Dr. Martie Gillen
Dr. Gillen is a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Practitioner and an Accredited Financial Counselor. She has a 25% Extension appointment and provides leadership for Extension programming related to trauma informed care as well as family and consumer economics.
Dr. Gillen offers in-service trainings for Extension staff and faculty on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), trauma and the brain, trauma and decision-making, and trauma informed approaches for working with adults and children including the use of TBRI. She also consults on existing Extension programs to apply a trauma informed lens by suggesting program adaptions as needed. She offers educational programs to the public on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), building resiliency by increasing protective factors, brain development across the lifecycle, child development and parenting, trauma and decision-making over the lifecycle, and trauma informed classrooms for public and private schools and daycares. She is currently working with a team of Extension educators to adapt TBRI for Extension programming that will be available for county faculty use.
Her family and consumer economics Extension programming includes educating foster and adoptive families on the adoption tax credit and claiming a foster child as a dependent. As of 2021, this resulted in an estimated amount totaling over $100,000 in tax savings to Florida families. She also provides leadership to the Women and Money: Unique Issues Extension program with new modules released in 2021 focused on difficult financial times such as the pandemic.
Dr. Gillen also leads the Military Family Learning Network Personal Finance concentration area. The Personal Finance concentration area seeks to strengthen and build the financial management capability and education of Personal Financial Managers (PFMs) and Cooperative Extension educators who work with military service members and families.