Gary Bess, PhD, holds two masters degrees in social work and applied sociology from Case Western Reserve University and Kent State University respectively, and a doctorate in social work from the University of Southern California (USC). He has taught in graduate schools of social work at UCLA, USC, and at California State University (CSU) in Long Beach and Chico.
For several years he directed free medical clinics in southern California, including the South Bay Free Clinic in Manhattan Beach and the Los Angeles Free Clinic. Since 1991, he has consulted with pubic and private community-based health and human services organizations, and with universities. As executive director, he expanded services while also diversifying funding streams. Dr. Bess has taught grant writing at UCLA and for the Southern California Center for Nonprofit Management. He has successfully written public and private proposals for funding.
In his position Dr. Bess served as evaluator for a three-year SAMHSA-funded Circles of Care planning grant for a Native American agency in northern California, ending in 2002. Since then has worked consulted with a national evaluation effort overseen by the Circles of Care Evaluation Technical Assistance Center at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. From this experience, he has co-authored two articles in American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research: Journal of the National Center on the life cycle of the evaluation process and on process evaluation among Native American communities.
Dr. Bess is also the evaluator for two longitudinal California Board of Corrections (BOC) funded projects in Butte County. The Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction Program is based on an experimental design in which outcome comparisons are made between mentally ill offenders that receive enhanced treatment services, including appearances in a Mental Health Court, and those receiving treatment-as-usual services. The other BOC evaluation involves an assessment of outcomes for probation-involved youth that receive services from five local providers that offer well-established models of care. Other evaluations include a California Department of Mental Health assessment of supportive housing services, a City of Santa Monica assessment of its Homeless Services Network, and a needs assessment of mental health services needs for the Eisner Pediatric & Family Medical Center, located in Downtown Los Angeles.