LifePortal has been endorsed by a wide variety of leading professionals in the education, mental health, and government sectors including:

 "We've already begun using the site with our students and have found it to be a very valuable tool. Finally, a site that organizes all the information young people need to become independent."

Margaret Lewis
EXCEL program at California State University, East Bay

"This is an amazing tool for youth and adults of all ages to be able to track down and utilize community resources and services!"

Kevin Bristow
Program Coordinator, Rennaisance Scholars Program

"One of our central objectives in serving Transitional Age Youth effectively is to make sure that these vulnerable youth, who so often try to make it all alone in this world, have the broadest possible range of assistance--including the support of other young people--and the fewest obstacles to accessing that assistance. LifePortal, under the leadership of David Young, will help our objective become reality, and we are delighted to support this exciting new website application. We already know that many of the young people we serve come to us by word of mouth referrals from other youth, and by referrals from other agencies in the community, and we expect that LifePortal will make it significantly easier for such connections to happen. We are constantly looking for new ways to encourage young people to take charge of their own futures, and with its innovative, interactive structure, LifePortal puts young people's hard-won experience and street-tested wisdom to constructive purpose. LifePortal is going to be a crucial tool for helping young people make it in the adult world."

John Steinfirst, LCSW
Past-President and CEO of Fred Finch Youth Center

LifePortal National Advisory Board
Catherine Wong, M.A.

Director, Urban Outreach Initiatives, Lynch School of Education, Boston College

Ms. Wong is the Director of Urban Outreach Initiatives at Boston College where she brings real world experience in urban educational settings to her shaping of future teachers. She has been a multicultural consultant who has trained and lectured before state, national and international audiences including Taiwan, China, the Middle East, North Africa, and Ireland. Ms. Wong provides interdisciplinary teams with the knowledge and skills to build coalitions that address the need to forge systematic and institutional change. She creates initiatives and leadership opportunities that honor and validate multiculturalism, anti racism, diversity and social justice within educational institutions, health care facilities, public television shows, textbook companies, human service agencies, community businesses and non-profit foundations.

She has been a faculty member in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology, Graduate College of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston where she served as the Director of the School Counseling Program.

Ms. Wong was raised on the Island of Oahu, Hawai'i and grew up with the dramatic storytelling of her great grandmothers and other extended family. Their varied voices instilled in her the importance and value of protecting and supporting the knowledge and practice of understanding others.

Hewitt B. "Rusty" Clark, PhD

Director of the National Center on Youth Transition for Behavioral Health

Dr. Hewitt B. Clark, best known as "Rusty," is the Director of the National Center on Youth Transition for Behavioral Health and is a Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Dr. Clark received his doctoral degree in Developmental and Child Psychology from the University of Kansas and came to the University of South Florida after directing a comprehensive mental health center for children and families in Nevada, where he was affiliated with the University of Nevada.

Dr. Clark has developed and researched various innovative programs and has published extensively, with 3 books and more than 110 publications to his credit. He is the lead-editor of the book entitled: Transition to Adulthood: A Resource for Assisting Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties. However, Dr. Clark was not about to write this book without the voice of youth. Thus, he arranged for young people to co-author each of the chapters. He and Dr. Deanne Unruh (Co-Editor) are currently preparing the second Transition to Adulthood book with young people and other professionals.

His research interests focus on evaluating the effectiveness of: 1) individualized planning and interventions for children and youth with emotional/behavioral difficulties and their biological/adoptive/foster families; and 2) preparation and facilitation of youth and young adults in their transition into employment, educational opportunities, and independent living. Dr. Clark is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and serves on various boards of editors for professional journals and consults nationally and internationally.

When Dr. Clark is not conducting research and workshops, teaching, consulting, or developing programs on his topics of professional interest, he enjoys his avocations of sailing the Gulf of Mexico and other seas and photographing wildlife.

Lisa Porche'-Burke, Ph.D.

Past-President and CEO of Phillips Graduate Institute

Dr. Porche'-Burke, has been the President and CEO of Phillips Graduate Institute and the California Family Counseling Center in Encino, California, is the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Notre Dame University. After receiving her doctorate, she embraced the concept of diversity and became passionately committed to developing educational programs and services for diverse and multicultural populations. She is known internationally as a leader, educator and expert on program development, multiculturalism, and recruitment and retention of students and faculty of color.

As an active member of her community, Dr. Porché-Burke recently served as President of Women Aware, Inc., a non-profit organization founded in 1985 by a group of concerned professional black women who are committed to providing community service and financial support to their surrounding community. Women Aware has been honored by the City of Los Angeles Commission for Children, Youth and their Families. She is currently on the Board of Directors of Holy Family Services Adoption and Foster Care Agency, which is a state licensed nonprofit, non-denominational agency that promotes quality family opportunities for children without regard to race, religion, sex or ethnic origin through counseling, education and continuing support activities. Dr. Porché-Burke also serves as President of the Board of Directors of TEAM Heal, Inc., which provides certified athletic trainers and comprehensive medical care to inner-city underserved high school student athletes. Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors of Millennium Momentum Foundation, which provides educational and professional development resources and programs that are not commonly available to young adults and minorities from various ethnic groups pursuing careers in these fields.