Who We Are

Direc­tor, Butte Coun­ty Depart­ment of Employ­ment and Social Services

Ms. Boston began her social ser­vices career with Butte Coun­ty in 1998 as a child pro­tec­tive ser­vices social work­er. Over the past two decades she has held numer­ous lead­er­ship posi­tions includ­ing Assis­tant Direc­tor of Adult and Children’s Ser­vices with­in DESS. Through­out her career Shel­by has worked dili­gent­ly to devel­op and imple­ment pro­grams that meet the needs of the com­mu­ni­ties’ most vul­ner­a­ble and at risk families.

While work­ing as a social work­er, she devel­oped an inter­ac­tive par­ent edu­ca­tion pro­gram which was lat­er suc­cess­ful­ly fund­ed and imple­ment­ed in Butte Coun­ty. In addi­tion, under Shelby’s lead­er­ship, DESS has imple­ment­ed numer­ous inno­v­a­tive ser­vice mod­els and strength­ened col­lab­o­ra­tions through­out Butte Coun­ty. Dur­ing times of dis­as­ters Shel­by has worked to advo­cate for the needs of all of Butte County’s res­i­dents includ­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble 0 – 5 aged children.

Shel­by received her Bachelor’s degree in Health Sci­ence and a Master’s of Social Work from CSU Chico.

Assis­tant Direc­tor, Butte Coun­ty Pub­lic Health

DeAnne Blanken­ship cur­rent­ly serves as the Assis­tant Direc­tor at Butte Coun­ty Pub­lic Health. Pri­or to join­ing the health depart­ment, DeAnne con­tributed 30 years to expand­ing com­mu­ni­ty health through non-prof­it work in edu­ca­tion and lead­er­ship with the Amer­i­can Lung Asso­ci­a­tion and the Cal­i­for­nia Health Col­lab­o­ra­tive, both statewide non-prof­its with offices in Chico. She has exper­tise in mater­nal men­tal health, adverse child­hood expe­ri­ences (ACEs), tobac­co and can­cer edu­ca­tion, senior ser­vices, Medi-Cal expan­sion, health advo­ca­cy and orga­ni­za­tion­al leadership. 

DeAnne is proud to sup­port com­mu­ni­ty health and well­ness in her cur­rent posi­tions with Pub­lic Health and First 5. She is also the proud par­ent of two young adult chil­dren, and believes we all need to con­tribute to and sup­port our vil­lages to raise the next generation. 

DeAnne holds a Bach­e­lor Degree in Com­mu­ni­ty Health from CSU, Chico and a Mas­ter Degree from CSU, San Jose in Pub­lic Health. 

Pro­fes­sor, Butte Col­lege, Edu­ca­tion, Child and Fam­i­ly Stud­ies Department

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Empa­thy Therapy

Dr. Shaun-Adrián Choflá is a full-time fac­ul­ty mem­ber at Butte Col­lege with a back­ground in ear­ly learn­ing, ear­ly inter­ven­tion, anti-bias edu­ca­tion, and lifes­pan devel­op­ment. He serves as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at Empa­thy Ther­a­py, a coun­sel­ing and psy­chi­a­try men­tal health prac­tice serv­ing patients of all ages. A wide range of per­son­al life chal­lenges brought Dr. Choflá to the field of ear­ly care and edu­ca­tion first to under­stand him­self and then lat­er to sup­port oth­ers on their paths.

Dr. Choflá feels con­sid­er­able pride in hav­ing received sev­er­al teach­ing awards, includ­ing the 2019 teacher of the year and the 2018 Butte Col­lege Rotary Edu­ca­tor of the Year. He earned a doc­tor­ate in edu­ca­tion and a master’s degree in human devel­op­ment. Before teach­ing at Butte Col­lege, he served on the fac­ul­ty at Pacif­ic Oaks Col­lege and The Nation­al His­pan­ic Uni­ver­si­ty.

Through the sup­port of oth­ers, Dr. Choflá found his voice and nav­i­gat­ed through a range of per­son­al life strug­gles and now specif­i­cal­ly works as a teacher and com­mu­ni­ty leader to cre­ate mean­ing­ful change. Whether in the class­room or the board­room, he leads through a lens of pos­i­tive social trans­for­ma­tion to thought­ful­ly sup­port the suc­cess of all chil­dren and families.

