About Karl Dennis

About Karl Dennis

Karl Dennis is a youth worker, a teacher, and a cultivator of strengths. His profound reputation is based on a fundamental principle which he brought to life and seeded; that children can best be served in their families, in their communities; that the assets and strengths of their situation are best known to those closest to the child – and that wrapping the youngster and family with individual human care, supervision, and concern is safer, better and cheaper then tearing apart child, family, community and systems.

Karl retired as the Executive Director of Kaleidoscope, Inc., a non-profit community-based childcare agency in Chicago, where he provided leadership and vision for 27 years. He is one of the country’s leading experts and pioneers of community-based care for the “hardest to serve children and families,” including WrapAround services, therapeutic foster care, pediatric AIDS care, independent living and long-term intensive family preservation services. Under Karl’s direction, Kaleidoscope became nationally recognized as one of the top five child serving agencies in the country. He has helped orchestrate many state and private initiatives to return children from out-of-state placements, and has provided direct services to thousands of children and their families.

Karl has training in all 50 states and many foreign countries. He has been the keynote speaker for such prestigious conferences such as the: National Conference of Juvenile Court Judges, Roselyn Carter’s Mental Health Conference, and Tipper Gore’s National Mental Health Symposium. He aided in the development of Wraparound services in New Zealand.

Karl’s first book, “Everything is Normal Until Proved Otherwise,” was written in collaboration with Dr. Ira Lourie, noted child psychiatrist and former head of CASSP. The book is a series of stories about the children and families that Karl has worked with over the years coupled with commentary by Dr. Lourie. Written for parents and professionals, the book provides Wraparound guidance and the effectiveness of the process when people use creativity and compassion in the delivery of services.

Part African American, Cherokee, Blackfoot, and Irish, Karl brings to his presentations an understanding of culture and the important role that it plays in the healing process. Karl has received many honors for his visionary work . . . but he is truly revered for his passion, humor, and humanity in working with those who are most often forgotten.