Regina M. Huerter, MA

Regina “Regi” Huerter joined Policy Research Associates, Inc. in 2017 as Senior Project Associate to provide training and technical assistance to counties engaged in the MacArthur Safety and Justice Challenge and in particular, those addressing the intersection of behavioral health and justice. Prior to joining PRA, she was the Executive Director of the Denver Office of Behavioral Health Strategies and Crime Prevention and Control Commission.  Before moving to Denver in 1982, Regina was raised in Greeley, Colorado where she began her work with youth in 1978 as a counselor in residential facilities and volunteered for Partners, a youth mentoring organization, and in the fields of domestic violence, rape awareness and suicide intervention. She moved to work for Metro Denver Partners where she developed adult mentor screening tools and created special programs for young women. In 1991, she was part of creating the Gang Rescue and Support Program known as GRASP which was adopted by the Metro Denver Partners Board before she left to join the Denver District Attorney’s Office in 1993, where she created and ran the Juvenile Diversion Program. In addition to working for Partners, she personally mentored 20 young people, more than half of whom she is still in contact with. After more than a decade at the DA office, she left to be the CEO for Urban Peak, a youth focused homeless housing and intervention program.  She was called back the City in 2005 to start up the Crime Prevention and Control Commission, which is now under the Office of Behavioral Health Strategies which she helped set up and began overseeing in July 2015.

Ms. Huerter holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado and a Master’s degree in Counseling from the University of Colorado. Regina in known nationally for her expertise in creating justice-system change, in particular behavioral health and trauma informed practices, and gangs and youth subcultures. Regina works as adjunct faculty for Metropolitan State University of Denver. She served on Colorado’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Commission and currently sits on the Governor’s Behavior Health Transformation Council. Regina is the recipient of several awards, including those she is most proud of — the 9 News “9 Who Care” and 2008 NAMI Colorado “Heroes in the Fight” — for advocacy and creating changes in the mental health/criminal justice system.