Dr. Choflá lives in Chico with his hus­band and their pup. The three of them can be found most week­ends explor­ing the beau­ti­ful out­doors of the local area.

Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Chico State Uni­ver­si­ty, Child Devel­op­ment Department

Dr. Shel­ley R. Hart has been full-time fac­ul­ty in the Depart­ment of Child Devel­op­ment at Chico State since 2014 and a Research Asso­ciate in the Bloomberg School of Pub­lic Health, Depart­ment of Men­tal Health at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty since 2013. She stays for­mal­ly active in the com­mu­ni­ty as a Com­mis­sion­er for both the First Five Butte Coun­ty Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies Com­mis­sion and the Juve­nile Jus­tice Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion Com­mis­sion and infor­mal­ly with mul­ti­ple orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives, such as an Adverse Child­hood Expe­ri­ences (ACEs) NEAR Sci­ence Edu­ca­tor with North Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion (NVCF).

A Par­adise-native, Dr. Hart attend­ed Butte Col­lege as a young, sin­gle moth­er. Sub­se­quent edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties led her to places like San­ta Cruz (UCSC; Bach­e­lor of the Arts), the Davis-area (CSU, Sacra­men­to; Mas­ter of the Arts), San­ta Bar­bara (UCSB, PhD), and Bal­ti­more (Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty; NIMH Post­doc­tor­al Fel­low­ship). Her roots remained deep in the area with fam­i­ly and close friends and despite won­der­ful expe­ri­ences in these oth­er places, when the posi­tion at Chico State became avail­able, she jumped at the chance to move ​“home”.

Dr. Hart is a nation­al­ly cer­ti­fied school psy­chol­o­gist with a num­ber of years pro­vid­ing direct ser­vice in the schools. She also has over 15 years of expe­ri­ence in the men­tal health are­na work­ing with severe­ly impaired indi­vid­u­als in psy­chi­atric facil­i­ties or tran­si­tion­ing back into the com­mu­ni­ty. Her desire to inter­vene ear­li­er in the pro­gres­sion of men­tal health chal­lenges and her per­son­al expe­ri­ences with depres­sion (par­tic­u­lar­ly post­par­tum depres­sion) have strong­ly influ­enced her schol­ar­ly and ser­vice interests.

Along with her hus­band and dogs, Dr. Hart spends as much time with fam­i­ly — includ­ing a grand­son — and friends as pos­si­ble. They are often eat­ing out at one of the many great restau­rants in town, enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful out­doors local­ly, or bar­be­quing at someone’s house. How­ev­er, she also par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoys those rare occa­sions when she is able to stay home and just relax.

Direc­tor, Butte Coun­ty Depart­ment of Behav­ioral Health

Scott Ken­nel­ly, a licensed clin­i­cal social work­er, serves as the Direc­tor at Butte Coun­ty Behav­ioral Health. Scott cur­rent­ly plans, orga­nizes and directs the oper­a­tions of the county’s behav­ioral health and sub­stance use ser­vices. He began his career with Butte Coun­ty in 2000 as a care provider and has steadi­ly expand­ed his areas of over­sight and exper­tise over the past twen­ty-one years with Butte County.

Over­all, Scott has thir­ty years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in the men­tal health field. He has worked in a vari­ety of set­tings includ­ing in group homes, day treat­ment pro­grams, youth school-based coun­sel­ing pro­grams, and out­pa­tient ser­vices. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psy­chol­o­gy from Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Cruz, and a master’s degree in social work from San José State University.

Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Chico State Uni­ver­si­ty, Nurs­ing Department

Dr. Hol­ly Kralj is hon­ored to join the impor­tant work of the Butte First 5 Com­mis­sion. She is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of nurs­ing at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Chico (CSUC), with a spe­cial­ty in maternal/​child nurs­ing and pub­lic health. She is also a cer­ti­fied nurse-mid­wife and women’s health nurse prac­ti­tion­er with Enloe Hos­pi­tal. Hol­ly holds a Bach­e­lor of Arts in reli­gious stud­ies from CSUC and com­plet­ed her bachelor’s in nurs­ing in 1998. Hol­ly com­plet­ed her master’s in nurs­ing and mid­wifery at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co in 2001, and com­plet­ed her Doc­tor­ate of Nurs­ing Prac­tice at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii, Manoa, in 2014. She was the recip­i­ent of the Dean’s Research Award for her doc­tor­al work, Cre­at­ing Path­ways of Care, which focused on increas­ing com­mu­ni­ty screen­ing and treat­ment of peri­na­tal mood and anx­i­ety disorders.

