Dylan Ward

MFT Trainee

Sexual and Gender Identities Clinic, Palo Alto University

Mountain View, CA

• Run intake assessments for new clients using the DASS-21 and OQ-45, see individual clients, and write the progress note for each session under two licensed psychologists.
• Train and practice in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Intake Specialist and Residential Counselor

PRC Baker Places

San Francisco, CA

• Ran intake for four residential houses: 32–48 assessments a month, mostly at jails and hospitals, administering ANSA, AOA-07, SDOH, MSE, and ACE assessments, each written into a treatment plan.
• Digitized intake and referral tracking. Average bed utilization rose from 62% to over 78%.
• Replaced a fax-based referral process across four houses, partner jails, and SF DPH with a digital workflow: online forms, Teams routing, and the agency’s referral database, which I extended to carry it. Placements got 25–50% faster and missed referrals dropped to near zero.
• Rebuilt the bed census as a forecast: stays bucketed at 45, 90, and 120 days, joined to clearance and authorization records so each referral showed what was still missing. Refreshed daily and read by the CEO, clinical leadership, and SF DPH.
• Turned Medi-Cal medical-necessity rules into criteria and templates clinicians could apply, audited against them, and fixed what failed. No client of mine went unbilled for want of documentation.
• Served as the site’s Epic resource: wrote its template and SmartPhrase library and trained three clinicians on documentation workflows.

Harm Reduction Program Lead

BAAAHS and related events

San Francisco, CA / festival sites

• Designed the harm-reduction program for a queer arts community’s festivals of 200–800 people, and trained the volunteers who run it.
• Wrote the five-tier escalation protocol the team works from, from disoriented-but-well to a 911 call, each tier with a defined response and handoff. It narrowed what volunteers had to carry: stabilize and route, not fix.

Onsite Outreach & Care Coordinator

Lifelong AIDS Alliance

Seattle, WA

• Ran late-night HIV/STI prevention outreach in bathhouses and bars, made referrals to testing, housing, and support services, and logged venue data for Public Health – Seattle & King County surveillance.

Senior Project Manager, Edelman DxI and Jump450 Media (New York, 2020–2022). See project management.