Renne Rodriguez, PhD, IMFT-S, LPCC-S, LICDC-CS

Director of Provider Professional Development
Center for Innovative Practices
Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences

Dr. Rodriguez (she/her) provides consultation and training to IHBT teams in Ohio that work with psychiatric acute and multi-system involved youth and their families. IHBT is a promising practice, and thrives in a community with several other home-based treatment practices and providers. In addition, she provides outpatient therapy at a private practice, taking a systemic approach to her work with families, couples, and individuals. She also delivers systemic supervision to clinical counselors, marriage and family therapists, and chemical dependency counselors.

Dr. Rodriguez provided consultation and training for 10 years to MST (Multisystemic Therapy) teams across Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and Maryland to successfully implement the practice in their communities. She also worked with community stakeholders, and supported the dissemination of MST programs. Her work with MST involved an intensive family and community-based treatment program that focuses on the entire world of chronic and violent juvenile offenders – their homes and families, schools and teachers, neighborhoods and friends. It is an evidence-based practice, and has had over 30 years of research and over 70 studies. Several organizations have verified MST as an evidence-based treatment including Blueprints for Violence Prevention, Office of the Surgeon General, Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, and SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP).

She has been providing outpatient therapy since 1999. Her educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Psychology, and a Master of Arts in Education degree in Clinical Counseling with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. She earned her Doctorate of Philosophy in Counselor Supervision and Education: Marriage and Family Therapy track from The University of Akron. She is also an AAMFT Approved Supervisor.

She has provided fidelity reviews for home-based teams across the state, and training at the college level regarding EBP’s, IHBT, and other promising practices. In addition, she is an adjunct professor at The University of Akon, and has taught clinical courses to master’s level graduate students in their School of Counseling. She has published several articles, and completed research on adherence and outcomes in IHBT programs.

Q: Why is your work at the Begun Center important to you, to our community, and to the world? It helps to give families the support they need to further their skills to keep their children at home. It also fosters resiliency and promotes family cohesion.

Q: What is a cause about which you are particularly passionate? Family therapy.

Awards and Honors

“Whatever It Takes” award in the MST Expert/Consultant category
2011

Publications

Dragomir, R.R. and Tadros, E. (2020 Jun). Exploring the Impacts of Racial Disparity Within the American Juvenile Justice System. Juvenile and Family Count Journal, 71:2, 61-73.

Katafiasz, H., Patton, R., Georke, J., Dragomir, R., and Fye, J. (2019). A Dyadic Examination of Individual Symptomology and Relational Functioning Within the Context of IPV. Contemporary Family Therapy.

Dragomir, R.R. Home-based family therapy: Bringing systemic change into the household. In Family Therapy Magazine. July/August 2019. The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. pp 18-22.