Hol­ly has worked exten­sive­ly in Butte Coun­ty as a cer­ti­fied nurse-mid­wife and women’s health nurse prac­ti­tion­er. She is cer­ti­fied as a lac­ta­tion con­sul­tant and has giv­en numer­ous pre­sen­ta­tions on peri­na­tal mood and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders and best prac­tices for sup­port­ing the breast­feed­ing dyad. She is a mem­ber of the steer­ing com­mit­tee for the Moth­ers Strong Col­lab­o­ra­tive and has worked dili­gent­ly with­in the com­mu­ni­ty to increase access to safe and com­pas­sion­ate care for women and fam­i­lies. She also has had the joy of being an Options for Recov­ery fos­ter mother.

Hol­ly is the proud moth­er of two grown sons and two young daugh­ters. She believes that sup­port­ing the care and devel­op­ment of chil­dren and fam­i­lies is the most impor­tant work one can do.

School and Com­mu­ni­ty Well­ness Advi­sor, Butte Coun­ty Office of Education

Matt Red­dam is a licensed ther­a­pist and cur­rent School and Com­mu­ni­ty Well­ness Advi­sor for the Butte Coun­ty Office of Edu­ca­tion. The for­mer Pol­i­cy and Prac­tice Coor­di­na­tor for Trau­ma Trans­formed Bay Area, Matt is rec­og­nized as a region­al expert in trau­mat­ic stress and an advo­cate for mar­gin­al­ized and his­tor­i­cal­ly sub­ju­gat­ed pop­u­la­tions. Begin­ning his career as a ther­a­pist, Matt quick­ly found that sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ties often pathol­o­gized children’s attempts to sur­vive, lead­ing to mis­di­ag­no­sis, mar­gin­al­iza­tion, and the rob­bery of resilience. This led him to shift his work from indi­vid­ual treat­ment to the con­sul­ta­tion and train­ing of large systems.

As a sur­vivor of com­plex trau­ma, a stu­dent of racial jus­tice, and a father, Matt con­tin­ues to walk the line of learn­er, expert, and fierce advo­cate. After the Camp Fire in 2018, Matt began work­ing pri­mar­i­ly with­in Butte Coun­ty, and con­tin­ues to sup­port the health and well­ness of the com­mu­ni­ty of Par­adise. Matt believes that true sys­temic and com­mu­ni­ty change comes from dis­com­fort, rela­tion­ship, and unflinch­ing self-reflection.

Matt lives in Chico with his part­ner and two chil­dren, Liam and Caleb, his liv­ing exam­ples of resilience and hope.

Super­vi­sor, Butte Coun­ty Board of Super­vi­sors, Dis­trict 3

Tami Rit­ter serves as a Butte Coun­ty super­vi­sor for Dis­trict 3. She for­mer­ly served on the Chico City Coun­cil from 2012 – 2016.

As a pro­fes­sion­al medi­a­tor, Tami has worked exten­sive­ly with fam­i­lies and non­prof­its, help­ing to resolve con­flict, to con­nect peo­ple with avail­able com­mu­ni­ty resources, and to address struc­tur­al inequities.

Tami holds two master’s degrees: one in devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy and anoth­er in restora­tive jus­tice. She is the found­ing exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Tor­res Com­mu­ni­ty Shel­ter and the for­mer direc­tor of Glenn Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Fam­i­ly Court Ser­vices and has more than twen­ty 20 years’ expe­ri­ence in social ser­vices. Tami is a train­er for the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Restora­tive Prac­tices and for Nur­tured Heart Approach.

She is invest­ed in see­ing Butte Coun­ty devel­op in a thought­ful and strate­gic man­ner in which we pro­tect our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, address the high inci­dence of Adverse Child­hood Expe­ri­ences, and ensure the well-being of future Butte Coun­ty residents.

