Dennette M. Derezotes, MSW, LCSW has over 20 years of child welfare experience working with children and families in direct care; therapeutic services; administration; training; program development and evaluation; community advocacy and collaboration;
agency consultation; and research. She is the founding Executive Director of the Race Matters Consortium @ Westat, a national multi-system initiative that promotes strategies that prevent, intervene in, and eliminate adverse racial disproportionality and disparities in the child welfare system. Its members comprise a national think tank of concerned experts in research, social work practice, public policy, and philanthropy who critically examine the issues related to racial and ethnic disparities and influence policy and practice through education and consultation.

Ms. Derezotes currently travels the country addressing issues of racial disproportionality to numerous audiences. She is an author of and first editor of the book, Race Matters in Child Welfare: Examining the
Overrepresentation of African Americans in the Child Welfare System, published through the Child Welfare League of America in March, 2005.