Our Team
Diverse strengths and wide ranging expertise
James White is the Chair/CEO of Faith Partners Inc and served as President /CEO of the Johnson Institute prior to transitioning to this position. A leading political and community figure in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rev. Dr. White is an Ordained Christian Minister and veteran addictions recovery counselor who established the Imani House residential treatment center in 1990. He was elected and served three (4 year) terms as Milwaukee County Supervisor from 1996 to 2008. White helped co-found Faith Partners in 1995, serving on the board for several years. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he organized community coalitions and initiatives in substance abuse prevention and treatment from 1985 to 1996, including working as a Media & Policy Analyst with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Fighting Back Initiative, and becoming a national Join Together Fellow. He was chairman and executive director of the Milwaukee Coalition Against Drug and Alcohol Abuse, and founded the Milwaukee Tobacco Free Task Force.
Trish Merrill is the Director of Faith Partners Inc. A nurse with extensive experience in linking alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment field with the religious community, Merrill developed the Faith Partners team ministry approach for congregations now used in twenty plus states. She authored the manual, “Building a Team Ministry: A Congregational Approach to Substance Abuse,” following a five-year statewide educational program she designed for the Texas Conference of Churches – a program that received a National Council of Churches award in 1994. A life-long United Methodist and widow of a United Methodist pastor, Merrill is a founder of Faith Partners.
Drew Brooks is the Project Manager of Faith Partners Inc. He was the Faith Partners Minnesota Area Coordinator overseeing 25-30 Congregational Teams and congregational team facilitator at his home church. He has been active in the church all his life involved in youth, peer, and small group ministry. He has worked in prevention and treatment for the Hazelden Treatment Center and over twenty five years in the alcohol and other drug field providing training and technical assistance with faith communities, schools, and community organizations across the country. He has worked as a prevention specialist with key community groups to focus on community asset-building and prevention strategies for underage drinking and marijuana use. He has co-authored three curricula on stress management strategies, raising resilient children, and group facilitation skills.
Mindy Agler is the Project Coordinator for the Faith Partners Jewish Congregational project, Tzevet T’shuvah. Mindy has 5 years experience working with alcoholics and other addicts and their families in an inpatient treatment setting in Boca Raton, FL as well as a private practice specializing in addictions and recovery counseling and the family system. She brings personal experience and understanding of addiction to her work as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. Mindy and her husband, Rabbi Richard Agler have been instrumental in helping their congregation become more open to acknowledging and addressing the issue of addiction in order to better serve its member families. Mindy has presented educational and prevention material at youth retreats in her synagogue, as well as guided the Rabbinic staff in incorporating supportive language into the liturgy for people suffering with addiction and for their families.
Jan Tipton is a Certified Prevention Specialist and has been involved with substance abuse prevention since 1990 as the Director of Training and Prevention at Gateway to Prevention and Recovery in Shawnee, Oklahoma> She is also the Oklahoma Area Co-coordinator and an Associate Trainer for Faith Partners, Inc. She is a member of Shawnee Asset Building Alliance, which is a community coalition that she helped mobilize in 2000At present, she teaches 11th and 12th grade Sunday school at First Baptist Church, Shawnee, where she serves on the Prevention and Recovery Ministry Team (a Faith Partner team).
Faith Partners Associate Trainers
Nineteen individuals have begun the training of trainers’ process which includes both an educational and experiential component with varying levels of capacity and availability. This group of trainers is diverse in gender, race and faith tradition including Pentecostal, Jewish, Lutheran, Non denominational, Catholic, Episcopal, and United Methodist. We continue to recruit and expand this cadre of trainers.
