board of directors

President

Munir Sewani, PhD
Department of State Hospitals
Riverside, CA

Munir A. Sewani, PhD., is a Consulting Psychologist of the forensic Conditional Release Program (CONREP) of California, where he is responsible for providing clinical and administrative support and consultation to outpatient conditional release programs primarily in Southern California.  Within California Department of State Hospitals, CONREP provides community-based treatment and supervision of individuals determined by the courts to be Incompetent to Stand Trial, Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, or a Mentally Disordered Offender.    Dr Sewani has worked  as forensic coordinator of San Bernardino/Riverside CONREP for 17 years and 20 years for San Bernardino County Behavioral Health as a clinician and supervisor for the inpatient psychiatric unit.  He briefly worked at California Department of Corrections and Patton State Hospital before taking his current position with SDH in December 2010.   Dr. Sewani has served on the Forensic Mental Health Association of California’s Board of Directors since 2005.

Vice President

David Meyer, Esq
Institute of Psychiatry, Law and Behavioral Sciences University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine
Los Angeles, CA

David Meyer is a Clinical Professor and Research Scholar at the Institute of Psychiatry, Law and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine where he is responsible for the criminal law and mental health law curricula. Mr. Meyer also provides consultation services on the legal aspects of mental health care as well as technical assistance to indigent defense providers on behalf of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. He previously served as Chief Deputy Director and Counsel of the Los Angeles County (LAC) Department of Mental Health, as Director of the LAC Department of Community and Senior Affairs, and as Interim Public Defender and Chief Deputy Director of the LAC Public Defender. Mr. Meyer is an attorney, having practiced mental health law and criminal defense for more than 20 years. He obtained his B.A. degree at the University of Southern California and his J.D. degree from the University of California (Los Angeles) School of Law.
Mr. Meyer currently serves on the California Council on Mentally Ill Offenders, the California Judicial Counsel Task Force for Criminal Justice Collaboration on Mental Health Issues and on the Executive Steering Committee for the California Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction Act. He is also a member of the American Bar Association and its sections on Criminal Justice and Health Care Law, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the American Health Lawyer’s Association.

Vice President-Elect

Erin Alexander, Esq
Office of the Public Defender
San Bernardino County, CA

Treasurer

Douglas Taylor Smith, LCSW
CONREP
San Diego, CA

Doug Smith is currently the Community Program Director for the San Diego County Forensic Conditional Release Program (CONREP).  He has been involved with Forensic Mental Health since 1988.  He previously held the position of Secretary for the FMHAC from 1996 to 2000.
Prior to his career in Forensics, he worked in drug and alcohol treatment and therapeutic foster care services.  He began his career in Human Services in 1973 when he was a volunteer at The HELP Center, a student run crisis intervention agency on the campus of San Diego State University during his undergraduate years.  Doug quips that he has been at this “…way too long…”
He is married and has a 24 year step daughter, Kory, who is pursuing her graduate degree in Art Administration at Boston University.  His wife, Kay, is the director of Employment Services in San Diego, a program that prepare folks with mental illness for competitive employment.
Doug is a huge history, sports, and film buff.  He is anxiously awaiting retirement, so he can take advantage of the senior discount at the local cinema.

Treasurer-Elect

Kevin Rice, LCSW
Liberty Healthcare Corp -
Restoration of Competency (ROC) Program
Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Secretary

Cynthia Lermond, PsyD
Gateways Hospital
Los Angeles, CA

Cynthia Lermond is a licensed Clinical Psychologist whose career has focused in the area of forensic psychology.  From 2004 to 2007, she lead a pilot program at Pacific Clinics, which provided intensive forensic outpatient treatment to individuals referred through the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Court Program.  In 2007, she assumed the position of Evaluation Manager for the Gateways Hospital Conditional Release Program (CONREP) in Los Angeles.  In this role, Dr. Lermond directed the forensic evaluations of over 600 patients in the state hospitals, provided expert witness testimony, and acted as a liaison to the state hospitals and CONREP Operations.  In 2008, she was promoted to Clinical Director, a position she continues to hold.  As Clinical Director, Dr. Lermond oversees the Forensic Evaluation Unit and provides clinical consultation and training to Gateways CONREP’s three forensic outpatient programs which render court directed treatment and supervision to over 100 individuals in the community. She also continues to conduct a variety of forensic evaluations, provides expert witness court testimony, and co-facilitates the treatment group for PC 290 registrants/sex offenders.  In addition to her work at Gateways CONREP, Dr. Lermond has a small private practice in the Los Angeles area where she provides individual therapy to adults struggling with depression, anxiety, grief, childhood trauma, and relationship issues.

Director of Conference

Jane Lovelle, LCSW
Jail Psychiatric Services
San Francisco, CA

Director of Education

Kelly Ross, LCSW
Department of Veterans Affairs
Loma Linda, CA

Kelly Ross is a Social Worker in the Behavioral Health Interdisciplinary Program for the VA Loma Linda Healthcare System, which provides services to veterans in the Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. Within this system, she provides individual and group therapy and encounters veterans mandated to receive mental health treatment as part of Veterans Treatment Court. She was previously employed at Patton State Hospital, a 1,500 bed maximum-security forensic mental hospital under the California Department of State Hospitals, where she worked in various roles, including as a Clinical Social Worker on the psychologically-fragile unit, as a Discharge Coordinator, and as the CONREP Liaison. While completing her Masters Degree in Social Work at UCLA, Kelly assisted with a faculty research study of discharge needs for incarcerated adolescents in which she interviewed female adolescents incarcerated in the Los Angeles County Detention Camp system. She has previous volunteer experience with New Connections: Choices, an out-patient substance abuse treatment program associated with the Contra Costa County Juvenile Drug Court, and as a mentor for foster youth with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. Kelly received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology, with Highest Honors, from UC Berkeley and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the national academic honor society.