As a coun­ty super­vi­sor, she con­tin­ues to embrace the same fis­cal­ly pru­dent val­ues: to work dili­gent­ly to pro­tect the North State’s water inter­ests and our valu­able agri­cul­tur­al land; to increase col­lab­o­ra­tion between coun­ty and city gov­ern­ments in order to address our hous­ing cri­sis, men­tal health ser­vice gaps, emer­gency pre­pared­ness; and to sup­port respon­si­ble and sus­tain­able development.

Dr. Romy Kullar is a Child and Ado­les­cent Psy­chi­a­trist. She grew up in Gri­d­ley on a kiwi and wal­nut farm. After com­plet­ing her under­grad­u­ate degree in Nutri­tion Sci­ence at UC Davis, Romy went on to earn her med­ical degree from the West­ern Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sci­ences, Col­lege of Osteo­path­ic Med­i­cine of the Pacif­ic-North­west. She then com­plet­ed her gen­er­al psy­chi­a­try res­i­den­cy in Baton Rouge through Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty. While there, she served as the Co-Chief Res­i­dent and researched the rela­tion­ship between the gut micro­bio­me and antipsy­chotics. She round­ed out her train­ing by com­plet­ing a Child and Ado­les­cent Psy­chi­a­try fel­low­ship at Doern­bech­er Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal in Port­land, OR before return­ing to Butte Coun­ty in July 2021. Since then, Romy has prac­ticed in Chico, Red Bluff, and Red­ding pro­vid­ing care to chil­dren, ado­les­cents, tran­si­tion­al age youth, adults and fam­i­lies in the North State area. Although treat­ment has its role, Romy val­ues pre­ven­tion and, thus, is very excit­ed to be a part of the Com­mis­sion and be more involved in upstream efforts. 

Paul Arnold’s career in edu­ca­tion spans a remark­able 38 years, char­ac­ter­ized by a jour­ney from a high school Eng­lish teacher and coach to a ded­i­cat­ed school admin­is­tra­tor. He spent 11 years in the class­room and 27 years in school lead­er­ship, includ­ing 8 years as the Prin­ci­pal of Durham High School and 8 years as the Superintendent/​Principal at Ban­gor Union Ele­men­tary, where he made a last­ing impact.

Paul earned a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Eng­lish with a minor in Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion from Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty. Lat­er, he com­plet­ed his edu­ca­tion with a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Coun­sel­ing Psy­chol­o­gy. His cre­den­tials include cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in sec­ondary teach­ing, coun­sel­ing, and administration.

Dur­ing his lat­er years in edu­ca­tion, Paul worked in ele­men­tary and mid­dle schools, gain­ing a pro­found appre­ci­a­tion for ear­ly inter­ven­tions. He secured a grant from First Five to estab­lish a preschool pro­gram in south­ern Butte Coun­ty, rein­forc­ing his com­mit­ment to nur­tur­ing young minds.

Paul’s life took a sig­nif­i­cant turn as he faced the chal­lenges of the Camp Fire dis­as­ter while resid­ing in Par­adise. Today, he resides in Chico and draws strength from his fam­i­ly, includ­ing his five chil­dren, six grand­chil­dren, and his loy­al com­pan­ions Deasy and Fiona. His expe­ri­ences as a sin­gle par­ent and sup­port­ing a daugh­ter through post­par­tum depres­sion have enriched his under­stand­ing of life’s trials.

In his retire­ment, Paul remains involved in edu­ca­tion by tak­ing on inter­im and sub­sti­tute school admin­is­tra­tive roles in Butte Coun­ty. He also ded­i­cates his time to sup­port­ing sur­vivors of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, engag­ing in polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, advo­cat­ing for pol­i­cy­hold­ers’ rights, and serv­ing as a ded­i­cat­ed Court Appoint­ed Spe­cial Advo­cate (CASA) for chil­dren in need. Paul’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence with child­hood trau­ma dri­ves his pas­sion for reach­ing and sup­port­ing chil­dren dur­ing their for­ma­tive years, mak­ing him a hum­ble advo­cate for ear­ly inter­ven­tion and com­mu­ni­ty resilience.