for this position.”

Devereux Arizona President/CEO Carl E. Clark said in a prepared statement.  

With campuses in Phoenix and Tucson, plus a Scottsdale-based residential treatment center, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health Arizona, recently named Yvette Jackson as the new executive director.

Noted among the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit providers of behavioral healthcare, Ms. Jackson, who previously served as Devereux Arizona’s assistant executive director, assumed her new role on Oct. 28, according to a press release.

The new executive director will oversee the care and treatment of more than 4,500 children and adolescents living with emotional, behavioral and cognitive differences.

She will also manage Devereux Arizona’s Adolescent Health and Wellness Clinic – a specialty outpatient clinic providing whole-person care to teens and young adults – based in Mesa.

She succeeds Lane Barker, who retired on Oct. 1, after more than 25 years of service to the organization, the release said.

“Yvette is a highly accomplished and visionary servant leader who has been part of the Devereux Arizona family for 21 years,” said Devereux Arizona President/CEO Carl E. Clark in a prepared statement.  

“Her extensive behavioral healthcare background, coupled with her unwavering commitment to advocating for our youth, make her perfectly aligned for this position.”

Ms. Jackson was instrumental in Devereux Arizona’s partnership with the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights and advocacy organization, when the center earned the “HRC All Children – All Families Seal of Recognition” in 2012.

The All Children – All Families initiative provides a comprehensive framework for agencies to establish policies and practices to welcome, support and affirm LGBTQ foster and adoptive parents, noted the release adding that Devereux Arizona achieved the 2019 HRC “Innovator” seal, which is the highest level, for implementing innovative approaches to LGBTQ inclusion in various areas.

Ms. Jackson has 21-years experience in the child and adolescent behavioral healthcare field. She joined Devereux Arizona in 1998 as a foster parent recruiter/trainer and, in 2002, was promoted to program manager of foster care services.

In 2003, she became director of community-based services and, six years later, was promoted to Devereux Arizona assistant executive director in which she helped manage programs and services that provide “hope and healing” for the children and adolescents in Devereux’s care.

She also managed approximately 400 employees statewide, and oversaw coaching and mentoring the center’s leadership team, according to the release.

Ms. Jackson currently chairs Devereux’s national LGBTQ+ affinity group. She has a bachelor of arts in sociology from the University of Arizona, and a master of social work and doctor of behavioral health from Arizona State University.

She received the 2015 “Leadership in LGBTQ Health Care Award” from the Behavioral Health Coalition of Southern Arizona and the LGBT Consortium, and the 2015 “Weaver E. Falberg Leadership Promise Fellowship Award” from Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health.

An Arizona State University faculty associate, Ms. Jackson instructs graduate-level students in social work, said the release.

She is a board member of the Tucson LGBT Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and has served on the boards of the Wingspan LGBTQ Community Center; the Tucson Centers for Women and Children (renamed: Emerge); and Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona.

Also, she has served as a national trainer for the Human Rights Campaign, the release added.