Paper Boat is written and maintained by Patricia Miles and John Franz.  We operate independent consulting practices, but are long-term colleagues who share a common approach in our work with agencies and communities that are interested in large-scale implementation of integrated, strength-based, consumer-driven systems of care.  

Patricia Miles lives in Gresham, Oregon and has been involved in a variety of community development and human service enterprises including starting a battered women’s shelter, running a youth employment program, directing a residential treatment center that turned itself inside out to do community-based work, and managing the start-up of a large scale implementation of wraparound in Columbus, Ohio. She is the co-author of many of the articles that have appeared on this website over the years, has been a leader in developing a consistent and reproducible model for strength-based, needs-driven facilitation of child and family teams, and has developed the Directive Supervision model for practical and effective integration of human resources, staff development, and staff supervision in human service agencies.

John Franz lives in Madison, Wisconsin and was a regular and special education teacher who became an attorney and legal advocate for children and families with special needs. He has helped develop legislation, administrative rules, and policy and training materials to support organizational change in our mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, developmental disabilities, education and maternal and children’s health systems. For the past 12 years he has assisted agencies and communities around the country in their efforts to design and implement new systems of care.  

In addition, Paper Boat benefits from the contributions of several of our colleagues, in particular this includes:

Jim Moeser, who is the deputy director of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families,  former administrator of the Dane County Juvenile Court in Madison and who was also been the director of Wisconsin’s Juvenile Correctional System.  He is the author of “The Elephant and Hummingbird” which can be found in our Article Archive.  A great trainer and coalition builder, he has a deep commitment to and a thorough understanding of the Restorative Justice approach to assisting delinquent youth.

Neil Brown, who lives in Columbus, Ohio and has worked at every level in child and family services, from direct services to administration.  Neil currently provides ongoing, hands-on consultation specifically related to helping staff develop and use consistent and effective skills in providing family-centered, strength-based assistance.